The Wars Between England and America Part 8

The last evidence of the Tory point of view came when, in 1861, the American Civil War brought out the unconcealed aversion of the British n.o.bility and aristocracy for the northern democracy; but on the occasion the equally unconcealed sense of political and social sympathy manifested by the British middle and working cla.s.ses served to prevent any danger to the United States, and to keep England from aiding in the disruption of the Union.

Thus the Treaty of Ghent, marking the removal of immediate causes of irritation, was the beginning of a period in which the under-lying elements of antagonism between England and the United States were definitely to cease. When every discount is made, the celebration, heartily supported by the national leaders on {250} both sides, of a century of peace between the British, Canadian, and American peoples, does exhibit, in Sir Wilfred Laurier's words, "a spectacle to astound the world by its novelty and grandeur."

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

The references to the epoch covered in this volume may be rather sharply divided into those which deal with the years before 1783, and those which relate to the subsequent period. In the first group, there are both British and American works of high excellence, but in the second there are practically none but American authorities, owing to the preoccupation of British writers with the more dramatic and important French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, of the events of parliamentary politics.

For the years 1763-1783 the best American history is E. CHANNING, _History of the United States_, vol. iii (1912), distinctly independent, thorough, and impartial. S. G. FISHER, _The Struggle for American Independence_, 2 vols. (1908), is cynically critical and unconventional. Three volumes of the _American Nation_ series,--G. E.

HOWARD, _Preliminaries of the Revolution_; C. H. VAN TYNE, _The American Revolution_; and A. C. McLAUGHLIN, _The Confederation and the Const.i.tution_ (1905), are equally scholarly and less detailed. The older American works, exhibiting the traditional "patriotic" view, are best represented by J. FISKE, _American Revolution_, 2 vols. (1891); and G. BANCROFT, _History of the United States_, 6 vols. (ed.

1883-1885).

On the English side the most valuable study is in W. E. H. LECKY, _England in the Eighteenth Century_, vols. iii, iv (1878), a penetrating and impartial a.n.a.lysis. The Whig view appears in SIR G. O.

TREVELYAN, _The American Revolution_, 3 vols. (1899-1907); LORD MAHON, _England in the Eighteenth Century_, vols. v-vii (1853-1854); and M.

MARKS, _England and America_, 2 vols. (1907), while W. HUNT, _Political History_, 1760-1801 (1905), alone of recent writers, presents a Tory version of events.

Special works of value are C. STEDMAN, _The American War_, 2 vols.

(1794), the authoritative English contemporary account of military events, and, among recent studies, J. W. FORTESCUE, _History of the British Army_, vol. iii (1902), which should be compared with H. B.

CARRINGTON, _Battles of the Revolution_ (1876); E. MCCRADY, _South Carolina in the Revolution_, 2 vols. (1901-2); E. J. LOWELL, _The Hessians in the {252} Revolution_ (1884); J. B. PERKINS, _France in the American Revolution_ (1911); C. H. VAN TYNE, _The Loyalists_ (1902), and W. HERTZ, _The Old Colonial System_ (1905). Of especial value are the destructive criticisms in C. F. ADAMS, _Studies Military and Diplomatic_ (1911). The authoritative treatment of naval history is found in A. T. MAHAN, _Influence of Sea Power_ (1890), and in the chapter by the same writer in W. L. CLOWES, _History of the Royal Navy_, vols. iii, iv (1898-1899).

Among leading biographies are those of Washington by H. C. LODGE (2 vols. 1890), by W. C. FORD (2 vols. 1900), and by GEN. B. T. JOHNSON (1894); of Franklin by J. PARTON (2 vols. 1864), by J. BIGELOW (3 vols.

1874), and by J. T. MORSE (1889); of Henry by M. C. TYLER (1887); of Samuel Adams by J. K. HOSMER (1885); of Robert Morris by E. P.

OBERHOLZER (1903), and of Steuben by F. KAPP (1869). On the English side the _Memoirs of Horace Walpole_ (1848); the _Correspondence of George III with Lord North_, ed. by W. B. DONNE (1867), are valuable and interesting, and some material may be found in the lives of Burke by T. McNIGHT (2 vols. 1858); of Shelburne by E. G. FITZMAURICE (2 vols. 1875); of Chatham by F. HARRISON (1905) and A. VON RUVILLE (3 vols. 1907); and of Fox by LORD JOHN RUSSELL (3 vols. 1859). The biographies of two governors of Ma.s.sachusetts, C. A. POWNALL, _Thomas Pownall_ (1908), and J. K. HOSMER, _Thomas Hutchinson_ (1896), are of value as presenting the colonial Tory point of view.

For the period after 1783, the best reference book and the only one which attempts to trace in detail the motives of British as well as American statesmen is HENRY ADAMS, _History of the United States_, 9 vols. (1891). It is impartially critical, in a style of sustained and caustic vivacity. Almost equally valuable is A. T. MAHAN, _Sea Power in Relation to the War of 1812_, 2 vols. (1905), which contains the only sympathetic a.n.a.lysis of British naval and commercial policy, 1783-1812, beside being the authoritative work on naval events. The standard American works are J. SCHOULER, _History of the United States_, vols. i, ii (1882); J. B. MCMASTER, _History of the People of the United States_, vols. i-iv (1883-1895); R. HILDRETH, _History of the United States_, vols. ii-vi (1849-1862), and three volumes of the _American Nation Series_, J. S. Ba.s.sETT, _The Federalist System_; E.

CHANNING, _The Jeffersonian System_, and K. C. BABc.o.c.k, _Rise of American Nationality_ (1906). On the English side there is little in the general histories beyond a chapter on American relations in A.

ALISON, _Modern Europe_, vol. iv (1848), which accurately represents the extreme Tory contempt for the United States, but has no other merit. Works on Canadian history fill this {253} gap to a certain extent, such as W. KINGSFORD, _History of Canada_, vol. viii (1895).

Beside the work of Mahan (as above) the War of 1812 is dealt with by W.

JAMES, _Naval History of Great Britain_, vols. v-vi (1823), a work of accuracy as to British facts, but of violent anti-American temper; and on the other side by J. F. COOPER, _Naval History_ (1856), and T.

ROOSEVELT, _Naval War of 1812_ (1883). Sundry special works dealing with economic and social questions involved in international relations are T. ROOSEVELT, _Winning of the West_, 4 vols. (1899-1902); W.

CUNNINGHAM, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. iii (1893), and W. SMART, _Economic Annals of the Nineteenth Century_ (1910).

Biographical material is to be found, in the lives of Washington (as above); of Jefferson by J. SCHOULER, (1897), and by J. T. MORSE (1883); of Hamilton by J. T. MORSE (1882), and F. S. OLIVER (1907); of Gallatin by H. ADAMS (1879); of Madison by G. HUNT (1903); of Josiah Quincy by E. QUINCY (1869). There is some biographical material to be found in BROUGHAM'S _Life and Times of Lord Brougham_, vol. iii (1872), and in S. WALPOLE, _Life of Spencer Perceval_, 2 vols. (1874), but for the most part the British version of relations with America after 1783 is still to be discovered only in the contemporary sources such as the _Parliamentary History_ and _Debates_, the _Annual Register_, and the partly published papers of such leaders as Pitt, Fox, Grenville, Canning, Castlereagh and Perceval.

A useful sketch, giving prominence to the Treaty of Ghent and the Rush-Bagot Agreement, and summarizing earlier and later events, is _A Short History of Anglo-American Relations and of the Hundred Years'

Peace_, by H. S. PERRIS.

Doc.u.ments and other contemporary material for the whole period may be conveniently found in W. MACDONALD, _Select Charters_ (1904) and _Select Doc.u.ments_ (1898); in G. CALLENDER, _Economic History of the United States_ (1909), and A. B. HART, _American History told by Contemporaries_, vols. ii, iii (1898, 1901).