If not before the 20th June certainly after the Embargo at Louisville shd be perfected. I know it is claimed by the Union men, that the high prices paid for transportation and produce, are draining the South and thus more embarrassing the enemy. While it is true that something is effected in this way, much more embarrassment and annoyance w. be effected by a perfect embargo-much more money would find its way, by circuitous land routes for provisions, at greater expense for provisions. The South must have bacon, during the summer or die of the summer diseases. There is a great scarcity and great complaint among the people of New Orleans. A leading merchant of New Orleans just from there, at my house, informs me that butter is now $1 per lb, flour $20 per bbl. and ice high and scarce. He anticipates, by 6 mos., if the blockade and embargo are not modified, a food insurrection of the poorer classes of New Orleans.

I see by telegrams, that Brazil is being tampered with by the Secessionists. You will recollect that I advised you 6 mos. ago that I knew that this was done and I know that the process is still going on. No country is more important to us than Brazil in many respects, and from my residence there and close study for years of her interest and policy there is no country, under intelligent and judicious management, wd more readily be in union with us. Now Brazil is allied to and in sympathy with England. I have earnestly desired that the right men she have been sent to Brazil, for the sake of our own country, for her own sake, and for humanity's sake. I feel that I advised you in time, when propositions were made to myself to be one of 3 agents to operate on that country. No country is feared so much as a competitor in cotton, by the South as Brazil. I rejoice that the Portuguese minister has been exposed in time, if guilty of treason.

appointed by the legislature The Governor is controlled Buckner is almost forced to

As I wrote before the arms and companies of the State are gradually falling into the hands of the Union men. The Banks of the State generally refuse to loan money to the Commission and money can not be obtained elsewhere. by the 4 Union men on the Commission. resign his position as Brigadier Genl. of the State Guard. it must come however and then by election the next officer is Col. Crittenden, a Union man. The Secessionists feel utterly defeated, but are looking for something to turn up. They are canvassing now under the banner of armed neutrality. Breckinridge is broken, demoralized, drunken half the time and is failing continually to meet his appointments. His power is waning rapidly with his own partisans even.

The best measure for Kentucky is for the Virginia Federal forces to proclaim that runaway slaves are becoming so numerous that they can not notice them in any way, either to return them or to protect them, unless the property of Union men, and that the Secessionists hereafter must take care of their own property or it will be an entire loss. It oсcurs to me that slaves being worth more in Virginia than land that the masters w. colonize, sell, and place for sale all their slaves in the Cotton

VOL. IV.-23

States under such regimen and thus Virginia be rapidly made a free state without trouble or discussion, or the springing up of subsequent political issues to disturb the administration, on this subject. It we have a great effect to remove them at once from Ky and Missouri. Let it be understood quietly among the slaves of the traitors that they can run where they may, it wa settle the business. Butler has done well to start with. He can do better.

I am just informed by a traitor from Arkansas, on his way to Richmond, in arms that he himself personally knows of two companies of Indians being at Harper's Ferry, and that he himself came along with Flournoy and several companies of Cherokee Indians. There is no doubt of this at all. I thus speak positively for it has been doubted by some Northern presses.

I do trust that the present Congress will not adjourn in July, until Judge Munroe, our Federal District Judge is removed. Almost every one wa hail it with delight. Judge Catron, a true Union man, wa appear before any committee on the subject and when it was proposed to arraign before him a man for treason, in advance he proclaimed what he wd do to protect the traitor. His family is the nucleus of Secession here and his son, Secretary of State, is editor of the famous Lexington Secession paper. The present judicial arrangements for Ky. c. be, by statute, I suppose annulled, the courts abolished and Judge Munroe w cease to be a judge thereby. Is there not precedent for this? and then there cd be two districts made in Kentucky and two Union men appointed. We must have a court, where treason will not be encouraged. Traitors we feel less secure.

If in any way I can do more than I am doing for the Gov! advise me. The Dioceses of the Seceded States meet July 3 at Montgomery, Al. If you wish secret service for the Gov' in that direction I she not hesitate to venture, knowing that this w. afford sufficient excuse, but in any manner command me, for I feel that, in any future, no such opportunity to do good for the entire world may never occur again.

Yours Truly,

R. MCMURDY.

Hon. S. P. Chase
Dear sir:

VII. GARNETT DAVIS TO CHASE,

Frankfort, 3 Sept. 1861.

The proclamation of Gen. Fremont reached here yesterday, and is most inopportune for the Union party. I reached here Sunday morning. We had for some days before been with the leading members of the legislature and other prominent union men of the state, arranging our movements and measures of the session, and had about completed them when the proclamation fell amongst us with pretty much the effect of a bomb shell. The slavery feature of the proclamation is greatly objected to by our friends, and has greatly disconcerted, and I fear has scattered us. We should have passed all our measures but for it, now I have serious doubts if we pass any of them. There is a very general, almost universal feeling, in the state against this war being or becoming a war against slavery. The position of the secessionists in this state has been all the time that it is, and this proclamation gives them the means of further and greatly pushing that deception. I do not care about it myself except as it may be used to pervert public opinion and disturb the counsels of union. It has caused me despondency for the first time for Ky. I wish it had not been made until this legislature had done its business and adjourned.

I know that the general principle of the martial law is that rebels forfeit all their estate and property, but many able men believe that this principle is so far modified by the constitution as to have no effect for a longer time than the life of the rebel. The martial law forfeits as well the life of all rebels, but it is not possible to execute this principle in all and every case. To a large extent not only policy, but necessity requires the application of the rule to be omitted. Would not the same considerations of policy at least require a relaxation of the forfeiture as to slaves ?

You will pardon me for a single suggestion. Thousands and tens of thousands had no knowledge, not even suspicion, that they would incur a forfeiture of their property by arraying themselves against the government. Ought not the administration to issue a proclamation setting forth these principles and consequences, and give all people opportunity to return to their duty and save themselves.

Your obedient servant,

GARNETT DAVIS.

NOTE

New Haven, October 4, 1898.

To the Editor of the AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW :
Dear Sir:

While looking for something else, I to-day discovered, in the Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. XXIII, p. 6, (1753) Sir Isaac Newton's "Table of the Assays, Weights, and Values, of Foreign Silver and Gold Coins, Made at the Mint" (1703), to which I referred in the foot-note on page 607 of your last volume. I doubt not that persons interested in the subject will be glad to have a reference to the original document, which, as I there stated, I had never been able to find or obtain.

Yours very truly,

W. G. SUMNER.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

The Origin and Growth of the English Constitution. An Historical Treatise in which is drawn out, by the Light of the most recent Researches, the gradual Development of the English Constitutional System, and the Growth out of that System of the Federal Republic of the United States. By HANNIS TAYLOR, LL.D., late Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to Spain. In two parts. Part II. The After-growth of the Constitution. (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co. 1898. Pp. xliv, 645.)

THIS is an imposing work published in excellent fashion, printed with clear type on good paper, with wide margins, having a marginal analysis and copious foot-notes, an analytical table of contents filling forty-two pages and an index of forty-nine pages for both volumes. A few typographical errors are noticed: on p. 156, 1551 for 1552; p. 178, estate for state; p. 191, toun for tourn; p. 449, n. 4, masked for unasked.

After a brief review of the preceding period, this volume takes up the subject at the accession of Henry VIII. and carries it down to the formation of Lord Salisbury's cabinet in 1897. The style is good, many points are admirably stated, and the summaries are well done, as, for example, that of the gradual growth of ministerial responsibility; but the book, in many respects, is disappointing.

In the first place there is no bibliography, an inexcusable lack in a modern work on history, and, although the references in the foot-notes are very numerous, there is no explanation of abbreviations nor any indication of the editions used. Also, in the sources from which the material is taken, both volumes are disappointing. In the first volume the author relies more on Freeman than on Stubbs, though he calls the latter, very rightly, "the master of the constitutional history of the Middle Ages," while the statements of Freeman are being discredited more and more by the later and more critical work of Round and Maitland, to say nothing of Ashley and Seebohm. Even where Stubbs is used, the most scholarly characteristics of his work, his scientific reserve, careful qualifications and conservative judgments, are so entirely obliterated that the impress of truth and accuracy of the original vanishes from the copy. In the second volume, also, we fail to find those references to "the latest researches-English, German, French, and American," which we were promised in the preface to the first volume as well as on the title-page. There are many references to the original sources, more than in the first volume, but we discover no reference to Prothero's or Gardiner's valuable collections of select documents with their learned prefaces, on the later Tudor and the Stuart periods. References to Gneist are made only to his two works which have been translated into English, while for many parts of this volume his untranslated work is the most valuable. Nor is any reference made to French writers. Although a great deal of attention is given to the Church, no reference is made to Child's Church and State under the Tudors, to Perry's English Church History, or to that ablest contribution which has yet appeared on this subject, Makower's Constitutional History of the Church of England.

In general the author refers to the narrative more than to the constitutional historians. Burnet, Macaulay, Gardiner, Green and even Froude and Knight are quoted more than Hallam and May, while the admirable little book by Feilden, a model of conciseness and general accuracy, is not mentioned. The authors who are cited, however, are used very freely and long quotations from books easily accessible succeed each other at frequent intervals.

The work does not really carry out the purpose indicated on the title-page and in the preface to the first volume. Except in the general introduction, where "an effort is made to emphasize the fact that the constitutional histories of England and of the United States constitute a continuous and natural evolution which can only be fully mastered when viewed as one unbroken story," there are only four or five brief allusions to American history, and one of these is misleading. The author on page 342 alludes to the Agreement of the People, 1647, as the "prototype of all constitutions, State and Federal, as they exist to-day in the United States," a distinction probably due rather to the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut of 1639.

The volume is lacking also in that larger view of historical relations which is necessary for the full understanding and adequate presentation of English constitutional history, especially in its later development. In general, foreign relations are hardly noticed; no reference is made even to the American or to the French Revolution in their effect on the English constitution.

The author falls into the quite common error of attributing to Cranmer the idea of submitting the divorce question to the canonists and universities throughout Christendom, in order to influence the Pope or a General Council. Whether this was proposed by Cranmer in 1529, or by an assembly of bishops in 1527, is not as significant as the fact that Cranmer's advice was to get their opinions and then to act upon them by holding a court in England.

In following Froude too closely, also, Dr. Taylor is led into serious chronological and other errors. Thus he places the complaint of the commons against the clergy in the first session of Parliament in 1529, instead of in that of 1532. He also wrongly fixes the date of Anne Boleyn's marriage on the 25th of January, according to Lingard and Froude, instead of on the 14th of November, 1532, where probably it