Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/940

 930 Revieivs of Books by many entries relating to the bills of credit of the Continental Con- gress and the states, loans, lotteries and prices. The conclusion of the former matter is not to be had till the journals for November appear, but its progress is shown by many entries, among the most interesting of which are the amendments presented by Thomas Burke of North Carolina, May 5. Portions of Burke's abstracts of the debates, from the North Carolina Records and from manuscript, are printed in the foot-notes to the records of certain days. Naval Records of the American Revolution, lyy^-iySS. Prepared from the Originals in the Library of Congress by Charles Henry Lincoln, of the Division of Manuscripts. (Washington, Government Printing OiSce, 1906, pp. 549.) No one should suppose that the. United States government possesses, indeed no one should suppose that there anywhere exists, any such body of records of the maritime warfare of the Revo- lution as it possesses for the warfare on land. The latter was waged in a continuous series of campaigns, each of which, however ragged in execution, had some degree of unity in plan and course. Not so the naval warfare. The efforts to establish a United States navy were unsuccessful. In view of the overwhelming sea-power of Great Britain, not only could there be no fleet-action, but before long it became ap- parent that individual American public vessels had but a very limited scope, and probably a brief career before them. Maritime endeavor was maintained on a large scale, but it was almost altogether confined to privateering, rich in profits, but not prolific of permanent historical record. The Library of Congress therefore, while it possesses the letter- book of the Marine Committee and its successors, the reports of various committees on naval subjects, and not a few interesting naval letters, confesses to having but a fragmentary body of material. More than half of the present volume is taken up with notes of the bonds of letters of marque, catalogued to be sure in such a manner as to bring out with extreme care and skill all the data they contain, but not capable of illuminating naval history beyond a certain degree. The other papers calendared are of more public importance, but must be supplemented by the John Paul Jones Papers, which Mr. Lincoln has already calendared in the same, faithful and intelligent manner, and by the papers of Robert Morris and other uncalendared parts of the library's material. The mode of calendaring and the full index of names make the volume a guide to the careers of individuals as well as to the raw material of the naval history of the Revolution. The Library of Congress has also undertaken the great task of calendaring the Washington Papers, Calendar of the Correspondence of George Washington, Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, ■with the Continental Congress, prepared from the Original Manuscripts in the Library of Congress by John C. Fitzpatrick, Division of Manu- scripts (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1906, pp. 741). When the Library published its Calendar of Washington Manuscripts, in 1901,