Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/482

 474 SHORT NOTICES July in general, but to have a good many special traits of the 'savage old Irish '. The paper shows the skill and learning characteristic of its author. T. The Historisch Genootschap has now published parts v and vi of the Gedenkschriften van Gijsbert Jan van Hardenbroek, 1747-88 (Amsterdam : MuUer, 1917-18). These two volumes conclude Harden- broek's memoirs, the earlier volumes of which were noticed in this Review in 1911 and 1917.^ They are edited by the original editor. Dr. Kramer, who resumed the work which the death of Dr. A. J. Van der Meulen, the editor of parts iii and iv, left incomplete. Part v covers 1784-5, and part vi, 1785-8. Hardenbroek died on 20 February 1788, and there is a gap in the summer of 1787. These volumes of some 700 pages each contain the same detailed and careful record of the opinions of the members of the governing classes in Holland from the prince downwards, with whom Hardenbroek was in close contact, as the earlier parts, and though the editor does not claim that they add much to our knowledge of facts, they must be of great value in estimating the attitude of men and parties in one of the most troubled and difficult periods of Dutch history. In the last volume the interest shifts mainly to Utrecht, Hardenbroek having ceased to be a member of the states-general. The memoirs, if indeed they can be so called, contain a great deal of repetition, being in fact really notes written by the author for his own use and not for publication. This, however, must enhance their historical value, and the editor has wisely refrained from attempting to compress or summarize, printing everything in full without correcting even those carelessnesses of style into which a man falls through being intent on recording the sub- stance and indifferent to the form. Excepting when he records advice to the prince, Hardenbroek is much more anxious to state the opinions of others than his own, though Dr. Kramer tells us we must not suppose that despite his moderation he had none. There are a large number of notes on persons, &c., mentioned in the text, and the editing appears to have been admirably done, H. L. In Dr. A. M. Schlesinger's exhaustive monograph on The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution {Columbia University Studies in History, vol. Ixxviii. New York : Longmans, 1918), ' attention is focused on the part which the colonial merchants played — willingly and unwillingly — in bringing about the separation of the thirteen colonies from the mother country '. Especially interesting is the account given of the evolution of the radical party, and its reaction upon the point of view of the mercantile class. In the opinion of Dr. Schlesinger it was the ill-advised attempt of the British ministry to assist the East India Company to monopolize the tea-market, at the expense of the colonial merchants, that led them, in spite of their realization of the lesson brought home to them during the years 1767-70, to throw in their lot, in 1774, for the time, with the ex- tremists, and thus to help to bring about a separation which they might, possibly, have postponed, if not prevented. H. E. E. ^ Ante, xxvi. 844 ; xxxii. 459.