Page:Essays in Historical Criticism.djvu/42

22 sur la droiture des intentions du docteur Whitman, encore plus que sur la portée de sa science médicale. Bref, il fut massacré avec sa famille en novembre, 1847." I have quoted the whole passage for the light it throws on its probable source.

It is to be noticed in the first place that this account characterizes the entire period of Whitman's labors down to 1847. It says nothing about the year 1842-3 nor does it give any intimation of knowledge of the details or the general features of the Spalding story. The account of the causes of the massacre is so similar to that given by Brouillet in his pamphlet that one is led to the intrinsically probable conclusion that de Saint- Amant as a Frenchman and a Catholic derived his information either from Brouillet himself or from some of his missionary colleagues. The assertion about the tendency of Whitman's political activity is hardly more than a natural deduction from such statements as Brouillet made in his pamphlet. To use the very words of Eells or Spalding which were the product of the legendary representation of the Oregon crisis in 1842-3, in translating the words of Saint Amant to prove that he was familiar with their contentions, and that consequently they were matters of common knowledge in Oregon in 1851-2 would not be defensible in a trained historical scholar.

In harmony with the universal silence which has been found to have prevailed before 1864 in regard to the contents of the Spalding narrative, is the obvious skepticism of the secretaries of the American Board in 1865 when Dr. Atkinson informed them of the political results of Whitman's journey east in 1842-3, In the twenty-two years that had