Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/374

364 we know to be the work of the respective writers may suffice to settle a given case. We may state as a fact that the majority of alterations in the manuscripts of the chief assistants were due to the necessity of condensation; and that, aside from this, the revision of their work usually consisted merely in the suppression of radical utterances and the interlineation of a few lines occasionally for literary effect. The somewhat rough estimate given of the number of volumes written by the respective writers indicates that Mr. Bancroft's revisions constitute about one page in fifty of the work in fields assigned to his assistants, although the average may be lower. In view of these facts, the knowledge that those who wrote the Bancroft histories were capable, honest persons, must tend decidedly toward the increasing of our general confidence in the series.