that a second volume will probably be issued at a date not yet determined. In this uncertainty in which the incomplete work leaves us we take refuge in the fact that Dr. Hale assures his readers that the new documents do not "suggest any revision of judgment on important matters of history where a verdict has been rendered before now. But," he adds, "we believe the reader will feel that the questions relating to French neutrality, to the treatment of prisoners, to privateering, and especially those relating to treaties with France and with England, can be considered with more certainty, now that we have all the important facts involved, as we did not have them until now." Aside from the matter of the treaty with England, this claim the book most fully justifies. Treating the expeditions of Wickes and Conyngham, and the Dunkirk privateers, the authors print material that not only illustrates one of the less known features of the period, but gives a fuller understanding of the perplexities of the commissioners in so acting as to respect the nominal neutrality of the French court and at the same time avail themselves of its covert aid.

The sea fight of John Paul Jones is retold by the aid of some new documents. Franklin's difficulties with Landais, the crazy captain of the "Alliance," who defied the authority of Jones and the minister as well, is rehearsed at perhaps needless length. The Madrid correspondence shows us how Congress tried the patience of its foreign representatives by drawing bills upon them when they had no balance of cash abroad—“drafts on the Bank of Hope," Franklin calls them. Together with the picture presented to us of Franklin attracting to himself the social, the philosophical, and the political world,-" dining abroad six days in the week "--we are enabled to see him dealing with commercial France as well. The authors point out that the influence of the American war on the commerce of that country was such that the feeling for the "insurgents from motives of profit and loss was an important element in the general disposition of France.

It is probably true that no facts essential to a correct understanding of these and similar topics were not previously in possession of the historian; but, apart from the side light which the new material may cast on other subjects, the very detail thus presented gives a more adequate appreciation of the multiplicity of duties which Franklin, first as the associate of Deane and Lee, and later as sole minister, was forced to perform, and which led him to declare these years the busiest of his busy life. They were filled, as he says, and as this book bears witness, with "the various employments of merchant, banker, judge of admiralty, consul, etc., etc., besides my ministerial func

tion." The diplomatic history is interestingly told in chapters treating the enmity between France and England aroused by the previous wars for the colonial supremacy of the world, and explaining how, under the efforts of Beaumarchais, "France drifted from real neutrality to secret and unrecognized alliance," and how, "from this unrecognized alliance she was pushed into open and undisguised war," after the defeat of Burgoyne had enabled the efforts of Franklin to bear fruit. On the question whether the French aid furnished to Congress through Beaumarchais was a gift, as Lee held, or whether the government really expected Congress to reimburse this romantic head of the house of "Rodrique Hortalez and Co.," for his supplies, as was the view of Deane, Franklin as late as 1778 was still in the dark.

The chapter dealing with Franklin's first visits to France, in 1767 and 1769, gives an appetizing view of his connection with the sect of "Economists," led by Dr. Quesnay and the Marquis of Mirabeau, "Ami des Hommes," "whose distinctive principles were based on the theory that the farmer was the only producer in society." One would like to know more of Franklin's relation with philosophical France. The influence of American ideas upon the French Revolution has never received the treatment to which the importance of the subject entitles it. It is to be hoped that in his next volume Dr. Hale will develop this matter.

For the future discussion of the treaty with England, the way is paved in the present volume by new material illustrating how the correspondence between Franklin and his English friend David Hartley concerning the exchange of prisoners grew into a discussion of the terms of peace that opened the way for the preliminary negotiation. Jay's Madrid correspondence with Franklin presents the dissatisfaction of the former with the condition of affairs at the Spanish court and presages his future policy.

The material presented from other sources than the Stevens collection hardly bears out the promises made in the preface, although the Massachusetts archives afford letters illustrating the feeling on this side of the water, at several important junctures. On the whole one may say of "Franklin in France" that the volume before us furnishes interesting detail to a historical picture already drawn. We find in the book what seems to be a combination of two somewhat opposed efforts, namely, to present a new study of Franklin's French career, calculated to win a popular audience, and at the same time to effect this chiefly by printing letters before unpublished. Although the thread of the story is preserved by interesting introductory comments, adorned, it is

original as it is original, and that he must have won and held the admiration of the world, whom can we find to fulfil the requirements before Benjamin Franklin, and who has better satisfied them? His greatness lay in his ability to apply to the world a shrewd understanding that disclosed in the ordinary things about him potent forces for helpfulness. His life is the story of American common-sense in its highest form, applied to business, to politics, to science, to diplomacy, to religion, to philanthropy. Surely this self-made man, the apostle of the practical and the useful, is by the verdict of his own country and of Europe entitled to the distinction of being the first great American. Probably the three men who would find the choicest niches in an

Pantheon would be Franklin, Washington, and Lincoln. They achieved their success not so much by brilliancy of the higher intellectual powers as by their personal character. This is generally recognized in the case of Washington and of Lincoln, and it will be apparent in that of Franklin if we consider the leading incidents in his political services. There is truth in the remark of Condorcet that he was really an envoy not to the ministers of France, but to her people. He was welcomed by them not alone as the wise and simple searcher of nature's secrets; it was the Poor Richard wearing his fur cap among the powdered wigs, the shrewd humorist, the liberal in religion, the plain republican, that became the idol of the gay society of the Ancient Régime. Of such a man in such an age one can scarcely gain too full a knowledge.

It was not until after Sparks's edition of Franklin's works had gone to press, that the long missing collection of the first editor, Wm. Temple Franklin, was brought to light upon the top shelf of a London tailor-shop. This collection, bought by Congress from Mr. Henry Stevens in Garfield's administration, contains two thousand nine hundred and thirty-eight different papers, of which the greater part have never been printed until now. The part of the collection least drawn upon by the first editor is that which followed the year 1780. This new material has given occasion for the complete edition of Franklin's works now publishing under the editorship of Mr. John Bigelow, and it is chiefly from the same source that Dr. Hale and his son, Edward E. Hale, Jr., have drawn for their attractive octavo volume of five hundred pages devoted to the story of Franklin in France. Dr. Hale thus states his plan :

"I determined to examine anew the whole mission of Franklin to France. with the intention of printing all the more important letters of Franklin not published heretofore, and also the most important unpublished letters of his corre

spondents which would throw light on the history or on his life in France."

In addition to the Stevens collection the authors have used the manuscript collections of Bancroft, the Adamses, Sparks, the American Philosophical Society, and the archives of Massachusetts.

Previous investigations of this period had prepared students to look for interesting disclosures from this mine of unworked material. An old garret gave up to M. de Loménie the papers on which he founded his useful life of Beaumarchais which compelled us to form a more lenient judgment of Silas Deane, and enabled historians to add a dramatic chapter to the account of French secret aid to the American cause. Sparks had asserted that Jay was mistaken in suspecting double dealing on the part of the French court; but Bancroft's investigation, of the secret correspondence of Vergennes have reversed this verdict, by showing that our ally desired to limit the boundaries of the United States to the Ohio and the Alleghanies, to deny her the fisheries and to keep her in a state of dependency upon France. Franklin, maintaining, in opposition to Jay, that Vergennes had never deceived him, was loth to treat separately with England. Interesting information on this topic was to be hoped for in the volume before us. was, too, the question of Franklin's real opinion of the society about him. At the time of the appearance of Wm. Temple Franklin's edition, John Foster had urged the possibility that the editor had suppressed papers showing that, despite the aid of the French court to his country, and the adulation of French society, the clear-eyed Benjamin Franklin was not blind to the hollowness of the Ancient Régime, but in the economic and political conditions about him must have foreseen the coming storm. Upon this important question regarding Franklin's character, however, the present work has nothing new to say. We are left to believe that he did not condemn the society in which he once expected to end his days, and that even a higher endowment than common-sense is needed for the prophetic soul.

There

Turning the pages of the book for an answer to the other question, we are met with a serious disappointment. The period of Franklin's stay in France embraced the eight years and seven months intervening between 1776 and 1785. It is a matter of just complaint on the part of the reader that, whereas announcements and preface give every reason to expect a complete treatment of the period in one volume, the book closes with the siege of Yorktown, leaving untouched those years upon which we are informed the new material is richest, and which are of greatest interest in themselves. From other sources we learn

that a second volume will probably be issued at a date not yet determined. In this uncertainty in which the incomplete work leaves us we take refuge in the fact that Dr. Hale assures his readers that the new documents do not "suggest any revision of judgment on important matters of history where a verdict has been rendered before now. But," he adds, "we believe the reader will feel that the questions relating to French neutrality, to the treatment of prisoners, to privateering, and especially those relating to treaties with France and with England, can be considered with more certainty, now that we have all the important facts involved, as we did not have them until now." Aside from the matter of the treaty with England, this claim the book most fully justifies. Treating the expeditions of Wickes and Conyngham, and the Dunkirk privateers, the authors print material that not only illustrates one of the less known features of the period, but gives a fuller understanding of the perplexities of the commissioners in so acting as to respect the nominal neutrality of the French court and at the same time avail themselves of its covert aid.

The sea fight of John Paul Jones is retold by the aid of some new documents. Franklin's difficulties with Landais, the crazy captain of the "Alliance," who defied the authority of Jones and the minister as well, is rehearsed at perhaps needless length. The Madrid correspondence shows us how Congress tried the patience of its foreign representatives by drawing bills upon them when they had no balance of cash abroad-"drafts on the Bank of Hope," Franklin calls them. Together with the picture presented to us of Franklin attracting to himself the social, the philosophical, and the political world,-" dining abroad six days in the week "-we are enabled to see him dealing with commercial France as well. The authors point out that the influence of the American war on the commerce of that country was such that the feeling for the "insurgents from motives of profit and loss was an important element in the general disposition of France.

It is probably true that no facts essential to a correct understanding of these and similar topics were not previously in possession of the historian; but, apart from the side light which the new material may cast on other subjects, the very detail thus presented gives a more adequate appreciation of the multiplicity of duties which Franklin, first as the associate of Deane and Lee, and later as sole minister, was forced to perform, and which led him to declare these years the busiest of his busy life. They were filled, as he says, and as this book bears witness, with "the various employments of merchant, banker, judge of admiralty, consul, etc., etc., besides my ministerial func

tion." The diplomatic history is interestingly told in chapters treating the enmity between France and England aroused by the previous wars for the colonial supremacy of the world, and explaining how, under the efforts of Beaumarchais, "France drifted from real neutrality to secret and unrecognized alliance," and how, "from this unrecognized alliance she was pushed into open and undisguised war," after the defeat of Burgoyne had

enabled the efforts of Franklin to bear fruit. On the question whether the French aid furnished to Congress through Beaumarchais was a gift, as Lee held, or whether the government really expected Congress to reimburse this romantic head of the house of "Rodrique Hortalez and Co.," for his supplies, as was the view of Deane, Franklin as late as 1778 was still in the dark.

The chapter dealing with Franklin's first visits to France, in 1767 and 1769, gives an appetizing view of his connection with the sect of "Economists," led by Dr. Quesnay and the Marquis of Mirabeau, "Ami des Hommes," "whose distinctive principles were based on the theory that the farmer was the only producer in society." One would like to know more of Franklin's relation with philosophical France.

The influence of American ideas upon the French Revolution has never received the treatment to which the importance of the subject entitles it. It is to be hoped that in his next volume Dr. Hale will develop this matter.

For the future discussion of the treaty with England, the way is paved in the present volume by new material illustrating how the correspondence between Franklin and his English friend David Hartley concerning the exchange of prisoners grew into a discussion of the terms of peace that opened the way for the preliminary negotiation. Jay's Madrid correspondence with Franklin presents the dissatisfaction of the former with the condition of affairs at the Spanish court and presages his future policy.

The material presented from other sources than the Stevens collection hardly bears out the promises made in the preface, although the Massachusetts archives afford letters illustrating the feeling on this side of the water, at several important junctures. On the whole one may say of "Franklin in France" that the volume before us furnishes interesting detail to a historical picture already drawn. We find in the book what seems to be a combination of two somewhat opposed efforts, namely, to present a new study of Franklin's French career, calculated to win a popular audience, and at the same time to effect this chiefly by printing letters before unpublished. Although the thread of the story is preserved by interesting introductory comments, adorned, it is

needless to say, by Dr. Hale's graceful style, and frequently of much historical value, the general reader will nevertheless lose very much unless he has at his elbow the edition of Sparks, the Diplomatic Correspondence, and similar works containing previously published material with which an acquaintance is taken for granted. For example no reference is made to the letter of Dr. Dubourg to Franklin which led to the sending of Deane and Franklin to Paris and which abounds with information essential to an understanding of the situation which they found on their arrival.

In view of the inherent difficulties of their plan, however, the authors are to be congratufated on the interesting book which they have presented. It is a considerable achievement to have made so entertaining a book, and so valuable a one withal, from material the larger portion of which is devoted to the less picturesque incidents of Franklin's life in France and which from its nature does not abound in Franklin's peculiar bits of moralizing and genial witticisms. Perhaps the best comment on the volume is the fact that the reader will await with impatience the completion of the work. FRED J. TURNER.

YACHTS AND YACHTING.*

The subject of yachting will always be an attractive one to the American public. Few men have the means and leisure to own and use pleasure boats, but there are multitudes who enjoy seeing them, or indulge in hopeful anticipations of the time when they may become owners. To this growing taste is due the great increase in the literature of this subject in recent years.

The latest contribution to this literature is the re-publication in book form of the series of articles recently published in "Outing," on "Yachts and Yachting," by Captain Roland F. Coffin. This book will prove very acceptable to a large portion of the reading public, as well as to yachtsmen. It presents in a convenient form a condensed history of yachting in America from the earliest days to the present time, and treats all the most interesting episodes of the early period in a style that will enable those not already familiar with them to comprehend most readily their characteristics and significance. Captain Coffin treats his subject in a plain sailorly way, free from technicalities and from tediousness. The style is not elegant, but it is vigorous. The author gives just the information most desired by the general public; and thus the book is

*YACHTS AND YACHTING. The History of American Yachting. By Captain R. F. Coffin. With over 110 Illustrations by Fred S. Cozzens and others. New York: Cassell & Co.

the best popular treatise on yachting that has appeared. The history of yachting in America is conveniently divided into six periods, beginning with the origin of the New York Yacht Club, whose early history, says Captain Coffin, has never been written before. Of the first regatta, held at New York, July 16, 1845, he says:

"The regatta was a great event, and was witnessed by thousands of people, all New Yorkers who could get there being on the water. Every craft that could float, from the skiff to the large excursion steamer, was brought into requisition for the spectators. In the early period of American yachting, the regatta days were regarded almost like general holidays by the principal busi

ness men."

A very clear account of the contests between the "Maria," "America," and other famous yachts of those early days, is given in this part of the book. In reference to the unwritten history of pleasure sailing, the author says:

"Beside the public races at the regular regattas, and the private contests, there is a history of the sport, which, if the data were obtainable, would be found far more interesting than these, and that is the account of the private cruises and the afternoon sailing; these, after all, constitute the real enjoyment of the sport, to which the public races are merely incidental. It is these that make yachting the very prince of out-of-door sports."

The author has unlimited praise for the sport he advocates; yet his enthusiasm will be shared by many readers who have had glimpses of the possibilities of yachting. He says of it:

"It is free from all the abuses and objections attaching to the turf, and must from the very nature of things always be the sport of gentlemen. In the first place, none but the comparatively wealthy can own and use a vessel kept purely for pleasure sailing; and it is difficult to see how a man can expend his wealth in sport more profitable to himself, his friends, and the community. In the equipment and maintaining of a yacht, all classes o the community receive a share; and the intimat friends of the owner receive that which is mose valuable of all, the health-giving exercise and thet fresh sea air which is its accompaniment,-the owner himself getting in these ample return for all his outlay."

Mr. E. S. Jaffray, in the chapter contributed by him to the book, speaks with equal enthusiasm concerning steam yachting, as follows:

"There is no other mode of travelling to compare to it for pleasure and healthfulness. I may here quote the remark of the proprietor of one of the finest of the fleet of steam yachts, when the immense cost of his vessel was alluded to. 'My yacht, it is true, has cost a large sum, but it is worth every dollar of it. It has made a new man of me. Before I built it I was constantly suffering from dyspepsia and other troubles arising from too close attention to business. Now I am a well man.'"

The great ocean yacht races are described in a manner that is more interesting and more easily understood than such accounts usually

are.

The public attention recently excited by Captain Samuels and the "Dauntless," in the race across the Atlantic, will cause this account of his former exploits in that yacht to be read with renewed interest. The author indulges in a little quiet drollery in his account of the efforts of our Canadian brethren to compete for the famous America cup, with the yacht "Countess," as well as with her equally unfortunate successor in those fruitless efforts. The comparative merits of the deep English cutters and the wide American centre-board vessels are very fairly and intelligently presented. The conclusions concerning them reached by Captain Coffin are worthy of attention, for his experience and good judgment entitle him to be considered a sound authority on this much discussed subject. He says:

"Nothing can be more stupid than the prejudice, born of ignorance, which has been entertained against centre-board vessels. That they are faster than keel-boats, is beyond a question; that they are handier under canvas and better suited to our shallow harbors, cannot be doubted; and as to the question of safety, the percentage of accident in centre-board craft is so small that it need not be taken into account at all. On the other hand, the deep cutters are not a success; the centre-board boats in good breezes having always proved the most speedy. It has also been proved that this style of yacht is less comfortable than the broad centre-board boats, and not suited to the shallow American harbors. They are, however, very handsome craft, and out of the controversy as to cutter and centre-board has come a compromise between the two extremes, of broad and shallow, and deep and narrow, which is superior to either. The centreboard is retained, but with it is a keel through which it plays; the yacht is made narrower and deeper than of old, the lack of stability due to narrowing the model being made up by outside lead ballast."

Several other matters concerning which there is much difference of opinion are also very clearly treated by the writer,-such as the question of the best rig for yachts. He concludes that the schooner rig is so much handier than any other that it is sure to be preferred for a vessel kept solely for pleasure sailing. But he also expresses the belief that, as racing craft, the day of schooners has passed, on both sides of the Atlantic. On the subject of materials, he thinks that iron or mild steel will finally supersede wood as a building material for pleasure yachts.

Besides Mr. Jaffray's chapter on "Steam Yachts," already referred to in this article, the volume contains a chapter on "The Mayflower and Galatea Contest for the American cup," written by C. E. Clay; also one on "British Yachting," by C. J. C. McAlester, These

serve to give completeness to the work, and are so well supported by tabulated facts as to make it very useful as a book of reference. The wood-cuts are numerous, and are chiefly reproductions of outline drawings of the most famous yachts, by Fred S. Cozzens. They are the best that have ever appeared in any popular treatise on this subject; being faultless in the matter of seamanship, and having great artistic merit, two qualities rarely combined in pictures of vessels. Many of the best of the illustrations are, however, sadly marred by the crowding of irregular patches of printed matter into the sky-space, producing a most incongruous jumble of light sails and heavy text. This is inexcusable in pictures of this character. This unseemly crowding looked badly enough when the chapters composing the book appeared as articles in the limited space of the magazine; but it seems much worse in a volume having such generous proportions as the one under consideration. It is an evidence of the fatal impairment of a nice sense of artistic propriety, caused by the greed for gain in modern magazine publishers, who have in this case deliberately destroyed the breezy atmospheric effect of admirable illustrations, to gain a few squares of text, while they devote page after page of space to absurd advertisements that should never have a place within the covers of a magazine.

HORATIO L. WAIT.

"OLD BULLION.” *

The reader of Mr. Roosevelt's biography of Benton will find the author's opinions on men and things outside of his immediate subject, expressed with great freedom and equal positiveness. Thus, of General Lee he says:

"The world has never seen better soldiers than those who followed Lee; and their leader will undoubtedly rank as, without any exception, the very greatest of all the great captains that the Englishspeaking peoples have brought forth-and this, although the last and chief of his antagonists may himself claim to stand as the full equal of Marlborough and Wellington."

Of General Scott:

"A good general, but otherwise a wholly absurd and flatulent personage." Of General Taylor:

"He was neither a great statesman nor yet a great commander; but he was an able and gallant soldier, a loyal and upright public servant, and a most kindly, honest, and truthful man."

Of General Jackson:

"A very charming English historian of our day has compared Wellington with Washington; it would have been far juster to have compared him

*THOMAS H. BENTON. By Theodore Roosevelt. (American Statesmen Series.) Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.