| Volume 43, Preface 6 View pdf image (33K) |
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vi Letter of Transmission.
letters addressed to the Council are placed together and chronologically. The
less important of these letters are printed only in abstract. The date when
these answers are sent is not that when the Council received them and to try
to place these with the Journal on the date of receipt would be confusing and
would often only be done by conjecture. The result of this change in the
method of printing is that a part of the letters to the Council for this period
will be printed in a subsequent volume of the Archives, since to include them in
this volume would have swelled it to an unwieldly size.
There are few special studies of this period. The editor's “Western Mary
land in the Revolution” appeared in 1902 in the Johns Hopkins Studies in
Historical and Political Science (Series XX No. 1). Beverly W. Bond, Jr.,
is the author of a useful monograph in these Studies upon the “State Govern
ment in Maryland 1777-1781." (Series XXIII No. 111—1905).
There are few printed sources of importance which need reference. Some
letters from Washington to Mordecai Gist appeared in I Md. Hist. Mag. at
page 40 and Gist's Plan for reorganization of the Continental Army was
printed in 3 Mag. Hist. (2nd Series) at page 270. A letter from Otto Holland
Williams to Alexander Hamilton of August 30, 1780, is printed in the latter's
Official and Other Papers I (1842) p. 424.
During the period covered by this volume, Maryland refused to sign the
Articles of Confederation and her refusal was treated brilliantly by the late
Herbert B. Adams in the Fund Publications and the J. H. U. Studies. In April,
1910, A. M. Dyer in the N. E. His. Gen. Reg. at page 167 treated the same
subject in an article upon “First Ownership of This Land.”
The period is rather a dreary one, but one editing manuscripts (or reading
them when edited) must bear in mind the wise saying of Prof. George P.
Fisher that: “We must take history as it is and not seek to read into it our
reasonings and inferences. If we do not find philosophers self consistent, we
must let them remain self inconsistent, instead of altering their systems to
suit our ideas of logical harmony.”
The interest in the work of the Council for 1780 is rather economic than
military. We learn much of how the armies were fed and clothed and of the
efforts to prevent extortionate prices for grain. The depreciation of the con
tinental paper currency is noteworthy. A decided difficulty arose between the
men who were buying grain for the American Army and those who were
purchasing it for the French fleet and many letters passed upon that subject.
Joseph Walker, on February 3, 1780, offered Gov. Lee woolen cloth for
uniforms and the sample which he submitted is as fast as if woven yesterday.
The permits to trade with Bermuda, an archipelago which did not produce
grain for the sustenance of its inhabitants, form an unusual feature of the war.
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Journal and Correspondence of the Council of Maryland, 1779-1780
| Volume 43, Preface 6 View pdf image (33K) |
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