hostility in the mind of the average American. Mr. Goldwin
Smith, a high authority, has contested this theory; and I must admit
that, after a good deal of inquiry, I have been unable to find the
American school historians guilty of any very serious injustices to
England. Some quite modern histories which I have looked into (yet
written before the Spanish War) seem to me excellently and most
impartially done. The older histories are not well written: they are apt
to be sensational and chauvinistic in tone, and to encourage a somewhat
cheap and blusterous order of patriotism; but that they commonly malign
character or misrepresent events I cannot discover. They are perhaps a
little too much inclined to make "insolent" the inseparable epithet of
the British soldier; but there is no reason to doubt that in many cases
it was amply merited. I have not come across the history in which Mr.
G.W. Steevens discovered the following passages:

"The eyes of the soldiers glared upon the people like hungry
bloodhounds. The captain waved his sword. The red-coats pointed
their guns at the crowd. In a moment the flash of their muskets
lighted up the street, and eleven New England men fell bleeding
upon the snow.... Blood was streaming upon the snow; and though
that purple stain melted away in the next day's sun, it was never
forgotten nor forgiven by the people.... A battle took place
between a large force of Tories and Indians and a hastily organised
force of patriotic Americans. The Americans were defeated with
horrible slaughter, and many of those who were made prisoners were
put to death by fiendish torture.... More than six thousand
American sailors had been seized by British warships and pressed
into the hated service of a hated nation."

These passages are certainly not judicial or even judicious in tone; but
I fancy that the book or books from which Mr. Steevens culled them must
be quite antiquated. In books at present on the educational market I
find nothing so lurid. What I do find in some is a failure to
distinguish between the king's share and the British people's share in
the policy which brought about and carried on the Revolutionary War.
For instance, in Barnes's _Primary History of the United States_
(undated, but brought down to the end of the Spanish War) we read:

"_The English people_ after a time became jealous of the prosperity
of the colon