d to have recourse to a sloop,
appointed to carry his dispatches, and which he stipulated
should pass unsearched, to convey them to New York. The British
fleet and army arrived off the Chesapeak five days after the
surrender. Having learned the melancholy fate of their
countrymen, they were obliged to return, without effecting any
thing, to their former station.

"Such was the catastrophe of an army, that in intrepidity of
exertion, and the patient endurance of the most mortifying
reverses, are scarcely to be equalled by any thing that is to be
met with in history. The applause they have received
undiminished by their subsequent misfortunes, should teach us to
exclaim less upon the precariousness of fame, and animate us
with the assurance that heroism and constancy can never be
wholly disappointed of their reward."

The publication before us is written with that laudable industry, which
ought ever to distinguish a great historian. The author appears to have
had access to some of the best sources of information; and has
frequently thrown that light upon a recent story, which is seldom to be
expected, but from the developements of time, and the researches of
progressive generations.

We cannot bestow equal praise upon his impartiality. Conscious however
and reserved upon general questions, the historian has restricted
himself almost entirely to the narrative form, and has seldom indulged
us with, what we esteem the principal ornament of elegant history,
reflexion and character. The situation of Dr. Robertson may suggest to
us an obvious, though incompetent, motive in the present instance.
Writing for his contemporaries and countrymen, he could not treat the
resistance of America, as the respectable struggle of an emerging
nation. Writing for posterity, he could not denominate treason and
rebellion, that which success, at least, had stamped with the signatures
of gallantry and applause. But such could not have been the motives of
the writer in that part of the history of America, which was given to
the world some years ago. Perhaps Dr. Robertson was willing to try, how
far his abilities could render the most naked story agreeable and
interesting. We will allow him to have succeeded. But we could well have
spared the experiment.

The style of this performance is sweet and eloquent. We hope however
that we shall not expose ourselves to the charge of fastidiousnes