same time such progress along the characteristic lines of American development. Moreover, this section of the country has stood in very close relations to questions of great National and international importance. To portray those features that make it an historical unit is the central purpose of this book. But as the Northwest is intimately dependent upon the Atlantic Plain, a view of the Thirteen Colonies as constituted by the Royal Charters has also been given. No previous writer has covered the ground, and the work is wholly new in conception. Dr. Edward A. Freeman insists "that the most ingenious and eloquent of modern historical discourses can, after all, be nothing more than a comment on a text." In the following pages, liberal quotations from original documents will be found, accompanied by the necessary discussion. This feature of the work, it is believed, will be highly appreciated, especially by the student and the teacher. This work was first published in 1888,- the centenary of the establishment of civil government beyond the Ohio River. In this new edition all errors of fact that have come to the author's attention have been corrected; new notes and references have been added; a few passages thought superfluous have been omitted; a few points have received needed expansion, and the final chapter has been in great part rewritten. With these improvements, the work is once more submitted to the judgment of readers and students interested in Western history. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, September, 1898. B. A. HINSDALE. |