422 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, ArtSj and Letters. 



edition' though there are some portions of the first chapter 

 copied from the Dublin edition.^ 



These four histories thus form a grou]D intertwined in such 

 a way that it is extremelv difficult to ascertain in manv cases 

 ■which is original and which copy. But of this we mav be cer- 

 tain that for the Revolutionary stru2:£rle the Annual Rearister 

 was the source for miost if not all of the material to be found in 

 these works. 



Murray's history of the Revolution^ next claims our atten- 

 tion. It is a very inferior work and w'as written with the Ain- 

 nual Register as a constant source. A single parallel quotation 

 will serve to show how he plagiarized. 



Annual Register, 1765, p. 24: " It 

 could not, surely be expected that 

 merely out of a compliment to the 

 mother country they submit to per- 

 ish, for thirst with water in their 

 own wells. They suffered enough, 

 as it was, by being obliged to make 

 bricks without straw; to carry on 

 manufactures and trade without 

 either metal or paper money to facili- 

 tate the course of them." 



Murray, I., 18. *' It was a thing 

 not at all to be expected that the 

 colonies out of mere compliment to 

 Great Britain should submit to per- 

 ish for want of the necessaries of 

 life, when they had a great abund- 

 ance within themselves. Their suf- 

 ferings already were of the severest 

 sort; for like the children of Jacob 

 in the land of bondage, they were 

 required to make brick without 

 straw; — to carry on trade and manu- 

 factures without either money or 

 paper currency to promote their 



course. 



>) 



In affairs out of America, Murray copies his accounts like- 

 wise from the Annual Register, as in the description of the 

 Caribs of St. Vincent.'' That which really distinguishes Mur- 

 ray's history from all the others and gives it a bad preeminence 

 is his vicious habit of commenting uj)on his stolen material. 

 He never has anything original to say and some of his expla- 

 nations are grotesque enough to merit a place in Gulliver's 



1 Chapters XVIIl. and XIX. (London Edition.) 



'Pages 335-336. (Dublin Edition.) 



'Impartial History of tbe Present War in America, containing An Account 

 of its Rise and Progress, the Political Springs thereof, with its various Suc- 

 cesses and Disappointments on Both Sides. 3 vols. By the Rev. Jas. Murray, 

 Newcastle upon Tyne. 



*Ann. Reg., 1773, p. 83 ff. Murray, I.. 34^368. 



