424 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 



bibliographer open to the charge of not carefully examining bis- 

 materials before pronouncing judgmjent. In regard to the Wy- 

 oming m'assacre be says, "I should be strongly inclined to quote 

 here from the pages of Murray's Impartial History of the pres- 

 ent War, etc., to show that British opinions were as strongly 

 pronounced in their expressions against the reported acts of But- 

 ler and that they held the authorities who ]>ermitted him to bear 

 a commission responsible, were it not that I find so many pages 

 in this book identical with An Impartial History of the ^Yar in 

 America, which was published about the same time in Boston, 

 that I am at a loss to determine which was the original book. 

 The two books are not in all respects the same. The one pur- 

 ports to be an English composition ; the other an American re- 

 cital. Phrases in which the enemy are alluded to in the one 

 are reversed in the other, while topics which are elaborated in 

 one are barely mentioned in the other ; still there are enough 

 pages identical in the two, except for the toning do^^Ti of the 

 adjectives to make me doubtful of the authorship of the Rev. 

 James Murray."^ Further, he says : '^Another work of simi- 

 lar title, credited to the Bev. James Murray, shows a decided 

 affinity to the side of the rebels, though as a hurried compila- 

 tion, there is some mixture in its views.'*'^ 



^Tt is in fact, as Mr. A. M. Davis tells me after making a 

 comparison, to about the extent of three-quarters merely a re- 

 print of the text of the Boston edition, with some verbal 

 changes."^ 



The history Winsor refers to as the original source for Mur- 

 ray's is one published in Boston in 1781.* In the one-volume 



1 Winsor, VI., 663. Note 4. 



Mbid., VIII., 500. 



3 lb., VIII., 500. Note 7. 



<An Impartial History of the War in America between Great Britain and 

 the United States from Its Commencement to the end of the war. Exhibiting^ 

 a circumstantial, connected and complete account of the real Causes, Rise and 

 Progress of the War, interspersed with Anecdotes and Characters of the dif- 

 ferent Commanders, and Accounts of such Personages in Congress as have dis- 

 tinguished themselves during the Contest. With an Appendix containing a Col- 

 lection of Interesting and Authentic Papers, tending to elucidate the History, 

 Illustrated with beautiful Copper Plates. 3 vols. Boston, Printed by Nathaniel 

 Coverly and Robert Hodge at their oflBce in Newberry St., 1781. 



Vol. Ill is entitled: The History of the War in America. Containing an Account of 

 its Rise and Progress with its Various Successes and Disappointments on both sides ^ 

 Boston. Printed by Nathaniel Coverly in Newbury Street, No. S3, near the sign of the 

 lamb. 1781. 



