^911-] ROSENGARTEN— MOREAU de SAINT MERY. 177 



1798, employing himself as a bookseller and publisher. He there 

 published his " Description de la partie Espagnole de St. Domingue," 

 which he signed " Moreau de St. Mery, member of the Philosophical 

 Society of Phila." He also translated or edited foreign works, and 

 among them A'anBraam's " \'oyage to China." Having returned to 

 France on the 18 Brumaire, he was, through his relationship with 

 Josephine de Beauharnais, appointed in 1800 to the position of 

 Historiographer of the ]\Iarine. Napoleon appointed him to the 

 Council of State, in view of his knowledge of colonial affairs. In 

 1802 he was administrator of Parma and Guastalla, but lost favor 

 and was removed in 1806. He died poor and in receipt of a pension 

 from Louis XA'HI. 



While entrusted with a mission in St. Domingo, as publisher in 

 Philadelphia and historiographer in Paris, we find him everywhere 

 an observer and a worker, taking notes on everything. His collec- 

 tion of manuscripts comprises 287 large volumes, and was purchased 

 by the state after his death, that is to say the government had to 

 pay not only for the transcripts he had caused to be made, but even 

 for the originals he had appropriated. 



Persons who take a special interest in the social and religious 

 condition of the country, the disputes and conflicts between the 

 authorities will find in the Moreau de St. Alery collection far more 

 than they could find in any other series. 



That Moreau de St. Mery did a good work in preserving and 

 making his collection is shown by the statement (in Richard's Re- 

 port, p. 8, etc.), that the Archives of the Ministry of Marine were 

 so utterly neglected that the precious papers were used during five 

 weeks of the winter in 1793, as fuel to feed the stoves of the post 

 of the Garde Xationale in the building where the archives were kept, 

 and in 1830 an employee gave up the archives to pillage and sold, 

 by weight for his own profit, whole piles of documents, bought by 

 autograph collectors. 



Thanks to the suggestion of Prof. Cleveland Abbe, I found in the 

 Monthly JVcathcr Rcvicz^' for February, 1906 (Washington. Weather 

 Bureau, 1907 ), at pp. 64, etc., in a notice by C. Fitzhugh Talman of the 

 U. S. Weather Bureau, the following : " Foremost among the early 



