
OLD AND NEW WAYS OF TREATING HISTORY 13 
drawn to these papers about a century ago, but the 
last edition, published in 1872, contained more than four 
hundred letters never before printed. In recent years 
we have added to our resources for studying American 
history many new letters of Patrick Henry, George 
Mason, Gouverneur Morris, John Dickinson, Manas- 
seh Cutler, the older and younger Tyler, and many 
others. Most important of all, in some respects, are 
the Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson, last 
royal governor of Massachusetts, published in London 
about ten years ago by one of his great-grandsons; it 
is impossible to study this book without having one’s 
conception of the beginnings of the American Revo- 
lution in some points slightly, in others profoundly, 
modified. 7 
In curious ways things keep turning up for the first 
time or else attracting fresh attention. A certain 
beautiful map, made in Lisbon between September 7 
and November 19, 1502, has been lying now for nearly 
four centuries-in the Ducal Library at Modena, where 
it was left by the husband of Lucretia Borgia. About 
fifteen years ago it was noticed that this map con- 
tains a delineation of the peninsula of Florida, with 
twenty-two Spanish names on the coast, several of 
them misunderstood and deformed by the Portuguese 
draughtsman. As this is positive proof that Florida 
was visited by Spaniards before September 7, 1502, 
the long-neglected map has suddenly become a histori- 
cal document of the first importance. 
Again, during our Revolutionary War a certain 
British adventurer, named Charles Lee, was at one 
time the senior general under Washington in the Con- 
tinental army. Having been taken prisoner by the 
