George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

To Mr. Spofford, of Washington, I owe two volumes of the manuscript correspondence of General Greene. Mr. Seward, in the State Department, and his successor Mr. Fish, with equal friendliness furnished me with documents which I needed from our own records. The late Joseph H. Lewis intrusted to me the very voluminous professional and private correspondence of General Wayne. I was also aided materially by the late Governor Andrew and by Secretary Warner of Massachusetts, by the late Senator Mason of Virginia, by Mr. George S. Bryan, and by the never-failing friendship of Mr. Brantz Meyer, Mr. J. Carson Brevoort, and Mr. George H. Moore. On the character of Alexander Hamilton, I sought and obtained instruction from the late President Nott, as well as from the late Mr. Church, who was Hamilton's secretary in his last period of military service. On two points I follow the verbal communications of Madison; and it was not without fruit that I once passed a day with John Adams.

With regard to the peace between the United States and England, I think I might say that my materials in their completeness are unique. Of the letters of the American commissioners, nearly all are in print; yet I have been able to make gleanings from unpublished papers of them all, and have full reports of their conversations with the British representatives. On the French side, I have papers drawn up for the guidance of the negotiation; the reports of Rayneval from England to Vergennes, repeated in the accounts addressed by Vergennes himself to Montmorin, the French ambassador at Madrid, and to Luzerne, the French minister at Philadelphia. On the British side, I have the official letters of Shelburne and