George Rogers Clark: His Life and Public Services by Temple Bodley (review)

REVIEWS OF BOOKS 151 death of oneof its foundersis the occasion for the reprintingof some of the letters of that co-founder, Mother Marie de l'Incarnation. The selectionis that made by M. tLenjaminSulte for the Royal Societyof Canada (Transactiensof 1897 and 1900). M. Sulte defineshis object in a prefatory note: This is not a studyof the lettersof Mother Marie de l'Incarnation, but a selection of certainpassages from her writings,dealingwith the savages, the Jesuit missions, the climateof the country,the foodand lodgingof the colonists, trade, communicationwith France, the Ursulinesof Quebec. The letters cover the years 1639 to 1662, and in view of the difficulty of securingthe completeedition of the correspondence of this notable lady, the extractsshouldbe mostvaluable as an introductionto one of the most important sourcesfor the early history of New France. The life of Catherine Tekakwitha by Father Lecompte, already knownfor hisstudiesof Jesuitmissions in North America, is confessedly aimed to strengthen the claim of the Iroquois saint to beatification. Equipped witha'bibliography andmaps, thevolume gives afullaccount of the life of the Mohawk maiden, whom Charlevoix termed "the Genevieve of Canada", from her infancy on the Mohawk river to her earlydeathontheSt. Lawrence above Montreal, witha catalogue of the miraclesperformedat her tomb or through her intercession. R. FLENLEY George RogersClark: His Life andPublic Services. By TEMPLEBODLEY. Boston andNewYork: Houghton,Mifflin Company. 1926. Pp.xix, 425. THIS life of the Revolutionary conquerorof the old North West has distinct interest forstudents ofCannadian history. From1774 untilthe conclusion of peacein 1783, the old North West, includingthe Lake posts, such as Detroit and Michillimackinac, as well as the Illinois country, formed technicallya part of Canada. The story of George RogersClark's exploits,whichresultedin the lossof this vast territory to British arms, is thereforean important episodein Canadianhistory. Mr. Bodley hasdevotedto the telling of the story exhaustiveresearch. As his notesand his bibliographyattest, he has gatheredtogethera vast amount of printed material relating to Clark and his work; and he has in addition examineda large range of unprinted material in the British Museum, the Library of Congress,and the ClementsLibrary of American History at Ann Arbor. Here and there he reprints, in whole'or in part, important documentswhich have never hitherto seen the light. Iris industryand enthusiasmhave been exceptional, and if only for this reasonhis book deserves commendation. 152 TI{•. CANADIAN H•STOmCAL R•.VX•.W The manner in which he has marshalled the multitude of details found in his book deserves also admiration. The narrative is on the 'wholeclear and consecutive. But unfortunately, though Mr. Bodley has a good commandof the apparatusof scholarship,he appearsto lack occasionally the impartiality of the historian. In his eyesGeorge RogersClark is a hero who coulddo no wrong, and all who opposed him, whether they were British officersor American politicians, are frequentlyregardedby the author asmiscreantsof a most reprehensible character. The manner in which he preserves the attitude which American historians of an early day adopted toward the British and the Loyalists in the American Revolution has in it somethingarchaic. Colonel Hamilton,the Britishcommandant at Detroit,is onceagain describedas "the hair-buyer general", and is accusedof being "both untruthful and mean-minded", and as lacking "the moral courageto bear hisdefeatwith dignity." Still moreextraordinaryis Mr. Bodley's attitude toward the negotiatorsof the Treaty of Paris. The American commissioners, Franklin, Adams, and Jay, are in Mr. Bodley's eyes men of unimpeachablehonourand integrity, and any diplomacyexercisedby them is regarded as merely patriotic. But the British commissioners appearin the light of scheming villains. It is Mr. Bodley's beliefthat, whenthey madea strongpoint of restitutionor compensation for the Loyalists, they were not thinking of the Loyalists, but were schemingto retain the MississippiValley. All one can sayis that the documents whichMr. Bodleybringsforwardto provethis extraordinary thesisseem to the present reviewer merely to prove the opposite. If Mr. Bodley had studiedmore carefully the use of light and shadein history, he would have given us a much more convincingpicture of GeorgeRogersClark and his times than appearsin his pages. The book is well printed; it contains a good bibliography,some appendices, copious foot-notes, anda usefulmap;andthe indexisbeyond reproach. W. S. WALLACE The Organizationof the British Army in the American Revolution. By EDWt•RDE. CURTIS. (Yale Historical Publications, Miscellany XIX.) New Haven...