Puritanism and Liberty

238 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY certain of itself. New France may have lacked the population which could alone have made the dream of a Bourbon North America come true, for then as now few Frenchmen could endure to leave "~a doulce pays de France." For all that, the French Canadians today number about thirty per cent of the Dominion's population, and enthusiasts among them foresee a time when they will dominate by sheer weight of numbers and racial solidarity. It may be so-stranger things have happened; but however far distant the day when the vigorous French-Canadian birth-rate may reverse the military decision of 1759, the present fact would seem to be that les Canadiens are more sharpJy divided from their neighbours of British and other stocks than are the Afrikanders from the British in South Africa. No doubt, like those two peoples, French and British Canadians have a growing fund of common fears and hopes and experiences, and to that extent can be regarded as one people; it may be cheerfully admitted that a Canadian can judge far better than anyone else how far the North Americanism that is common to both sections outweighs the forces that make for separation; nevertheless, the perusal of Professor Wrong's most welcome volume may prompt oversea readers to ask whether the sub-title should not have been "The Story of Two Peoples." PURITANISM AND LIBERTY* ERNEST BARKER This volume took its origin from an incursion of the philosophers (an admirable incursion, which brought home rich spoils) into the domain of the historians. In some lectures on "The Essentials of Democracy," delivered in 1929, Dr. A. D. Lindsay, the Master of Balliol College) Oxford, went to the Clarke Papers, and to the record which they contain of the Putney Debates of the New Model Army in October, 1647, for his starting point. Here, he said, "we happen to possess a first hand account ... of a memorable debate on the principles of democratic government." He analysed the principles *Puritanism and Liberty: Being tIle Army Debates (/6¢7-9) from Clarke Manuscripts , with supplementary documents, selected and edited with an introduction by A. S. P. Woodhouse, Dent (London), 1938, 18s. net. REVIEWS 239 of the debate in his lectures, and afterwards, anxious that the record of the debate should be published in an accessi ble form, he induced Professor Woodhouse to undertake an edition of the relevant part of the Clarke Papers. Professor Woodhouse has not only done what he was asked to do: he has done far more. He has not only edited the record of the Putney Debates of 1647 in a new and revised-text, which constitutes the First Part and contains about a quarter of the documents which he has printed: he has also done four other things. In the first place he has edited, again in a new and revised text, the record of the Whitehall Debates of the Army at the end of 1648 and the beginning of 1649, which constitutes the Second Part of his book. In the second place he has given, in an appendix at the end which contains over 100 pages, a number of additional documents-some illustrating the spirit and the organization of the Army; others recording the Reading Debates of July, 1647, which preceded the great debate at Putney; and others, again, supplementing the record given in the Clarke Papers of the Putney and Whitehall Debates. In the third place he has printed in Part III of his book a large number of extracts from contemporary (and also some earlier ) writers, which illustrate Puritan Views on Liberty. This is the core and the backbone of his book: this Part includes nearly half (or more than 200 'pages) of the total body of decuments: it transcends the theme of the Army and of the debates in the Army, which occupies the rest of the book: it ranges from Luther and Calvin, through Milton and Roger Williams, to Lifburne and Gerrard Winstanley. Finally, and above all, Professor Woodhouse has added an introduction of nearly 100 pages which is almost a substantial book in itself, which goes deeply into the questions of...