Bolingbroke (a great moralist, but a Tory), and Lord Chesterfield (who was, as Warren saw it, more concerned with style, taste, and wit than with substantive values).3
Many of the quotations in the History represent acts of virtuosity on her part, identifying her as a widely read and well-informed person. She was highly opinionated politically and morally, and she found support for her most cherished views in a great variety of sources. One consequence of her wide-ranging reading habits is that many of her quotations and citations have been difficult, and a few have been impossible, to track down.
To the modern reader, eighteenth-century footnotes are idiosyncratic, to say the least. They are frequently vague, oblique, and insufficient. The reader of Warren’s text will find quotations from and references to “Gibbon on the decline and fall of the Roman empire,” which originally appeared in six volumes; or what appears to be a lengthy quotation from “Mackintosh,” which is accurate enough, but which turns out to be two quotations that are separated by a hundred pages; or citations to the same work under three different titles and an author of a different name; or a quotation from “Montesquieu,” the sense of which is readily found in The Spirit of the Laws, though the quotation is not.
The point is not that Warren was unusually careless, or that she invented language to suit her needs. On the contrary, her relatively extensive use of footnotes evidences that she was uncommonly scrupulous in revealing her sources.4 Like most historians prior to the twentieth century, Warren often wrote from memory. She did not always have at hand the book, pamphlet, or letter that she intended to quote. Occasionally, she worked from notes; even passages from her own letters, where she had turned a phrase particularly well, appear in the History. Until recently, moreover, precise quotation was not a scholarly ideal. (Warren would be amused, perhaps amazed, at the idea that one who professes to be a historian would, two hundred years later, attempt to find her sources.)
My point is that because Warren sometimes misquoted and sometimes provided inaccurate citations, I cannot be completely confident in all cases that I have found the sources that she used. I have, in preparing this annotated edition of the History, attempted to track down all of Warren’s footnotes. While a few quotations that she did not footnote are scattered through the text, I confined myself to those for which she did provide references. She presupposed that she wrote for a broadly literate audience and that the members of that audience would either know the quotations or, more likely, take them for granted as common fare. It turns out, moreover, that many of her fugitive quotations are tied to a footnote a page or two later. All of Warren’s original footnotes remain in place, indicated, as in the first edition, by asterisks, daggers, and double daggers. In most cases I have supplied a more complete reference, set off by brackets, immediately after her footnote.
Naturally, in providing expanded footnotes I have tried, wherever possible, to cite the specific source that Warren actually used. Failing that, I have cited a source—for instance, a collection such as Force’s American Archives—which contains her specific source. In some cases, particularly when I cannot be sure that I have uncovered the correct document, I suggest a source that reads very much like the one Warren cites. In all such cases, I indicate my lack of surety by introducing the source with “See” or “Probably.”
Acknowledgments
During the preparation of this edition, several friends and colleagues have proved to me, once again, how generous scholars are. Linda Levy Peck took valuable time from her own researches to wade through Nathanael Greene’s letters at The Henry E. Huntington Library. Daniel J. McInerney found G. F. A. Wendeborn when I persisted in looking for Dr. F. A. Wenderburne and all the Wedderburnes in the British Museum Catalogue. Eugene F. Miller helped me narrow the field on Warren’s fugitive quotation of “a celebrated writer.” Mary Elizabeth Regan graciously provided me with a copy of her Ph.D. dissertation on Warren. Leonora Woodman, Dan McInerney, and Mark U. Edwards read versions of the introductory materials and made suggestions that improved them. Working with the staff at Liberty Fund, Inc. has been, yet again, a joy.
A number of librarians and archivists saved me much time and expense by responding to queries on some of Warren’s references. Joel Silver helped make Indiana University’s Lilly Library, where I did the bulk of my source work, accessible and enjoyable. Dennis M. Conrad, associate editor of the Nathanael Greene Papers, searched through as yet unorganized Greene letters to find specific ones for me. James Fox of the New-York Historical Society located Gates, Cadwallader, and Reed letters. Anne-Marie Schaaf helped me with references to holdings in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The staffs of the University of Michigan’s Graduate Library and the William L. Clements Library were gracious and helpful.
I owe a special debt to my friend and colleague Cheryl Z. Oreovicz, who is preparing a biography of Warren. For most of the last dozen years we have taught together, shared materials, and fought over interpretations of Warren’s religious thought, politics, intellectual influences, and style. She has generously allowed me to use Warren materials that she has collected, and she has read the introduction to this volume. I have received the lion’s share of the benefit of these exchanges.
If these volumes were mine, rather than Warren’s, to dedicate, I would dedicate them to my mother—like Warren a bright, talented woman who was years ahead of her time.
Lester H. Cohen
| Adams, Works | The Works of John Adams, edited by Charles Francis Adams (10 vols.; Boston, 1850–1856) |
| AHA | American Historical Association |
| AHR | American Historical Review |
| AQ | American Quarterly |
| Annual Register | The Annual Register, or a View of the History, Politics, and Literature for the Year. . . . (London: J. Dodsley, 1758– ). Each issue of the Annual Register contains several sections, including a “History of Europe,” an “Appendix to the Chronicle,” and a collection of “State Papers.” Since pagination is inconsistent, I have indicated the section to which each reference pertains. |
| Burgoyne, Expedition | [John Burgoyne], A State of the Expedition from Canada, As Laid Before the House of Commons . . . With A Collection of Authentic Documents (London, 1780). This pamphlet consists of six main sections: a prefatory speech; a narrative of events in Northern New York; evidence and testimony used by the committee of inquiry; Burgoyne’s review of the evidence; Burgoyne’s conclusion; an appendix containing Burgoyne’s letters (most of which were written to George Germain). I refer to both the work and a specific subsection. |
| Cobbett | [William Cobbett], Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England, from the Norman Conquest, in 1066 to the Year, 1803 (36 vols.; London: R. Bagshaw, 1806–1820). Warren never cited Cobbett specifically. Two other sources of Parliamentary debates were available in Warren’s day: The Debates and Proceedings of the British House of Commons and The Parliamentary Register, or, The History of the Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons. Cobbett is by far the most extensive and detailed; it includes debates in the House of Lords. |
| Force, Archives | Peter Force, compiler, American Archives; Fourth and Fifth Series. Containing a Documentary History of the English Colonies in North America, From the King’s Message to Parliament, of March 7, 1770, to the Declaration of Independence by the United States (9 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1839–1853). The fourth series includes volumes 1–6; the fifth, 7–9. |
| Franklin | Plays and Poems of Mercy Otis Warren: Facsimile Reproductions Compiled and with an Introduction By Benjamin Franklin V (Delmar, N.Y., 1980) |
| Fritz | Jean Fritz, Cast for a Revolution: Some American Friends and Enemies, 1728–1814 (Boston, 1970) |
| Howe, Narrative | [Sir William Howe], The Narrative of Lieut. Gen. Sir William Howe, in a Committee of the House of Commons, on the 19th of April, 1779; Relative to His Conduct, During His Late Command of the King’s Troops in North America, To Which Are Added, Some Observations Upon
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