CONTENTS OF No. II.-VOL. IV. Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States, by Henry Lee, Lieutenant Colonel Comman- dant of the Partizan Legion during the War Observations on the Report of the French minister of Foreign Affairs, which prefaced the decrees concerning the new or- ganization of the National Guard Hubert and Ellen, with other Poems, by Lucius M. Sargent On the Condition and Character of Women in different coun- Travels in Iceland, by Sir George S. Mackenzie An Inquiry into the various Systems of Political Economy; their advantages and disadvantages; and the Theory most favourable to the increase of National Wealth, by Charles Page Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States, by HENRY LEE, Lieutenant Colonel Commandant of the Partizan Legion during the war. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1812. As soon as we had gone through the volumes of these Memoirs, we felt eager to congratulate the public, on the valuable accession which they furnish, to the stock of materials for a complete history of our revolutionary war. We were also, disposed to lose no time, in expressing our gratitude to the author, for the amusement he had afforded us, and for the very creditable manner, in which he has executed a task of great interest and importance. The annals of the American Revolution as they are found in Marshall's life of Washington, have a character of perfect authenticity; a merit to which, those of no other country, perhaps, can justly lay claim. They are also copious and minute in a remarkable degree. The addition made to them in this instance, is of equal authenticity, while it greatly improves the qualities just mentioned. Lieutenant Colonel (now General) Lee, was an actor, and a very conspicuous actor, in the scenes he so faithfully describes. In adopting as his motto the lines of Virgil, Quæque ipse miserrima vidi the same modesty which is visible throughout the whole of his work, has induced him to omit the epithet in the second line; VOL. IV. 2 B but every reader familiar with the history of the American war in general, and with the poet whom he quotes, will sup ply the omission, as an act of justice. This distinguished soldier engaged, at an early period of life, in the military service of his country, and was most actively and unremittingly employed in fighting its battles, from the outset, until the close of the revo lutionary struggle. Chief Justice Marshall, in his life of Washington, after narrating a very gallant little exploit of Lee in the campaign of 1778, holds the following language. "The event of the skirmish gave great pleasure to the commander in chief. Throughout the late campaign, Lee had been eminently useful to him, and had given proof of talents as a partizan, from which he had formed sanguine expectations for the future. He mentioned this affair in his orders with strong marks of approbation, and in a private letter to the captain, testified the satisfaction he felt, at the honourable escape that officer had made, from a stratagem which had so seriously threatened him." "For his merit through the preceding campaign, Congress promoted him to the rank of major, and gave him an inde pendent partizan corps, to consist of three troops of horse." It is stated by the same writer, that when the war in the South assumed a character of importance, in the eyes of the comman der in chief, Lee was despatched thither with his legion, on account of his peculiar fitness, for the kind of hostilities waged in that quarter. Indefatigable activity, daring courage, alacrity of mind under personal suffering, ardent patriotism, circumspection and sagacity in an eminent degree, were the qualities required in a partizan leader, and these had been uniformly, and were throughout, strikingly displayed by our author. We find him, to speak from the authority, not of his own narrative alone, but of the other prominent annalists of the war,-constantly on the alert, until the fall of the curtain in this strange drama; harassing the enemy in all directions, busied in the most hazardous enterprises, and contributing materially, to results of essential efficacy, in the achievement of the great end of our national independence. In the course of his Memoirs, where the scene is active, he is rarely out of sight, and still more rarely is his presence other than indispensable, for the purposes of fidelity and justice. There are no instances of egotistical or officious in trusion upon the reader, nor are we made sensible, on more than one or two occasions,* of too liberal an indulgence to personal The history of the abortive scheme to dislodge the British Colonel Craig from St. John's Island, seems to us to be one of these. Vol. 2. p. 383. |