4. FREEMASONRY’S EMBARRASSMENT AND PROTEST
Freemasonry in New England, as throughout the United States in general, was very far from being in a favorable condition when the Illuminati controversy broke out. Like every other institution in the country, it had suffered greatly on account of the American Revolution. The membership of its lodges was depleted, and its affairs generally left in a chaotic condition. In the period of reconstruction which followed the Revolution, Masonry experienced the same difficulty in rebuilding its organizations and investing them with a fair degree of importance in the public eye as other social institutions of the times. To no little extent, this was due to internal dissensions and disintegrating tendencies generally. In the main these dissensions developed out of efforts which were made to create grand lodges of native origin, endowed with powers of sovereignty, to take the place in the system of American Masonry that formerly had been accorded to the grand lodges of England and Scotland. The spirit of independence communicated by the revolutionary struggle had to be reckoned with by Masonic leaders in their efforts to give unity and solidity to the system.[862]
But other concerns than those of organization engaged the attention of those who sought the rehabilitation of the institution. In the literature of the times appears more than one stinging reference to the reproach under which Freemasonry rested on account of the low standards of conduct by which the private lives of its members and its assemblies were marked. Coarseness, profligacy, boisterousness, and conviviality, which in the latter case did not stop short of drunken revels, were common indictments brought against the lodges by friend and foe alike.[863] It cannot be doubted that a considerable amount of the kind of rude and unlicensed behavior that displayed itself about many a New England tavern of the period was likewise to be observed in connection with the private and public performances of the craft.
To this must be added another and, from our special point of view, more serious criticism. The spirit of democracy, it should not be forgotten, was working itself out in the common life of the times in manifold ways. The idea of human equality had become the very touchstone of life. New applications of this conception were constantly being made. In such a day it was inevitable that the secret and exclusive character of the assemblies and practices of Freemasonry should make that institution widely suspected. Members of the fraternity were freely accused of supporting an institution that failed to respond to the spirit of the times.[864] As a result of the stir occasioned by Washington’s bold denunciation of “self-created societies,” in 1794, this charge of dangerous and unjustifiable secrecy became a more powerful weapon in the hands of Freemasonry’s enemies, whose blows were by no means easy to avoid.
That a retrograde movement was on in the ranks of American Masonry at the time the Illuminati controversy broke out is, however, by no means to be inferred. In most particulars, the faults and weaknesses which have been noted represented common faults and weaknesses of the times. On the whole, as the eighteenth century drew to its close, Freemasonry in this country appeared to be slowly working its way up out of the state of disorganization and weakness by which its progress had been retarded during the two decades that followed the Revolutionary War. It was in a day characterized by earnest and worthy striving, though not without its tokens of popular suspicion, that the accusation of an alliance with the odious Illuminati fell as a black shadow across its path.
The response which Massachusetts Masonry made to the aspersions of Robison and his supporters[865] on this side of the ocean was promptly forthcoming. On June 11, 1798, the Grand Lodge of that state drew up an address to President Adams, from which the following generous extract is taken:
Sir:—
Flattery, and a discussion of political opinions, are inconsistent with the principles of this ancient Fraternity; but while we are bound to cultivate benevolence, and extend the arm of charity to our brethren of every clime, we feel the strongest obligations to support the civil authority which protects us. And when the illiberal attacks of a foreign enthusiast, aided by the unfounded prejudices of his followers, are tending to embarrass the public mind with respect to the real views of our society, we think it our duty to join in full concert with our fellow-citizens, in expressing gratitude to the Supreme Architect of the Universe, for endowing you with the wisdom, patriotic firmness and integrity, which has characterized your public conduct.
While the Independence of our country and the operation of just and equal laws have contributed to enlarge the sphere of social happiness, we rejoice that our Masonic brethren, throughout the United States, have discovered by their conduct a zeal to promote the public welfare, and that many of them have been conspicuous for their talents and unwearied exertions. Among these your venerable successor is the most illustrious example; and the memory of our beloved Warren,[866] who from the chair of this Grand Lodge, has often urged the members to the exercise of patriotism and philanthropy, and who sealed his principles with his blood; shall ever animate us to a laudable imitation of his virtues.[867]
In addition to this formal action taken by the Grand Lodge, prominent Massachusetts Masons began at once to employ such public occasions as the calendar and special events of the order supplied, to refute the charge that Masonry was in league with Illuminism. Preëminent among these apologists were the Reverend William Bentley and the Reverend Thaddeus Mason Harris.[868]
On the occasion of the Masonic festival of St. John the Baptist, June 25, 1798, Bentley delivered a charge before Morning Star Lodge, at Worcester, Massachusetts.[869] The clergy, he maintained,—not all the clergy, to be sure, but particularly those representatives of the clergy “who ply the shuttle-cock of faith, with the dexterity of expert gamesters, and have the art of making the multitude fly with its feathers,”—are responsible for this new out-cry against the order.[870] It is the state of affairs in Europe that has caused general attention to be drawn to the order. During the century Masonry has flourished there in a remarkable way. In the midst of an age full of apprehension respecting everything that suggests political association, this rapid progress of Freemasonry, the character of its members, the coincidence of its designs, and its secrecy, have quite naturally conspired to give some appearance of danger. Yet no discoveries have been made which can fairly impeach the fraternity.[871] As for the principles and work of Weishaupt, these ought not to be condemned outright, solely on the testimony of Robison.[872] “We must leave Robison to an inquisitive public,” Bentley concluded, and “forgive a worthy divine who has noticed the book, and has made our order ridiculous.”[873]
Somewhat later in the year Harris delivered a number of addresses, in connection with the consecration of various lodges, in which he paid sufficient attention to the new issue that had been raised to make it clear that Masonic circles were greatly disturbed.[874] To Harris, this last assault upon the good name of Masonry was a most unreasonable performance; yet all he felt prepared to do was to enter a general denial, couched in a bombastic, windy style of utterance, of which the following is typical:
How much … are we surprised to find opposers to an association whose law is peace, and whose whole disposition is love; which is known to discourage by an express prohibition the introduction and discussion of political or religious topics in its assemblies; and which forbids in the most positive and solemn manner all plots, conspiracies, and rebellions. But, notwithstanding the ignorant mistake, and the prejudiced censure the society, we are persuaded that its real character is too well known, and its credit is too well supported, to be injured by their misrepresentations, or destroyed by their invectives. When they charge us with demoralizing principles, we will tell them that some of the most orthodox and respectable Clergymen are of our order; and when they impute to us disorganizing attempts, we will remind them that Washington is our patron and friend.[875]
Much more of like character issued from this source.[876] We shall see, however, that the keen invective and unrestrained sarcasm of Bentley, rather than the platitudes of the amiable Harris, were needed to put Masonry’s case before the public in an effective manner.
On the same occasion that the “Author of the Worcester Charge”[877] made his first formal answer to Robison and Morse, at least two other addresses were delivered, each of which require a word. One of these, mirabile dictu! was by Jedediah Morse.[878] Morse’s “sermon” was dull and insipid enough. There was much talk about the cultivation and diffusion of the love of country, the duty of essaying the rôle of the peacemaker, and the wickedness of spreading base slanders and exciting unreasonable prejudices among one’s fellows; but no discussion of the subject of Illuminism was attempted. All that was said was in entire good spirit, and but one consideration entitles Morse’s performance to mention: the fact that its setting as well as its substance gave evidence of its author’s earnest desire not to see the gulf widen between him and his Masonic neighbors.
The other address was different. Masonic Brother Charles Jackson, addressing the members and friends of St. Peter’s Lodge, Newburyport, Massachusetts, showed no disposition to mince words with respect to the detractors of Freemasonry.[879] Robison was reprobated by him for launching “illiberal sarcasms” against the fraternity,[880] and particularly for making out the Masonic lodges to be “hot-beds of sedition and impiety,” which the orator indignantly averred they were not.[881] It was granted that certain profligate and abandoned characters, as Robison claimed, had assumed the cloak of Masonry, with a view of shrouding their infernal plans under pretences of philanthropy and benevolence; but these men soon threw off this cloak, and there was no reason why Masonry should be sacrificed on their account.[882] The charges of atheism and unpatriotic spirit among the members of the fraternity were repelled with equal warmth by Jackson. As with Harris, these calumnies were countered, the charge of atheism by the fact that many of the clergy were members of the order, and the charge of unpatriotic spirit by the fact that Washington was the “illustrious brother” of American Masons.[883]
To a very limited extent the press was resorted to, in order that New England Masonry might have a chance to square itself before the public. The call for specific evidence that was made upon Morse, as voiced in the Massachusetts Mercury of July 27, 1798, and Morse’s prolix but ineffective effort to meet the situation this created, have already been noticed.[884] In the course of the newspaper discussion referred to, the name of another prominent Mason of Massachusetts, the Reverend Josiah Bartlett, was drawn into the controversy.[885] To Morse’s somewhat unmanly plaint that “by necessary implication” he had been accused by the Massachusetts Masons before the President as being under the influence of unfounded prejudices, Bartlett made the conciliatory, though artful, response that the address of the Grand Lodge, to which Morse referred, was designed merely as a manly avowal of the true principles of Freemasonry. It was not necessary to believe, he continued, that they were influenced by irritation or resentment in making the Address, nor that Dr. Morse had hostile designs in the delivery and publication of his fast sermon.[886]
Such language, however, was much too mild and unduly exonerative for the “Author of the Worcester Charge.” His aroused spirit required that censure should be imposed. Morse had been guilty of a base injustice; it was right that this fact should frankly be published to the world. Accordingly, the Massachusetts Mercury of August 10, 1798, contained a vigorous statement of the case of Masonry against Morse, from Bentley’s pen. The following will suffice to indicate the author’s spirit:
The notice taken of the American Geographer in the late Charge,[887] was on account of his zeal, in his public character, to give authority to a wicked and mischievous Book. That he did not understand the Charge he has proved in his attempt to apply it, and that he should not understand it, is easy to be conceived from the Strictures already published upon his Compilations, and from opinions of him, both at home and abroad. On a proper occasion, these opinions may be collected and published.[888]
Still refusing to depart from the pathway of amiability and clerical courtesy, Bartlett returned to the discussion of the subject of Illuminism in its relation to American Freemasonry, in the Mercury of September 7, 1798. In cumbrous sentences the appearance of Robison’s book in this country was reviewed; the best of motives were imputed to its author and his supporters in America; but stress, very gentle stress, to be sure, was laid upon the question whether the Illuminati, in any form or other, had branches in this country. “If,” Bartlett urged, “there is any citizen in the United States who can prove this, it is a duty which he really owes to God and his country, to come forward, ‘as a faithful watchman,’ with his documents.” As for himself, he was fully persuaded that if the Masonic institution could be implicated fairly in the conspiracy, then the doors of every lodge ought to be flung wide open, and Masonry henceforth held in just derision and contempt.[889]
This seemed to open the way for such a polite and harmless handling of the subject as Morse coveted. In like spirit he replied to the foregoing.[890] He rejoiced in the candid utterances of his worthy friend. Bartlett’s acceptance of the existence of the Illuminati persuaded him to hope that opposition to Robison would now soon cease. Had the latter’s work not been opposed in the first place, he entertained no doubt that Freemasonry in the United States would not have been injured. While disclaiming all intention of pursuing a controversial course, he would, however, undertake an investigation to determine whether or not there were societies of the Illuminati in this country.[891]
A belated promise, to say the least, and one that found a certain belated fulfilment in Morse’s fast sermon of the following spring.[892] Before turning to consider the effect of that sermon on Masonic thought, one other Masonic disclaimer of 1798 requires attention.
On October 23, the Grand Lodge of Vermont drew up an address to the President somewhat similar to the one which earlier in the year their Massachusetts brethren had presented.[893] Beginning with the familiar observation that Masonic principles forbade the introduction of political subjects into the discussions of the order, but that the serious cast of national affairs was such as to justify the present action, the address proceeded to notice the “slanders” that were in circulation respecting the order and to profess the ardent attachment of Vermont Masons to the cause of the government. The idea that Masons were capable of faction was repudiated with energy. An individual Mason here and there might possibly sell his birthright for a mess of pottage, or betray his country for paltry pelf; but as a body the Masonic fraternity stood committed to support the government. All should be risked in its maintenance and defence.[894]
The language of the address could hardly have been warmer. On the other hand, the President’s response was cold, or, if not that, at least puzzling.[895] Asserting first that he had ever esteemed the societies of Freemasons in this country as not only innocent of base designs but actually useful, he seemed to dispel all the comfort which the reading of that assurance was calculated to impart by adding the following:
The principle, not to introduce politics in your private assemblies, and the other principle, to be willing subjects to the government, would, if observed, preserve such societies from suspicion. But it seems to be agreed, that the society of Masons have discovered a science of government, or art of ruling society, peculiar to themselves, and unknown to all the other legislators and philosophers of the world; I mean not only the skill to know each other by marks or signs that no other persons can divine, but the wonderful power of enabling and compelling all men, and I suppose all women, at all hours, to keep a secret. If this art can be applied, to set aside the ordinary maxims of society, and introduce politics and disobedience to government, and still keep the secret, it must be obvious that such science and such societies may be perverted to all the ill purposes which have been suspected. The characters which compose the lodges in America are such as forbid every apprehension from them, and they will best know whether any dangers are possible in other countries as well as in this…. I say cordially with you—let not the tongue of slander say, that Masons in America are capable of faction. I am very confident it can not be said by any one with truth of the Masons of Vermont.[896]
Was the President ironical or frank? He had intimated that the Masons were capable of corruption: did he, or did he not think they were guiltless of the charge of conspiracy that had recently been lodged against them? One could not be absolutely sure from what he had written. What the Masons of Vermont may have felt when the ambiguous response of the President was before them, we have no means of knowing; but there was one Mason in Massachusetts who read the response of the President to the address of the Vermont Masons, and who was displeased. In the view of William Bentley, the President had done anything but assist the cause of Masonry in the hour of its embarrassment. He has left us the record of his impressions in the following form:
The address to General Washington,[897] as brother, must have the best effect, because he gives his own testimony, that he is a stranger to any ill designs of our institution.[898] But the replies of President Adams, such as he was indeed obliged to offer, have only left us where he found us, if in so happy a condition. His answers are candid, but he could know nothing. His answer to Massachusetts Grand Lodge insinuates his hopes. To Maryland, he seems to express even his fears.[899] To Vermont, he says, he believes the institution has been useful But while he expressed a confidence in the American lodges, he consents to hold our lodges capable of corruption. His words are, “Masons will best know whether any dangers are possible in other countries, as well as in this.”[900]
We have seen that the most appreciable and positive of all the evidence that the champions of the charge of Illuminism brought against the Masons was that which Morse embodied in his fast sermon in the spring of 1799. For once the tiresome reiterations of the theorist and the reporter of other men’s suspicions were laid aside. For once a straight thrust was made at a definite point in the armor of American Masonry. The effect which Morse’s sermon produced on the minds of New England Masons naturally stimulates inquiry.
Contrary to what might very properly be supposed, the literature of contemporary New England Freemasonry fails to yield full and convincing evidence as to the precise character of this reaction. A few formal public statements were made on the part of representatives of the craft, or in one or two instances by men who were sufficiently close to the institution to be used on occasions when Masonry threw wide its doors of seclusion that the profane might draw near. Some of these must be noticed.
Far removed from the chief centers of the agitation, at Portland, Maine, Masonic Brother Amos Stoddard addressed the craft, on the occasion of the festival of St. John the Baptist, June 24, 1799.[901] Stoddard did not balk at the admission that the fraternity “have, unfortunately, tolerated the Illuminati.”[902] But there was this to be said by way of exculpation: the Illuminati were not legitimate Masons.[903] “To propagate their revolutionary poison, and to protract the period of detection” (sic), they attached themselves to Freemasonry and called themselves by its name. In this way the world had been deceived. But the main citadel of Masonry had not capitulated; only a section of the fraternity had been taken by treachery.[904] A temporary wound, undeniably, had been inflicted; but no lasting hurt would come to the craft.[905]
At Reading, Massachusetts, on the same occasion, Caleb Prentiss, a non-Mason, told the members and friends of Mt. Moriah Lodge that the lodges were under suspicion as they had never been before.[906] The eyes of the world were now turned upon Masonry. The suspicion that nefarious conspiracies had been formed or countenanced within the lodges was well fixed in the public mind. Masons would need to walk with more than ordinary circumspection. They must sedulously keep themselves spotless from the imputation of such designs, that the craft be not blamed. By striving to show themselves to be lovers of God and mankind, friends of religion, friends of their country, and firm and study supporters of the latter’s civil constitution, government, and laws, they would be able to vindicate the principles, professions, and constitutions of true ancient Masonry.[907]
At Ashby, New Hampshire, on the same festival day, an assembly of Masons and their friends listened to a discourse which by way of concessions to the opponents of Masonry outstripped anything that went before or followed after.[908] The Reverend Seth Payson, that fatuous aspirant to literary fame who elected to be a tardy echo of the speculations of Robison, Barruel, and Morse,[909] informed his auditors that while Masonry in its essential principles and constitution had shown itself to be useful to society, unhappily its name, veil of secrecy, symbols, and associative principles had been seized by a body of men in Europe, in order to mask their hellish purposes of eradicating from the human mind “all belief of a God, of a governing providence, of the immortality of the soul, and a future state,—to extinguish every principle of natural and revealed religion and moral sentiments, and to demolish every government but its own.”[910] In all its horrid appendages, the French Revolution was the result of this conspiracy. This “vine of Sodom” was transplanted to the United States: witness the opposition which in this country developed against those “eminent benefactors to mankind in general,” Drs. Robison, Morse, et al.[911] Without the faithful researches of Morse, in particular, a very much more serious infection of the Masonic body assuredly would have occurred.[912]
Such isolated and generally indefinite utterances, it may be urged, are scarcely to be trusted as offering an accurate reflection of the state of the Masonic mind. They do not, however, stand altogether alone. From various and perhaps more solid sources, the evidence is forthcoming that the year 1799 was a year of deep anxiety and concern on the part of the Masons of New England.
The diary of William Bentley supplies some evidence to this effect.[913] His disgust was great that the clergy continued to agitate concerning the pernicious principles and influence of Weishaupt, and that with equal pertinacity the press kept the affairs of that individual and his minions before the public.[914] The equally candid acknowledgments of other Masons are even more to the point. One spokesman for Rhode Island Masonry made public admission that the fraternity was suffering keenly from “a temporary odium.”[915] Another in Massachusetts uttered the complaint that the industrious zeal of the unprincipled defamer had involved the craft in most serious embarrassment.[916] Some were driven to take refuge in the consolation that the lodges of the Illuminati were bastard organizations, and therefore Freemasonry could not justly be anathematized on their account.[917]
When the skies had cleared, as we have seen they soon did, and Masons began to take stock of the experience through which their institution had passed, their admissions of what the agitation had cost the order were even more significant. One confessed that Masonry had started back affrighted at the hideous spectre of Illuminism, and that the joy that filled the lodges because they were no longer suspected as “hot-beds of sedition” and “nurseries of infidelity” was very great.[918] Another likewise rejoiced in spirit that the dark period of suspicion and calumny through which the order has been passing was now over, and that political agitation against the institution was at an end.[919] Another admitted that after the lapse of a half dozen years it was difficult to plant a new lodge in one of the most cultured of New England’s communities, on account of the influence exerted by the works of Robison and Barruel.[920] Still another confessed that the Illuminati controversy had cost the fraternity dearly in the matter of membership; a serious defection had resulted, representing many desertions.[921]
The various causes that contributed to bring about a collapse of the agitation over Illuminism have elsewhere received attention and for the most part require no special comment in this connection. One of these, however, was of such a nature that it has been reserved for brief exposition at this point.
The death of Washington, while confessedly an event of national significance, and, as such, shared as the common bereavement of all the citizens of the country, nevertheless assumed a very special importance in the eyes of Masons and exerted an immediate and weighty influence upon the fortunes of the order.
One who turns the pages of the black-bordered newspapers of the day, all sharing in the universal lamentation and doing their utmost to set before their readers the last detail regarding the closing hours in the great man’s life and the arrangement and disposition of affairs in connection with his obsequies, is likely to find himself amazed because the Masons found it possible to figure in the circumstances as conspicuously and largely as they did. The Masons were in evidence, in very conspicuous evidence, it must be said, in all that pertained to the funeral rites of the nation’s first chief. Not only was this true of the funeral ceremonies proper; in innumerable places where mourning assemblies gathered to pay respect to the memory of Washington, Masons claimed and were accorded the places of honor in the processions and concourses that marked these outpourings of popular sorrow.
It cannot be doubted that American Freemasons, while sincere in their expressions of sorrow on account of Washington’s death, none the less found a peculiar comfort of soul in being able at such a time to point to the fallen hero as their “brother.” At an hour when the tongue of scandal and the finger of suspicion were still active they esteemed it an opportunity not to be despised to be able to stand before the country and proudly say, “Washington was of us.”
That this is not idle fancy the following utterances will help to make clear. At Middletown, Connecticut, a few days after Washington’s death, a Masonic oration was pronounced in connection with the observance of the festival of St. John the Evangelist.[922] The orator, who recognized the season as one of unremitting calumny of Freemasonry,[923] sought refuge from the strife of tongues for himself and his brethren by urging the following sentiment:
If what Barruel has suggested of our institution is true; if it is among US that Jesus Christ is daily sacrificed, and all religion scoffed at; if our principles and doctrines, either in theory or practice, have a tendency to destroy the bonds of nature and of government; how could Washington, that Perfect Man, when his feet were stumbling upon the dark mountains of death, say, “I am ready to die,” until he had warned the world to beware of the Masonic institution and its consequences? He was a thorough investigator, and a faithful follower of our doctrines.[924]
To this must be added the somewhat different apologetic of a prominent Massachusetts Mason. Speaking at Dorchester, at a Masonic service in Washington’s memory, the Reverend Thaddeus Mason Harris acknowledged the value of Washington’s connection with American Freemasonry in these words:
The honor thus conferred upon us has been peculiarly serviceable at the present day, when the most unfounded prejudices have been harbored against Freemasonary, and the most calumnious impeachments brought forward to destroy it. But our opposers blushed for the censures when we reminded them that Washington loved and patronized the institution.[925]
Washington’s Masonic career, Masonry’s uncontested claim to the right to be first among those who mourned at his burial,—these constituted a part, and a very substantial part of the demurrer which Freemasonry offered at the bar of public judgment in answer to its accusers. It is very certain that after the reinstatement in public favor which American Masonry was accorded when Washington was buried, the voice of censure was less and less disposed to be heard.[926]
NOTE.—The fiction of an alliance between American Freemasonry and the Illuminati had a curious revival in connection with the antimasonic excitement which swept the United States from 1826 to about 1832. The mysterious abduction of William Morgan had the effect of arousing the country to the peril of secret societies, the Masons particularly. The Antimasonic party for this and other reasons sprang into existence, and an elaborate political propaganda and program were attempted. See McCarthy, Charles, The Antimasonic Party: a Study of Political Antimasonry in the United States, 1827–1840. In Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1902, vol. i, pp. 365–574. In connection with the Antimasonic conventions that were held in various states, efforts were made to establish a connection between American Masonry and Illuminism. Thus, in the state convention held in Massachusetts in 1828–1829, a committee was appointed “to inquire how far Freemasonry and French Illuminism are connected.” This committee brought in a report establishing to the satisfaction of the convention that there was a direct connection between the two systems, and resulting in the passing of the following resolution: “Resolved, on the report of the Committee appointed to inquire how far Free Masonry and French Illuminism are connected, That there is evidence of an intimate connexion between the higher orders of Free Masonry and French Illuminism.” Cf. An Abstract of the Proceedings of the Anti-Masonic State Convention of Massachusetts, held in Faneuil Hall, Boston, Dec. 30 and 31, 1829, and Jan. 1, 1830. Boston, 1830, p. 5. On the ground that the length of the committee’s report made it inadvisable, the publishing committee deemed it inexpedient to print the “evidence.”
The Vermont Antimasonic state convention of 1830 wrestled with the same question. Its committee brought in a report so naively suggestive as to merit notice. Citing the agitation that arose on account of the literary efforts of “Robison and Barruel in Europe, and Morse, Payson, and others in America,” the committee expressed its judgment that those works “called Masonry in question in a manner which if assumed on any other topic, would have called forth disquisition and remark on the subject matter of these writings from every editor in the union; yet the spirit of inquiry, which these able performances were calculated to raise, was soon and unaccountably quelled—the press was mute as the voice of the strangled sentinel and the mass of the people kept in ignorance that an alarm on the subject of Masonry had ever been sounded, or even that these works had ever existed.” See Proceedings of the Anti-Masonic State Convention, holden at Montpelier, June 23, 24, & 25, 1830. Reports and Addresses. Middlebury, 1830.
An exploration of the literature of the Antimasonic party yields nothing more significant. This literature as listed by McCarthy may be found on pp. 560–574 of the Report of the American Historical Association for 1902, vol. i.