* * * * These posthumous papers will be universally welcomed by the public. They form an invaluable repository of facts and reflections, which will materially aid the researches of the biographer and the historian. Mr. Watson’s correspondence with public men, his familiar intercourse with the prominent characters of the Revolution, his observations in Europe at a time when the fortunes of America were trembling in the balance, exhibit in a new light the multitude of influences which, in the Old World and in the New, were brought to bear in favor of our independence, and finally led to its acknowledgment, first by France, Holland and Spain, and lastly by the mother country. * * * * * * * * * * * * * But here we must leave this fascinating volume, not, however, without urging our readers to seek a further acquaintance with its pages.
New York Evening Mirror.
MEN AND TIMES OF THE REVOLUTION; or, Memoirs or Elkanah Watson; Including Journals of Travels in Europe and America, from 1777 to 1842, with his Correspondence with Public Men, and Reminiscences and Incidents of the Revolution. Edited by his son, Winslow C. Watson. 8vo., 460 pages.
Price, $1.50.
The title-page of this volume indicates very justly its real character. The first seventy-five pages of the book are filled with exceedingly interesting reminiscences of Mr. Watson’s early life, including the minute details of his experience and observations in his travels on horseback from Connecticut to South Carolina and back, immediately after the commencement of the Revolutionary War. The following one hundred and sixty pages embrace a record of his experience and observation during a four years’ sojourn and travel in Europe, from 1779 to 1784; and the remaining two hundred and twenty pages are occupied with recollections pertaining to a multitude of places, incidents, and individuals, and with extracts from his correspondence with many persons of distinction in the past generation. The period through which the volume takes the reader, the rare opportunities afforded its author of acquiring a personal knowledge of its political history and the varied phases of its society, his quick and keen observation, and his constant habit of recording what he saw and heard, and his impressions in regard to men and events, render it not only an interesting and instructive volume, but an important acquisition to our sources of national history.
Protestant Churchman.
This is an entertaining and instructive biography of a gentleman who was a leading American merchant during the Revolution.
Episcopal Recorder.
* * * Few men had so long and varied an experience. More than half these memoirs is an autobiography; the remainder has been compiled from the manuscripts, correspondence, &c., of the deceased. The whole work is exceedingly entertaining, and will be of service to future historians.