Second, to treat the Revolutionary War, and the causes that led to it, impartially and with more regard for British contentions than has been usual among American writers.
Third, to emphasize the importance of the West in the growth and development of the United States.
These objects have been kept constantly in view. We felt, moreover, that the development of institutions and government may justly be considered of great importance, although naturally lacking in picturesqueness, and we have endeavored to set in relief this evolutionary process. How far we have succeeded in accomplishing the objects sought remains for others to judge.
I cannot forbear to place on record here my appreciation of the fortitude with which Dr. Adams bore his protracted sufferings and did his work; of his conscientiousness in matters of minutest detail; of his fairness and sympathy toward those with whom he did not agree, and of the unfailing courtesy that marked every line of his correspondence.
Acknowledgment is due to the highly competent services of Miss May Langdon White of New York, whom Dr. Adams selected to assist in the revision of the work.
W. P. TRENT.
Columbia University,
New York, November, 1902.