but did not write and to crown all, tells who he probably intended to name as the commander, but somehow did not name. Mr Swett says that he meant to say "That Warren was the conductor or commander of Bunker Hill battle"!! Now really all this looks like "manufacturing a case." Is not this modest in one who professes to be so indignantly averse to such discreditable business? But Mr Swett, on this fifth page of twisting, surely did not so faithfully reflect as he did on the ninth page, that, "We were dealing with hard characters. Ward, Warren, Putnam and Prescott," he there rousingly writes, "are not rag babies, that an historian may bend and distort according to his fancy. The whole kingdom of Great Britain could not bend one of them," &c. Why then does he try to bend Ward's words to suit his theory, or distort them according to his fancy? This is no way to deal with authorities. This is trifling with history. Mr Swett must take the language of Ward as it is, even though unaltered it consigns a theory, nursed with parental care for more than a generation, to the tomb of the Capulets.

3. The remark of Colonel Scammans—that "there was no general officer who commanded at Bunker Hill"—made too as though it were a perfectly well known fact, is first denied, and then characteristically explained so as to mean nothing. "The author," Mr Swett says, "attributes to Colonel Scammans an anonymous note in a newspaper, written perhaps by the editor." Now if the note were written by the editor, it was not anonymous! But let this absurdity pass. Let any one turn to the New England Chronicle of February 29, 1776, read there a letter requesting the editor "to print the proceedings of the court martial, with some remarks upon the depositions then taken," and signed "James Scammans," Colonel Scammans, and then say how cool it is in Mr Swett to write that "the note was anonymous" or that it was "written by the editor." The remark, I repeat, was undoubtedly made by Colonel Scammans, and it is so plain that it speaks for itself. Besides this, Mr Swett charges me with omitting to mention here, that "Scammans, during the battle, sent to General Putnam, at Bunker Hill, to see if he was wanted," and that afterward "General Putnam came up and ordered the regiment to advance." Now truly this is not omitted, but it all appears on page 164 of the Siege of Boston among the things bearing in favor of General Putnam! Mr Swett however plies his ridicule here: but really I do not see the cause of it, without he designed it to rebuke me for the presumption of putting corn into his hopper. Up stream or down stream it seems to be all the same. Mr Swett's zeal for his hero has even a lover's jealousy. He frankly admits (p. 4,) that I treat General Putnam's character "with the utmost candor and kindness," but still to his mind, there is a heathenish heart in it,—for he says, it is done, "as animals destined for the altar are pampered, to be sacrificed at last." The renowned Mr Burchell would say fudge.

4. Mr Swett's remark on Dr J. Thatcher's statement,—a surgeon in the army—the first, I think, to make such a statement, is still worse. He says Thatcher is unequivocal in favor of Putnam's command, by placing him at the head of all the officers in the following words: "Generals Putnam, Warren, Pomeroy, and Colonel Prescott were emphatically the heroes of the day." And Mr Swett writes this, too, when Dr Thatcher goes on to say that "though several general officers were present, Colonel Prescott retained the command during the action"!! Comment on this is unnecessary.

It is not very surprising that Mr Swett, after such a sham review of the authorities bearing in favor of Colonel Prescott, should venture to write that "in the whole of them there is not a shadow of an excuse" for my conclusion, one half of which he actually quotes, but the other half he characteristically suppresses! Is it then possible that such authorities, the whole of them, do not supply even "a shadow of an excuse" for stating that "the original detachment was placed under the orders of Colonel Prescott, and that no general officer was authorized to command over him during the battle?" What! When, according to General Ward, a Massachusetts officer must have conducted the battle; when, according to Judge Tudor, there was no authorised general officer on the field; when Col. Scammans says no general officer commanded; when Martin, Gordon, Thatcher, and Prescott himself state explicitly that the original detachment was put under Col. Prescott's orders; when James Thatcher states that, though several general officers were present, Prescott retained the command during the action; when Peter Thatcher states that he commanded; when John Pitts states that no one but Prescott appeared to have any command; and when Judge Prescott states that he had orders in writing, and that no officer exercised or claimed any authority over him during the battle! When a writer confesses that evidences of this sort "come like shadows, so depart," all that need be said is, that the difficulty is not with them, it is not that they lack character, directness, or substance, but it is in the writer's mind, it is what metaphysicians term subjective—perhaps it is a "prepossession" that is "invincible"—and it therefore cannot be reached and removed.

In direct conflict with this conclusion, however, is the statement made first by Rev. Mr Whitney in 1790, as from conversations with General Putnam—"That the detachment was put under the command of General Putnam; with it he took possession of the hill, and ordered the battle from beginning to end;" or as Hon. John Lowell (1818) states it:—"If General Putnam is to be believed, he first proposed the taking possession of Bunker Hill, and was detached for the purpose of fortifying it, and Col. Prescott was placed under his orders;" or as Mr Swett (1818) states it—"General Putnam having the general superintendence of the expedition," accompanied the detachment; or (in 1850) he went to Breed's Hill, p. 23, "under the express agreement with General Ward that he was to do so, and to have the direction and superintendence of the whole expedition." The proof to sustain this consists, 1. Notices in diaries, letters, or newspapers, giving the earliest rumors of the action, as Stiles' Boyle's, S. Ward's, Jackson's, Clarke. None of these are dated later than June 1775. Or, 2. Matter commencing with Whitney's declaration, May, 1790, and supported in 1818, and afterwards, by the statements of the soldiers and others; as, Putnam, Grosvenor, Dexter, Bancroft, Cleaveland, Allen, Trevett, Dearborn, Thaxter, Keyes, Smith, and Low. The character of this sort of evidence has been sufficiently dwelt upon. It is granted that a specious argument may be framed out of it, either in favor of Prescott or of Putnam, and still a more specious one, I am sure, in favor of the position that there was no command in the action. A re-reading of this matter has only served to strengthen a conviction of its unsatisfactory nature, and that contemporary testimony, of a proper character, ought to determine the question. As to proof of this sort, it will only be remarked, that I have not met with a single statement, in manuscript or in print, to the effect that General Putnam commanded in the battle of Bunker Hill, between the dates of June, 1775 and May, 1790. Mr Swett does not produce any such statement. On the contrary, every contemporary allusion to his conduct in the battle, I could find, has been faithfully quoted. But the same allusions to Colonel Prescott, which also might be supported by soldiers' statements, are of the most positive character, and they state that the orders to occupy Bunker Hill were given to him, and that no general officer interfered with his command. In accounting for this conflict of testimony, in page