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588 Reviezvs of Books matic service. The narrative is enlivened by incident, anecdote, and character sketch, but it may be questioned whether the author has not sinned in this respect. Surely such subjects as Jefferson's relations with Freneau, Clay's duel with John Randolph, and President Jackson's efforts to make good the social standing of Mrs. Eaton, might have been dismissed with a word, if indeed the author deemed it necessary to in- troduce them at all. It may be further questioned whether it is wise to recall at such length the bickerings and mutual suspicions that marred the relations of Franklin, Adams, and Jay during their residence at Paris while negotiating the treaty of 1783. The judicious temper which the author maintains in his judgments of foreign nations is unfortunately abandoned in some of his estimates of his own countrymen. His antipathy to Jefferson is especially notice- able. The chapter on Jefferson's administration is devoted largely to the Louisiana purchase and to difficulties with the diplomatic corps aris- ing out of the extreme simplicity of the official and social customs in- troduced by him, but in the chapter on the administrations of Washing- ton and Adams there is a truly remarkable array of quotations reflecting upon Jefferson which apparently have nothing else to commend them to our attention. The administration of the State Department by Mr. Marcy, who re- ceives scant justice at the hands of some historians, is placed in its true light. The author points out what has been frequently overlooked, that the " Ostend Manifesto," which was the work of Mr. Soule, was repudi- ated by Marcy, and as a result Soule's resignation was offered and ac- cepted. The chapter on the diplomacy of the Civil AVar, when our re- lations with England were in so delicate a position, is probably the most interesting as well as the best written. Of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty Mr. Foster says : " The treaty marks the most serious mistake in our diplomatic history, and is the single in- stance, since its announcement in 1823, of a tacit disavowal or disregard of the Monroe Doctrine, by the admission of Great Britain to an equal participation in the protection and control of a great American enter- prise. ' ' In this connection the author takes great liberties with the views of Dr. Francis Wharton. On page 458 he quotes from the Digest a passage too long to reproduce here, which, detached from its surround- ings, seems to substantiate the opinion just cited. As a matter of fact Wharton held just the opposite view, and in immediate connection with the passage quoted by Mr. Foster refers to the section where that view may be found. On page 243 of Vol. II. Wharton has this to say of the neutralization of the canal as provided for in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty : " Such an international agreement, entered into by all the great powers, would not be in conflict with the Monroe doctrine in the sense above given. For an agreement that no powers whatever should be permitted to invade the neutrality of an Isthmus route, but that it should be abso- lutely neutralized so as to protect it from all foreign assailants by whom its freedom should be imperiled, is an application, not a contravention,