of the Commonwealths, was to present in detail the lives of wealthy and influential men who had borne a prominent part in the affairs of the various Pacific Coast states. For such notice they were charged from a thousand to ten thousand dollars according to the length of the published sketch. (This is according to the printed schedule, the minimum price being paid for three pages print, the maximum for thirty. This included also the printing of a portrait engraved on steel.) The attempt to burden the prestige gained by the histories and their projector with such a load could result only in crippling both. The volumes printed subsequent to the inauguration of this scheme could not be received with the same open-mindedness as former works. The information subsequently made public that money was accepted for notice in the Chronicles lost for Mr. Bancroft the regard of the press of the coast, caused grave doubts to be expressed concerning his disinterestedness as an historian, called out an expression of many bitter—in some cases utterly false—statements concerning his work, and sadly damaged the literary reputation he had been for nearly twenty years building on the work done under his direction.
While it was inevitable that the publication of the Chronicles as a parasite upon the history should result thus disastrously and deplorably for the fame of the latter work, we must not fail to recognize the fact that the labors of the writers upon both works were not a whit less conscientious and painstaking than they had always been. After the sixth and seventh volumes of the California history were completed in 1888, the volume on Washington, Idaho, and Montana was written. In 1890, the final volume on California was published, followed in the next year by the supplementary volumes, Essays and Literary Industries, which ended twenty years of library work for Hubert Howe Bancroft and his assistants.
