to which his long continuance in the consular service had added a habit of accuracy, and a capacity for hard work. The fifth volume of the History of Mexico, embracing the history of that country from 1824 to 1861, and the third volume of the Central American history which threads out the tangled skein of the history of the five little republics in the nineteenth century, serve as examples of the vast amount of detail which his writing covered, to say nothing of his labors in collecting and extracting an overwhelming mass of material on Spanish American history. All agree that he was a polished and sound man.
In the writers of smaller parts of the history, we find that the qualifications and fitness for the individual field of writing were no less than in those who prepared more manuscript. Peatfield's connection with the British consular service bespeaks his reliability and capability; Bates' occupancy of a responsible position under a prominent English educator, and the high regard in which his work was held by Hittell bear witness that he was competent to write history; and Petroff's standing as a scholar in his own country, together with his thorough acquaintance with Alaska, vouch for the character of his work.
While the Bancroft corps of writers were not infallible, they were a class of persons in whose integrity and accuracy we may have as great confidence as in the average historian. We can only regret that we can not point out all parts of the work done by each, and that we can not show in detail the extent of Mr. Bancroft's editorial alterations of their work. This latter feature, inherent in the Bancroft plan of writing history, is its greatest weakness, since it of necessity involves some uncertainty as to whether the words we are reading are those of the author who wrote the volume, or the interpretation of Mr. Bancroft. A comparative study of the style of what
