the people into buying the "Americanized Britannica," perhaps they will then try them with a "Christianized Britannica."

A POISONED FOUNTAIN.

If, in what I have written, I have but partially removed the film that has hidden from the intellectual vision of any Britannica worshiper the defects and monstrosities of his literary fetish, I have done him a service. He should be informed of them, and he should keep these papers as, in some sort, a refutation of its falsities and an antidote for its teaching. Especially should every Southern and Christian parent know that, in sending his children to it for information about their native land and the religion of their fathers, he is sending them to a poisoned fountain.

[From The Montgomery Advertiser, March 22, 1891.]

THE LEES OF VIRGINIA.

"LIGHT HORSE HARRY' OF THE REVOLUTION AND HIS

IMMORTAL SON.

There was no Relationship Between Them and the General Lee of the Revolution-Something More About General Charles Lee-History for Northern Writers and Readers.

To the Editor of the Advertiser:

In the Advertiser of the 17th inst., you refer to an article going the rounds of the Northern papers headed, "General Lee, of the Revolution-A new discovered manuscript which places him in a bad lightHe had a contempt for Washington." Commenting on this you say that the Northern papers publishing the article do not once indicate that there were two Lees who were distinguished officers in the American army during the Revolution-one, General Charles Lee, an Englishman by birth, and an adventurer and a soldier of fortune by profession; the other, Henry Lee, a Virginian by birth, the commander of Lee's legion, the "Light-Horse Harry" of the Revolution, the beloved of Washington, and the father of the immortal Robert E. Lee. He it was, as you correctly

say, who first called Washington "the man first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."

I am not surprised at the Northern papers not publishing the fact that the Lee referred to in that article was not the father of Robert E. Lee was not a Virginian-but was Charles Lee, the Englishman. It was this same Gen. Charles Lee who was wounded in a duel by Col. John Laurens of South Carolina, who challenged Lee for language disrespectful to Washington. He was court-martialed and suspended from command for disobedience of orders, misbehavior before the enemy, and disrespect of the commanderin-chief; and was subsequently dismissed from the service for writing an impertinent letter to Congress. Documentary evidence discovered nearly a hundred years afterwards shows that he plotted treason against the American cause. He was the second officer in command in the Revolutionary army, ranking next to Washington. He had high talent and literary culture, but was extremely eccentric, irascible, vain and boastful. His inordinate vanity and thirst for distinction led him to try to create the impression that he was the author of the "Letters of Junius," and he therefore figures in the literature on that subject as one of the many to whom the authorship of those celebrated letters has been attributed, for there were some who, for a time, believed that he really did write them. Investigation showed that there was nothing to sustain

the claim for him. The facts disclosed wholly disproved it.

THE USUAL NORTHERNER'S APPALLING IGNORANCE OF

AMERICAN HISTORY.

There was no relationship between Gen. Charles Lee and the illustrious Virginia family of the same name. I don't suppose that the facts are known to the Northern editors who are publishing the article in question. No doubt they suppose that the General Lee to whom it refers was the Virginian, and the father of Robert E. Lee, notwithstanding the fact that Henry Lee's rank in the Revolution was that of Lieutenant-Colonel, and not General. He did not bear the title of General till he was appointed by President Washington to command the army sent to quell the "Whisky Insurrection" in Pennsylvania, some years after the Revolution. I do not doubt that the Northern editors are wholly unaware of these facts. The density of the usual Northerner's ignorance of the history of his country is something appalling.1

1. Especially does this ignorance exist with regard to almost everything South of Mason's and Dixon's line. In the early part of last year (1902), a magazine article by a Northern college professor referred to Charleston as the present capital of South Carolina, and a Northern man, in whose company I chanced to be thrown for a time-a college man, of much more than average intelligence and culture-did not know that the Constitution of the United States contained a provision for the rendition of fugitive slaves; neither was he aware of the fact that Gen. U. S. Grant was a slaveholder, living on the hire of his slaves when the war between the States begun. He was a great admirer of Walt Whitman, but of the exquisite poetry of Wilde, and Timrod, Ticknor, Lanier and Hayne, he knew nothing. Indeed, I think he did not know that such men had ever existed.

"GATH" AND THE BOSTON EDITOR.

A few years ago the most noted of Northern newspaper writers-Mr. George Alfred Townsend, commonly known as "Gath"-in an elaborate historical paper (so-called) in the Boston Globe, said that it was largly through the influence of the writings comprised in the book called "The Federalist" that the convention was called that framed the Constitution of the United States! And the Boston editor called the special attention of his readers to the exceptional historical value of Mr. Townsend's paper, and announced that it was to be published in book form for the instruction of the New England youths in the history of their country! Think of such ignorance as that, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, and in Boston!

And it is only a few months since this same noted writer, "Gath," in another historical article (socalled), said that "the two principal writers of the essays called “The Federalist" were John Jay and Alexander Hamilton! And yet there are thousands of people who read almost daily "Gath's" two, three and four column letters, and think, like the Boston editor, that they are getting history in doing it.1

1. Just as they will think when they read in Schouler's History of the United States that Governor George W. Crawford, of Georgia, was a son of William H. Crawford, United States Minister to France and Secretary of the Treasury in President Monroe's cabinet; and (in the same History) that O'Hara's "Bivouac of the Dead" was written after the war between the States; and as they think when they read some of Mr. Chauncey M. Depew's remarkable contributions to literature in a historical way, such, for instance, as the statement that "every statesman whose name has survived the century" (that is, the 18th century) "was for the Jay treaty."