Haniiltivi : The Writings of James Monroe 369 of the Department of State. A few are derived from the George Clin- ton Papers at Albany. A much larger number are taken from the execu- tive letter-books in the office of the secretary of state of Virginia, being official letters of Monroe during his term of office as governor of that state, December 1799 to December 1802. The texts are in general good. We notice, p. 124, " Purriane's trip to London," for " Purviance's ;" p. 134, "rush Mr. A. (Adams) to an explanation," for "push;" p. 160, "Carolina," for "Caroline" (County, Virginia); p. 192, "whether the common law is in form under the Federal Constitution," for " in force ;" p. 354, " as " twice for " or." These are, under their respective circumstances, rather serious slips ; but they are not numerous. In the first part of the volume we have the last letters of Monroe to Secretary Pickering, and other papers relating to his first venture into the fields of diplomacy. To the present reviewer they seem to show slender abilities in diplomacy, and remarkable zeal in self-exculpation. Monroe was still highly self-conscious. Four years after his return, writing to one who had been his friend in Paris, he says (p. 265) : " I can never look back on what occurred during a certain portion of my life without having my feelings peculiarly excited." The reader who hoped that the correspondence with Jefferson and Madison in the volume would cast in- teresting and important lights on the development of the Republican party in Virginia and the stirring events of 1798 will be disappointed. Throughout that year Monroe was still too full of his own grievances to pay much attention to those things. At the end of the next year he was elected governor of his native state, and half the present volume is de- voted to the letters which he wrote while he held that office. The most interesting event of his three-years' term was the servile outbreak known as Gabriel's Insurrection, the history of which is fully illustrated by these pages. It caused a serious effort on the part of the Virginian legislature and executive toward mitigating the dangers arising from so numerous a negro population by deporting a part of the surplus, and especially the most dangerous portion. In accordance with a legislative resolution, ap- plication was made to the President of the United States, with a sugges- tion that western lands might be ceded for the purpose. This proving open to objections readily occurring to Mr. Jefferson, he suggested, among other expedients, arrangements with the British government for deportation to Sierra Leone. This correspondence, some of which has already been printed in Kennedy's t^^/c/-/ on colonization, led indirectly, through the efforts of Gen. Charles Fenton Mercer in 181 6, to the foun- dation of the American Colonization Society. Other matters of interest are : letters respecting Callender, and Jef- ferson's relations to him ; letters regarding the Virginian armory ; a letter to Genet, written in 1800, in which Monroe says, "I considered it my duty not to injure your fame or detract from your merit while I was in France," etc.; and letters showing the anxiety of the executive of Vir- ginia, and the precautionary measures taken by him, during the uncer- tainty as to the election of Jefferson at the federal capitol. That town,
