Letter from George Bancroft to George Washington Greene

New York June 11, 1865 My dear Mr Greene, I received with great interest & pleasure your very able & instructive contribution to our revolutionary history. The style is clear & vigorous, & the effect of the work is likely to be excellent. You bid me notice things from which I dissent. In the case of the trial for the Boston Massacre, there was no wish for a judicial [surrender ?] & no danger, the people insisted that the [Oath in it ?]

make him fear any action in his other one, that might by any possibility be thought favorable to the party of Hutchinson So too, in speaking of Hamilton, I regret that a volume [of such ? ] as yours should assign or seem to assign Washington's merits to Hamilton. The letters which H. as W.'s secretary wrote for him are in every sense but that of the handwriting & proper act of a secretary Washington's own. Never did a public man so completely supervise all his acts and writings as Washington. You cannot tell whom he consults or advises from what he wrote. His own mind preceeds his acts and his writings. The mark of

it would be brought to trial: the town of Boston wished them to have a fair trial & every opportunity of defence. The pretence that it was self-sacrificing virtue in J. Adams & Quincy to [ assume, assure ?] the defence of the accused against the passions of the people is pure fiction, created by that family vanity which has so much marred our history. There is not a shadow of evidence for the supposition & a [ ? ] it the other way. We fear it is [work ?] of Quincy; further grew out of his having me in a story of a bad type; which

statement of what H. writ over the signature of W is revolting to my sense of fairness, & I am sure it must be to yours. Yet your word might be used to favor it. If I did think very highly of your volume, I should not have said what I have. Your merit makes your opinion important. I hope we are soon to see the correspondence of Greene. I remain my dear W Greene Very truly yours obliged Geo Bancroft P. S. I expect to go to Newport tomorrow.