On finishing the last volume I purposed to write and thank you for the pleasure you had given me through your books, but the fall term of the University opening about that time I was very busy and so did not write. But now I wish to thank you for a very pleasant summer, for the enjoyment and instruction I received from your excellent books. New light has been thrown on France and her relations to the other powers of Europe, especially to England. Napoleon becomes, to me at least, a new man in your hands. Your “Thomas Jefferson” is a much needed antidote to much of the history that has been written and gives a clear view of the man and his times. Especially would I thank you for your statements with reference to the formation of the Constitution of the United States, also for your explanation of the “Genet Affair.” In one or two allusions that you make to affairs out here, you have evidently been misled by the newspapers. In your “Napoleon,” page 215, you say: “In the year 1900 Russians, Germans and other Christians invaded China to punish the heathen for barbarities practiced upon Christian missionaries.” I don’t think that you state correctly the real object of this invasion of China. The missionary’s part in this Boxer affair was to suffer. Not only were many murdered, but both those who were murdered and those who escaped were made the “scape goats” in the eyes of the world. I enclose a slip that recently appeared in one of the Shanghai papers that gives the true genesis of this Boxer trouble. The armies of the different nations did not “invade China to punish the heathen for barbarities practiced on Christian missionaries,” but they came to rescue their respective ministers, who by their blundering policy had gotten themselves shut up in Peking. If these officials had not been in Peking the armies would never have come. I don’t know of any Government that cares quite that much for a missionary, though they all seem quite ready to use a murdered missionary to advance their land-grabbing schemes. Again on page 218 you mention that Admiral Seymour ordered his wounded killed, etc. This was published in the papers at the time, but there never was any truth in it. It was simply one of the many horrid stories that went out from Shanghai during those dark days—manufactured in Shanghai. And now, Mr. Watson, I trust that you will pardon me for inflicting you with this, but I felt that I ought to write and thank you for those books. I trust your pen will not rest. I sincerely wish that you would do for Germany or for Italy what you have done for France. * * * * * _W. E. Brown, Gainesville, Fla._