59/88 In some respects the work is historically untrustworthy since internal evidence makes clear that the greater part of it was written before 1846, in which year Grattan retired from his post in Boston. In general he wrote scathingly of America, and as his son succeeded to the Boston consulship, Grattan probably thought it wiser to postpone publication. I have found no review of the work which treats it otherwise than as an up-to-date description of 1859. This fact and its wide sale in England in 1860-61, give the work importance as influencing British knowledge and opinions.] [Footnote 33: Charles Mackay, _Life and Liberty in America: or, Sketches of a Tour in the United States and Canada in 1857-8_, one vol., New York, 1859, pp. |