The Massachusetts Spy, And Worcester County Advertiser

From the N. Y. Evening Post.

Among the passengers in the Caledonia, from England, was Mr. Sparks, who, having completed his historical researches in Europe, has returned to this country after an absence of nearly a year and a half. He has been exceedingly fortunate in obtaining access to documents connected with the period of the American revolution, whether deposited in the public archives or in the possession of private persons. The utmost courtesy and liberality has been shown him by the public functionaries both in England and France, in submitting to his inspection and permitting him to copy the diplomatic and other papers in their keeping, as not wishing to keep back the truth of history, and as desirous of affording every facility to the labors of a learned and able man, who had no other object in view than that of giving a fair and impartial record of important events. The materials discovered by Mr. Sparks, in Paris, were, we understand, much more important than he expected to meet with. They throw great light, not only on our relations with the French government at that critical period of our history, but with the courts of the other European nations. They show, moreover, the beginning and progress of those negotiations, direct or indirect, by which a final settlement was effected between this country and Great Britain. On this point, we understand, the information they afford is particularly full and interesting. The confidential letters also of the French Ministers in this country to their own government, their accounts of passing events, of the state of public feeling in our country, of the characters of our public men, and the plans proposed and discussed by them at different stages of the war of the revolution, are exceedingly minute and valuable. The instructions of the British government to its officers here, and the military correspondence relating to the American campaigns, throw important light on the dispositions of their government towards the colonies, and on the operations and plans of the British armies. The whole mass of materials thus collected will set many events connected with our revolutionary struggle in a new point of view, and will enable Mr. Sparks to write its history with more authenticity and impartiality than has yet been done.

The posthumous papers of Gen. Washington, with historical and explanatory notes by Mr. Sparks, are to be published in London by Mr. Murray.