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Presents information on Captain Frederick William Augustus von Steuben, a veteran of the army of Frederick the Great. Date on which he was discharged from the Prussian army; Discussion of why French, German and polish helped in the fight for U.S. independence; Characteristics of the soldiers as observed by General George Washington.

Features Polish engineer Thaddeus Kosciuszko. Family background; Relations with the military; Role of Kosciuszko in the American Revolution.

The article discusses the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, in which the U.S. acquired much of the modern Midwestern U.S. from France. It examines the diplomats involved, including Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe for the U.S. and Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord and François Barbé-Marbois for France. The author also considers the French experiences in attempting to suppress the 1791-1804 revolution in Haiti, then known as St. Domingo, and comments on the roles of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson and French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

The article discusses the works and life of Governor Morris. Morris was one of the delegates that revised the Articles of Confederation in 1787. He moved to Philadelphia from New York after losing in the Continental Congress election. The article also discusses a biography of Morris published by Theodore Roosevelt that described his affairs, career as a statesman, his tenure in Paris and the discharge of his duties. INSET: SHELTER FROM THE STORM.

The article features Charles Francis Adams, United States ambassador in Great Britain, and Lord Richard Bickerton Pemell Lyons, Great Britain's ambassador to the United States during the Civil War. The two diplomats are regarded as ambassadors of peace during their time. They successfully prevented an open breach between London and Washington during the Civil War.

The article profiles Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin in the U.S. The device is an ingenious contraption for removing seeds from the cotton boll that has totally changed the whole pattern of American cotton production. It also includes background information on Whitney and how his invention may have made the Northern states' triumph in the American civil war inevitable.

The article presents discussion on two books. The books are: "The Seven Strings of the Lyre," by Elizabeth W. Schermerhorn and "George Sand: The Search for Love" by Marie Jenney Howe. The method adopted in these two books is approximately the same. Both authors leave novelist George Sand to tell her own story. In Howe's book paragraph after paragraph consists of writings from the hand of Sand. Schermerhorn goes even further. She has not allowed herself any external judgment or comment on this remarkable woman.

This article focuses on the books "The Letters of Tobias Smollett, M.D.," by Edward S. Noyes. Smollett is one of the few important authors of the eighteenth century who have not yet come into their own. No critical biography of him, exists and he has not even been admitted into the fellowship of the English Men of Letters series. The last letter in the book, an undated fragment, indicates what a delightful correspondent Smollett might have been if he had not been so overburdened with work. About half of the letters are written to Scotch doctors, for Smollett's circle was medical rather than literary and he always seems to have preferred the society of his own compatriots.