Note 65 — GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

The liability of the best historians to fail into error, is illustrated by Paley, who shows the serious blunders in the accounts of the Marquis of Argyle's death, in the reign of Charles II: "Lord Clarendon relates that he was condemned to be hanged, which was performed the same day; on the contrary, Burnet, Woodrow, Heath, Echard concur in stating that he was beheaded, and that he was condemned upon Saturday and executed on Monday."—Evidences of Christianity, part iii, chap. i. So Mr. Bancroft found it impossible to give with any accuracy the location of the French colony of St. Savion, established on the coast of Maine, by Saussaye, in 1613. Bancroft tells us that it was on the north bank of the Penobscot, while it is perfectly well known that it was located on the island of Mount Desert, a long way off in the Atlantic Ocean.