INTERNET-ON-A-DISK #50, March 2002

The newsletter of electronic texts and Internet trends.

Send your comments, letters to the editor, and related articles to seltzer@samizdat.com For information on who we are check www.samizdat.com/who.html

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Articles:

• Google's weakness and AltaVista's strength
• Coping with income tax and financial aid in 2002
• Building a store at Yahoo
• To palm or not to palm? coping with ebook format mania
• How to make money on the Web -- hypothetical example from the car rental business
• The Serge Solovieff mystery -- a WWI variant of the Spanish Prisoner scam
• Mercy Warren: Conscience of the American Revolution -- Review of her book "The Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution"
• Movie Endings -- what works and when?

Google's weakness and AltaVista's strength

Feedback welcome. Please send your responses to seltzer@samizdat.com

Thanks to that complex and brilliant system, over time, the best pages often rise to the top of search lists. But that takes time -- a lot of time.

It works great for old established sites to which many other old established
sites have linked. (It works great for my site :-) www.samizdat.com ). But new sites, regardless of the quality of their content, get short shrift.
It takes 2-3 months for the new pages to get into the Google index. Then it
takes time -- perhaps years -- for other "important" sites to discover the
new site and link to it; and then months more for the new versions of those
pages with those new links to get into the Google index.

So if I'm looking for content that is likely to have been on the Internet for a year or more, Google is great. But if I'm looking for fresh content, I'll go elsewhere.

For me, for years "elsewhere" meant AltaVista -- for two reasons. AltaVista used to add new pages to its index, for free, within two days of submission, while other search engines typically took weeks or even months. That meant they had the freshest content. In addition, AltaVista provided you with a set of very precise commands that couldn't be matched anywhere else.

Over the last year, as AltaVista has struggled to become profitable, they have destroyed their beautiful free submission process, trying to force Web sites to pay for submission. Free submissions (which typically come from the kinds of content-rich sites that I'm interested in) now seem to take three months or more -- no better than the other search engines and often worse.

Fortunately, the powerful commands remain -- for instance, the ability to exclude as well as include terms in your query. They let you use minus signs and plus signs to indicate what you really don't want and what you do want. And for some specialized searches the exclusion is essential.

For instance, say you want to know what Web pages outside of your own site have links to your pages. At Google, I can do a search for
link:samizdat.com
or get the same results by going to their "Advanced" search and using their "page specific search" to find pages that link to a particular page. But my results are then littered with pages from my own site -- information I don't need and don't want.
At AltaVista, I can search for
+link:samizdat.com -host:samizdat.com
and get exactly what I want -- finding out who thinks enough of my pages to have linked to me without my having contacted them: a valuable list of well-wishers and potential partners.

Similarly, Google lets me restrict a search to a particular Web site. For instance, if I include in my query the term
site:samizdat.com
or in Advanced search under Domains I choose to restrict the search to that domain, yes I get results only from that site. But to use that command, I need to have addition query terms. site:samizdat.com alone generates no results.

At AltaVista, however, I can search for
host:samizdat.com
and get a complete list of all the pages at my site that are in the AltaVista index. Or I can search for
url:samizdat.com/isyn
and get a list of all the pages in that directory at my site are in the AltaVista index.
Or I can search for
url:samizdat.com/consult.html
to see if that particular page is in the index.

In other words, AltaVista provides a higher level of precision and the ability to get information that is particularly valuable to people in charge of Web sites and Web-based marketing projects.  And if they'd just fix their free submission process and provide the service they used to, they'd kick Google's ass for searches for current information.

PS -- The folks at Google are very proud that their system defies human tampering. In fact, what they've done is encourage the development of bizarre business models structured to take advantage of their link-based ranking system. For instance, Webseed Publishing now has over 1000 sites, all with different domain names. These content-rich sites are each run by different dedicated individuals. (I'm one of them :-) In many cases, the content deserves high rankings for its quality. You might wonder why the umbrella business for all these sites bothers to maintain over a thousand different domain names, when it would be far simpler and cheaper to have them as directories under a single domain. But because the domains are different, the many thousands of links these sites have to one another all count toward the automated calculation of their popularity and quality at Google, giving them all a boost in the rankings and hence bringing Webseed more traffic and hence more revenue.

PPS -- AltaVista appears to be making a comeback. Six years ago, when I was in the Internet Business Group at Digital and Digital owned AltaVista, about a third of the traffic to my Web site came by way of AltaVista. Whenever AltaVista had a glitch, I saw it immediately in my traffic stats. In fact, I sometimes was able to alert the engineers at AltaVista about problems before they had noticed them themselves. Over the years, due to increased competition from other search engines and also due to the business folks at AltaVista making bad decisions and jettisoning great capabilities/services (like 2-day free submissions, their affiliate program, LiveTopics, and newsgroup search), the number of people finding my pages by way of AltaVista plummeted. By January 2002, only 1% of my traffic was coming by way of AltaVista, despite the fact that as a long-standing fan and also as co-author of the book The AltaVista Search Revolution, I had lots of information about AltaVista at my site. I was actually getting twice as much traffic from the International Atomic Energy Agency (part of the UN), when I had no information at all related to atomic energy. But in recent weeks the traffic from AltaVista has climbed sharply. It now amounts to 6% of my total. I wish I knew why that was happening. In any case, I hope that trend continues.

Coping with income tax and financial aid in 2002

With a kid in college, I have to complete my taxes a month and a half before the IRS deadline to be able submit my financial aid application in time. This year, my deadline was March 1, and I was scrambling right up to midnight. Thank God for the Internet or I would have never made it.

When doing my taxes in previous years, I frequently depended on the IRS Web site at www.irs.gov for easy access to all their forms in printable format. And the last two years, I've used TurboTax software (from Intuit) and submitted my returns electronically.

Now I find that I totally depend on TurboTax. Because I run my own little business, I have to fill out Form C, for which the tax rules seem designed to force you to hire an accountant. Fortunately, TurboTax prompts you with all the relevant possibilities, such as how to get the largest allowable deduction for your home office, and how to handle purchases that can't be counted as a straight expense (like furniture and computers and software) and calculates the amortization or depreciation, and then remembers from one year to the next how you stand on those.

Also, in case of emergency, Intuit/TurboTax now offers Live Tax Advice over the Internet. Yes, it's just a  list of tax advisors and they all charge fees, but that's better than trying to get an appointment at the local H&R Block office, when everybody's in crunch mode.

This time around, I was saved repeatedly by access to online data about my accounts. Yes, I save every ridiculous piece of paper related to my business-related expenses. And yes, I spend hours sorting through all that paper and entering it in a paper ledger. And yes, I also use Quicken to enter all my checks and all my credit card purchases. But, somehow, "all" is never really "all". No matter how obsessive I force myself to be, when it comes time to do the final calculations and enter the numbers in TurboTax, inevitably some key pieces of paper are missing. This year, I was able to find and print out all the missing data online in a matter of a few minutes. I felt like I'd won the lottery.

For instance, my bank, the Digital Credit Union, like many other banks, now makes lots of information available over the Web.  I can see a complete record of my transactions over any range of dates (up through the beginning of 2001), and can search through all those entries. I had lost a monthly statement and was behind on balancing my check book; but quickly retrieved the missing information and hence was able to finish my balancing. Where I couldn't read my own scribble in my check register, I could see images of any or all of my cancelled checks online. While I was missing a copy of one of my real estate tax bills, my bank had a record of all the tax payments; and, of course, had real estate mortgage interest paid, and all bank interest received.

Trying to sort out some purchases that I had made by credit card (and decipher badly printed/smudged receipts), I was flabbergasted to discover that I was missing a key credit card bill from Universal. Then I checked the small print on a bill for another month form the same company and discovered that they had a Web site. A few minutes later, I was printing out all the info from that missing bill.

I buy lots of stuff at Amazon -- from books to computer peripherals to software. I had credit card records of all the purchases, but no record of the details of some of those purchases, so I couldn't really tell what was business-related and what wasn't. So I went to Amazon, opened my account page, and quickly saw a detailed record of each and every purchase I have ever made there.

Then for the submission of financial aid information, I didn't need to fill out paper forms and race to the post office. Rather, I could go to the Web site http://www.fafsa.ed.gov and fill out the most hellish document I've ever encountered -- the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Yes, they had had a site up last year, but at that time it was so incredibly slow and awkward that it took hours to complete and you ended up wishing you had done it on paper. This time around everything went smoothly (knock on wood).

So, thanks to online record-keeping and record-retrieving of this kind, I probably saved a day or two hunting for the missing pieces of paper; and a week or two if I had had to request replacement info by phone and get it by snailmail. And the online submission of tax forms and financial aid forms means I don't have to depend on snailmail, certified, with return receipt requested to know that my forms have been received and to prove that I officially met the deadline requirements.

Long term, my experience this year leads me to believe that eventually nearly all my account information will be available over the Web. When that happens, I won't need to save all these crazy scraps of paper, and won't have to spend hours sorting through them, and trying to make sense out of their smudged print.

Of course, better still will be the day when the graduated income tax is repealed or replaced with a low and reasonable flat tax :-) .

Building a store at Yahoo

Friday, I started building a store. Monday, it opened for business at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat

Yes, I had known for years that Yahoo, Amazon, and others offered low-cost online stores. But 1) I was confused by their marketing information, unclear on how much it really cost and how it worked and 2) I didn't have enough merchandise to sell to make it worthwhile.

Now I've built a business selling books on CD ROM. I was getting orders by email and by phone, but I strongly suspected that I was losing some prospective buyers because of the extra step of picking up the phone or getting off the Web to email. So not only did I have stuff to sell, but I also had the incentive it would take to sort out the not-so-clear instructions and invest the time to actually build the store.

I already sell my stuff at Amazon, through their consignment program (Amazon Advantage). That means that my stuff show up as "available within 24 hours" whenever anyone searches for it in their catalog. Hence, if I built a Zshop at Amazon, I would be reaching the same audience I do already, and I would be competing against myself.

So I decided to build at Yahoo, where their cross-searchable mall would theoretically give me access to a new set of customers.

At first I couldn't figure out 1) how do you know who ordered what so you can quickly fulfill? 2) how does the credit card stuff work? 3) what am I really going to end up paying for this? The online help didn't help much, and I couldn't find a way to get a human response to my questions.

Fortunately, they offered a 10-day free trial; so I plunged ahead.

It turns out that once you have signed up, you get access to a Store Manager Web page from which you can easily get a wealth of information: not just the specifics on any order, but also detailed statistics, including: page views, click-through paths, and referrers (where people came from to get to your store).

The online information about merchant credit card accounts was very misleading. It gave the impression that either you had to sign up for a new account with Paymentech or, if you had an existing merchant account, it had to be with a company running a particular software program. I've had a merchant account for about 10 years and have one of those old but reliable Verifone gadgets for inputting orders. My provider told me that to connect directly to Yahoo (so the credit card information would be processed online), I'd need to open a second account with them. That would involve a setup fee of $395 and a monthly fee (in addition to the percent of the revenue from each sale they take). For a small operation like mine, that made no sense. I was tempted to dump my old service and go with Paymentech which charges a monthly service fee of $22.95, plus $0.20 cents per transaction, plus a percentage of each sale that depends on the type of credit card. But that would make it awkward for me to deal with orders that continue to come in by phone and email and snailmail.

Eventually, I deciphered that there was no need to do the credit card transactions automatically online. I could input the credit card info by hand into my old Verifone device. And for the low volumes that I deal with, that wouldn't be too much hassle. But, at first, I got the impression that the only way I could receive the necessary credit card info about the orders that had come in was by encrypted email. To read such email I'd need to buy and learn how to use a program from PGP. Then I finally figured out that I could also get that info from my Store Manager page -- the encrypted email was optional.

So what do I end up paying for this new store of mine?

• $49.95 Hosting Fee
• $0.10 Product Insertion Fee -  charged per product per calendar month
• 0.5% Transaction Fee - applied to every Yahoo! Store transaction.
• Yahoo! Network 3.5% Revenue Share - applied to all transactions that originate from anywhere on the Yahoo! Network

It takes 3-5 days from the opening of a store for its product info to get into the Yahoo shopping index. Keep in mind that the Yahoo shopping index will not include full text of all your pages, but rather just includes your product names, the first couple lines of each product description, and keywords. Be very careful in writing these. As a default, Yahoo puts the same keywords on all of your product pages. You should put different keywords on each page. To do that, use the "Regular" editor from your Store Manager page. Go to the page you want to change. Click on Edit. Then at the top of the Edit screen, click on Override Variable. Enter your words in the box labelled Keywords. Then click Update.

Under Promote on your Store Manager Page, click on Search Engines, and change all the default selections to "Every Page". Yahoo automatically submits your pages half a dozen important search engines. You want to get the most out of that service. Also, on that Search Engine page, under Export Store Contents, select Enable, so the shopbots can fetch info about your products and prices for inclusion in the databases of comparison shopping sites.

Having done all that, I still wasn't seeing any traffic coming by way of Yahoo's shopping mall. So I sent email to the customer support folks and learned that you have to jump through an extra hoop to get Books, Music, Video, Computers, Electronics, or Videogames into the Yahoo Shopping Network. (I'm surprised that they don't tell you this upfront and provide clear, simple, step-by-step instructions as they do for everything else). Go to http://shopping.yahoo.com/merchant/specifications/products.html for the details. Create an Excel file. Across the top, enter the appropriate category names for your kind of products (as indicated in that document). For books, I entered category, name, code, price, availability, isbn, medium, and creator. Then I filled in the data, one line per product in the appropriate columns. The category was "Book". The name was the title of the book. The code was the same as the ISBN (International Standard Book Number, issued by R.R. Bowker, at exorbitant cost -- a unique number for every variation of the product). The availability was how long customers could expect it would take for us to ship the product (just a numeral, indicating the number of days).   ISBN -- just repeat it. The medium was paperback or hardcover or (in my case) CD. The creator was the author. Then save the file as file type .csv and name it data.csv. Then (for instance, from Windows Explorer) change the file name to just data (with no extension). Then follow the instructions for connecting to the Yahoo store ftp site and uploading your data file to the right directory. This was all far easier than it sounds. The .csv format just means "comma separated values". It's just a string of data with a comma (and no space) between each value. Instead of using Excel, you could just create the file in a word processor and save it as text, so long as you followed that format (paying close attention to the examples Yahoo provides), being sure to include a value for each of the category names for each of your products. Having done this, by the next morning my products appeared just as they should in searches as shopping.yahoo.com.

Now all I need is customers. Please come take a look and buy at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat

PS -- The day after the store opened, I got my first order, from someone who had ordered by phone from me before. This person is legally blind uses a text-to-voice conversion device. He says, "The catalog listing and the order form are as clear as any I have used in the past.... All information requested is clearly furnished."

To palm or not to palm? How to market ebooks: coping with format mania

I've been experimenting with publishing books on CD ROM -- using plain text for the books themselves and an HTML index; so you can open up the index in your browser or word processor and click to get to whatever book you want. Hundreds of books can fit on a single CD. The text files can easily be opened by a wide variety of programs. Without any encryption, you can copy files onto your hard drive for convenience, or make an archival copy of the CD, as backup in case of damage to the original.

If you just want to read and if you have a large screen, use your browser and under View increase the type size to meet your taste. If you just want to read and you have a small screen, try using WordPad or Word.

If you want to take notes while you read, first save the file on your hard drive, then open it in WordPad or Word, enter your notes with the text (making them distinctive with bold or italic or by enclosing them in brackets] as you go along), and save the entire file, with those changes, when you are done.

Once you are reading a book, you can use the Find function in your browser or word processor to quickly find any word or phrase in that book. When you stop reading, you can jot down the last phrase (a unique set of words) so you can search for that the next time you want to read and easily find the spot where you left off.

Because I can make the type whatever size I please, I can read these books without glasses and I read them about 50% faster  than traditional print books.

So this approach to publishing makes books inexpensive and easy to read. It also enables the publisher to avoid having to deal with the costs and hassles of inventory -- you just make new copies when new orders come in.

Seems like a natural. But there's very little market for such books today; and mainstream publishers aren't paying any attention to opportunities of this kind. Rather, they are worrying over new encryption and display systems and gadgets designed for doing nothing but reading books. They put lots of energy into formatting and reformatting their texts time and again for different platforms, rather than focusing on creating new books and marketing the ones that they have.

Last week, I, too, got tempted by the proliferation of ebook formats. I had recently -- insanely -- typed in all 1300 pages of Mercy Warren's little-known history of the American Revolution. It was written shortly after the war and first published in 1805, and was only available in the old typography, with s's that look like f's and other peculiarities that make it very difficult for a modern eye to read, and impossible to scan automatically. I thought the book was worthwhile and should be read, so I entered it by hand, modernizing the spelling and punctuation and making other minor changes for readability. I posted the whole thing on my Web site, for free, and also made it available for sale on a CD ROM. Much to my surprise, a fan of Mercy Warren's contacted me and offered, for free, to convert the text to formats for palm devices as well as for Microsoft's PocketPC. The next thing I knew, I was playing with formats that I had never heard of before and experimenting with ebook markets that I had never known existed.

In just a couple hours, my new-found friend, Christopher Coulter, provided me with a zip file that included the full 1300-page book in Palm Document Database (.pdb), TomeRaider (.tr), and Microsoft Reader (.lit) formats. I have a Palm V (which I hadn't used in over a year); so I immediately fetched Palm Reader software from www.palm.com and checked how it looked when divided into 4042 tiny pages. Then I downloaded the free Microsoft Reader from Microsoft and saw in simulation mode on my PC what the PocketPC version would look like -- very very slick, on a big screen, but still nowhere near as good as plain text on a CD.

Next, at Christopher's suggestion, I checked out two major PDA sites -- www.palmgear.com and www.handango.com. Within a couple of hours, I had listed palm and PocketPC versions of Mercy Warren's book for sale for $5 at both those sites. Customers buy through the PalmGear and Handango stores (with the usual shopping cart mechanism) and then immediately download the files that they have bought. PalmGear and Handango take a cut of every sale, but beyond listing your items, you don't have to do anything. It looks like a great idea. And there are some pieces of software and even ebooks that seem to be doing quite well at both sites. (They show how many downloads there have been of each item to date.)

Then I remembered that another friend, David Gilford, had converted my book The Lizard of Oz to another format -- iSilo -- which is readable on a palm device. So I submitted that to PalmGear and Handango as well -- also with a $5 price.

In the first week, I made only one sale. If and when sales pick up, I'll be tempted to learn about more ebook formats, and download the necessary software and figure out how to do the conversions myself.

In the meantime, I'm going to relax and continue reading the Memoirs of Casanova on my World Literature CD ROM.

How to make money on the Web -- hypothetical example from the car rental business

An MBA student recently asked: How does the Internet work and how can it make money (increase profits/marketshare) for your business?  In particular, he was interested in the hypothetical case of a car rental company doing business in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

The broad question seems to imply the technical nuts and bolts behind the Internet. What's more important for business is how the Internet business environment works. The Internet is a way for people to connect to people, for businesses to connect to other businesses, and people to connect to businesses. It enables new kinds of personal and business relationships. Often the new relationships are far more important than revenue that can be directly traced to online activity.

In traditional terms, the Internet can be used for:

• marketing
• public relations
• direct sales
• customer service
• supply chain activities (where you link up online with your suppliers, and also where your customers include you in their online supply chain)

Also, remember that the Internet has no physical boundaries. Yes, you run into the traditional differences of currency, laws, regulations, and national/ethnic customs that relate to national boundaries, but your information can flow freely and at no incremental cost to anywhere in the world.

The example of a car rental company provides good opportunities for creativity -- coming up with new ideas that take full advantage of Internet capabilities.

First, remember that the Internet is a business environment. Once you start to do business there, you can and should take advantage of all the related businesses and capabilities that are already out there. Partner like crazy.

For instance, car rental businesses have natural affinities with airlines (most pickup and dropoff points are at airports), hotels, restaurants, entertainment, vacation resorts, and business resources commonly used by business travelers (e.g., Kinkos). And since they eventually sell their vehicles as used, they are in the used car sales business.

See if you can partner with and/or advertise at map sites like Mapquest, so when someone gets driving directions in the Tri-State area they immediately get an email or a popup Web page that tells them how much it would cost to rent a car for that trip and where they could pick up and drop off the car.

Likewise, partner and/or advertise with airline-related sites like Travelocity to provide car rental info whenever anyone plans a flight to the Tri-State area.

Check the chapters in my Online shopping book about cars and about travel. They are online at http://www.samizdat.com/shopcars.html and http://www.samizdat.com/shoptrav.html

Consider offering "frequent renter" credits, like frequent flier miles and partnering with airlines so travels could use their airline miles for credits toward car rentals and their car rental points toward airfare and also toward credits at hotels and even restaurants.

Consider partnering with resort area hotels (your business is situated in the Tri-State area, with lots of ski resorts and summer resorts) to offer vacation packages that include car rentals.

Make it easy for people to see their credit/miles online and to understand what they can turn them in for.

Also consider online matching systems to come up with new ways of matching renters with particular vehicles -- to maximize the use of the vehicles in your inventory plus the satisfaction of the customers. (NB -- I belong to an online chess club that has a very simple but slick way of matching players with one another that might be adaptable to this environment).

You could come up with business models that have never been tried before in the car rental industry. For instance, let a renter pick a particular car and particular model to be available at a specific time at a specific place and pay a reservation fee to make sure it will be there then (paying for the time that it will be idle, waiting for this person's arrival). Also, give renters opportunities to get vehicles are little or even no cost when they deliver the vehicles to destination drop off points that need them and at the times when they are needed. Offer dynamic online pricing, based on the current supply and demand at particular locations -- but requiring renter commitment to take advantage of low rates, paying in advance online.

Also, don't just focus on cost. For business travellers, time is often far more important. Do everything you can to make it easy and fast for someone to pick up and drop off a vehicle that they have reserved online. For an extra price, even offer to have someone waiting at curbside when your plane comes in so you don't have to take a shuttle bus to the rental area. Also, for a price, offer vehicle pickup at any time anywhere in the Tri-State area (instead of drop off). The customer tells the company where and when they want to get rid of the vehicle and an employee is there waiting for them. Similarly, offer to deliver rental cars to customers anywhere anytime (for a fee).

Also, check the business model of  Zipcar at www.zipcar.com and see if you might be able to adapt it to some aspect of your car rental business.  For instance, instead serving a corporate customers with multiple car rentals week after week, offering such a customer a zipcar-style shared car ownership program. The corporation could buy one or more vehicles
(through you) that would be stationed and serviced at your sites in urban areas and at airports; and authorized employees of that corporation could simply pick up and drop off those cars zipcar-style. Or the corporation could lease instead of
buy. And you might use some (if not all) of your used cars in this program (instead of selling them).

Think service -- whatever you can do to make the customer happy, to help the customer quickly and efficiently accomplish whatever he/she is making the trip for, whether vacation/entertainment or business.

As far as possible, take clues from your existing customers as to what they would most appreciate. Maybe have info from car experts and local travel/tourism info. Link to or partner with and get live feeds from the sites that provide frequent updates on skiing conditions at resorts in your area. Make it easy for your customers to get info about weather and driving hazards, as well as local events, hotels, entertainment, restaurants, bed & breakfasts, etc.

Remember that as the word "web" implies, businesses in this environment are interlinked and interrelated in multiple interesting and potentially profitable ways. Think of the whole set of activities/needs that car renters are typically involved in. You aren't just renting a car, you are in the business of making trips successful.

The Serge Solovieff mystery -- a WWI variant of the Spanish Prisoner scam

The letter began:

Dear Sir,

Although I know you only from good references of your honesty, my sad situation compels me to reveal to you an important affair in which you can procure a modest fortune, saving at the same time that of my darling daughter.

I found the letter and a related newspaper clipping in a box of Uncle Charlie's' belongings when he died back in 1970. I was intrigued by the mystery implied by the words.

The clipping said that Solovieff, a banker in St. Petersburg, had embezzled over five million rubles, murdered a
compatriot in Spain, been apprehended in London and extradited to Spain. The money was still missing.

There was no date on the clipping, but the item on the reverse side was a review of an issue of the London Quarterly dealing
with the centenary of Tennyson's birth in 1909. It is hard to imagine reviewing a magazine long after it was published, but the
letter was dated 1914 -- five years later.

Why would anyone keep a clipping from an English newspaper for five years in a prison in Spain, and then send it to a total
stranger in the U.S., with a letter asking for help? Was this some sort of hoax that someone tried to play on my great-uncle? What was there to gain?

My research into this mystery led me to discover a completely different story in the London Times of 1913 -- that of Alexander Bulatovich, a Russian cavalryman who became an explorer in Ethiopia and later a monk who led a rebellion by purported heretics at Mount Athos in Greece. I wound up writing a novel about Bulatovich (The Name of Hero, published by Tarcher/Houghton Mifflin) and also translated from the Russian two books about his experiences in Ethiopia (published by Africa World Press as Ethiopia Through Russian Eyes).

But I couldn't uncover anything at all about this Serge Solovieff or any variants of his name. ("Serge" and "Sergei" are the same.  And there are several different ways that the surname could be transliterated from the Cyrillic alphabet: Solovieff, Soloviev, and Solovyov are all the same name, the equivalent of Mr. Nightingale.)  There was a famous Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, who died around 1900 (and wrote some very interesting and provocative fiction and poetry as well). He had a nephew named Sergei who was also a poet and who was alive at the time these letters were written. But that Sergei Solovyov was not a banker and did not end up in jail in Spain. Traditional research methods -- scanning through microfilms of old newspapers -- led nowhere.

Then in 1997 I included the text of the letter and of the clipping in an article which I posted at my Web site (From Russia and Ethiopia to the Internet, www.samizdat.com/wesley.html ) The page got included in search engine indexes and people searching for the name Serge Solovieff or phrases in the letter or the clipping found my page and contacted me. This is a random research technique that I call "flypaper" -- setting things up so people find you, bringing you the information you need, when there is no way that you could actively find it yourself. (See related article at www.samizdat.com/fly.html)

Now, five years later, I have been contacted by a total of four people who possess identical or nearly identical letters and clippings that were addressed to their relatives just before or during World War I. And one of them, Sherry Grabinsky has a second letter as well.  Her great-uncle took the bait and sent a cable to Spain back in 1913, and received back an 11-page letter, a masterpiece of persuasive deception, with complete details on how to get to Spain and what to do there to retrieve a fortune.

I told this story to an old friend, Ashley Grayson, the agent who sold my novel The Name of Hero 20 years ago, and he immediately said, "The Spanish Prisoner." Apparently, variations on this scam have been around for a long long time. Ashley pointed me to the movie The Spanish Prisoner, written by David Mamet and starring Campbell Scott, Ben Gazzara, and Steve Martin. That movie, which portrays an elaborate confidence game, includes the following passage, which is the source of its title: "It's an interesting setup, Mr. Ross.  It is the oldest confidence game on the books. The Spanish Prisoner... Fellow says, him and his sister, wealthy refugees, left a fortune in the Home Country, he got out, girl and the money stuck in Spain. Here is her most beautiful portrait. And he needs money to get her and the fortune out. Man who supplies the money gets the fortune and the girl. Oldest con in the world." (See the Web site for the movie at www.spe.sony.com/classics/spanishprisoner)

He also noted that "The current version is 'the Nigerian letter'." That's an Internet-based scam. I receive an average of 2 variants of the Nigerian letter every day (my email inbox seems to be a magnate for such messages). Please check http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/ for details on how it works  In brief:

"The Scam operates as follows: the target receives an unsolicited fax, email, or letter concerning Nigeria containing either a money laundering or other illegal proposal OR you may receive a Legal and Legitimate business proposal by normal means. The common variations on the Scam include 'overinvoiced' or 'double invoiced' oil or other supply and service contracts where your Bad Guys want to get the overage out of Nigeria; crude oil and other commodity deals; a 'bequest' left you in a will; and 'money cleaning' where your Bad Guy has a lot of currency that needs to be 'chemically cleaned' before it can be used and he needs the cost of the chemicals. Or the victim will just be stiffed on a legitimate goods or services contract... the variations are very creative and virtually endless."

Dear Sir,

Although I know you only from good references of your honesty, my sad situation compels me to reveal to you an important affair in which you can procure a modest fortune, saving at the same time that of my darling daughter.

Before being imprisoned here, I was established as a Banker in Russia as you will see by the enclosed article about me of many English newspapers which have published my arrest in London. I beseech you to help me to obtain a sum of 480.000 dollars I have in America and to come here to raise the seizure of my baggage, paying to the Registrar of the Court the expenses of my
trial, and recover my portmanteau containing a secret pocket where I have hidden the document indispensable to recover the
said sum. As a reward, I will give up to you the third part, viz. 160.000 dollars. I cannot receive your answer in the prison, but
you must send a cablegram to a person of my confidence who will deliver it to me.

Awaiting your cable, to instruct you in all my secret. I am Sir,

Yours truly,

S. Solovieff

First of all answer by cable, not by letter, as follows:

Senor Requejo

Lista Telegrafos

Santander (Spain)

Yes Seltzer

Text of the article on yellowed newsprint (undated and no indication of what newspaper it comes from):

ARREST OF A ST. PETERSBURG BANKER
CHARGED WITH FRAUD IN RUSSIA AND MANSLAUGHTER IN SPAIN
INTERVIEW OF THE TWO AMBASSADORS

Some months ago as our readers may remember, we refered [sic] in these columns to the great scandal caused in St. Petersburg, an [sic] in Russia generally, by a noted Banker who absconded leaving a deficit of over five millions of rubles.

The Russian Police sought for him for a long time in vain for it seems he had not left the least trace of his flight and the continued search over Europe and America proved unavailing.

Yesterday, however a Spanish Inspector accompanied by two officers from Scotland Yard and acting under instructions of the Spanish Ambassador, who had previously interviewed the Home Secretary, arrested him on his way from the Hotel where he was staying, to the Steamship office.  It seems that it was his evident intention to take passage for New York. From information received by the Ambassador, he had been in hiding in Spain, where he lived with a woman and with his daughter. A few days before arriving in London he had quarrelled [sic] with another Russian who was mortally wounded by a revolver shot during the scuffle and who only lived long enough to denounce his assailant.

In an interview with the Russian Ambassador it seems that the name he had been using in Spain and which he gave on being arrested was not his real one, Manasseina being simply an alibi, but after comparing the prisoner with photographs in his possession, the Russian Ambassador recognized him as Serge Solovieff the criminal banker who eloped with 5 millions of rubles; he is a native of St. Petersburg, a widower 48 years old, with an only daughter that he left in Spain on escaping from that country.

On being arrested, two of Manasseina's or Serge Solovieff [sic] portmanteaus were seized but although strictly searched nothing but personal effects were found in them, in spite of which the Russian Ambassador declares that the prisoner ought to have several million rubles somewhere.

The Russian and Spanish Ambassadors conferred yesterday evening as to whether the prisoner should be conveyed to Spain or to Russia, and after an interview with the Home Secretary and in accordance with the extradition treaty of England, Russia, and Spain, it was agreed that the prisoner should be conveyed to Spain to stand his trial for manslaughter, and that only after his trial can the Russian Government ask Spain, through diplomatic channels, for his extradition.

The capitalization of words like Banker and Inspector feels more German than British or American. (The word "Banker" s also capitalized in the handwritten letter).

The text on the back side of the clipping reads:

way; and the reading might be greatly [illegible] were not for the optimism of the author, who, having created her characters, allows them, while developing naturally, to emerge into healthiness; in short, we find them in difficulties, we leave them happy. The character sketching is subtle and decidedly clever.

NOTES AND REVIEWS
FORTHCOMING BOOKS

 It is rumoured that there are coteries in which the fame of Tennyson is considered as obsolete as Victorian furniture. This will disturb no one who understands literature. Since Aeschulus, at least, it has been the rule for great poets to be proclaimed out-of date by the next generation. Tennyson may have belonged more to the Victorians than some of us could wish, but it is evident to those who have eyes that he did not belong to them alone. Still, we turn with interest to see what a foreign [sic, should be "foreign"] critic of such distinction as M. Faguet has to say of the Tennyson centenary. To suppose that the verdict of foreign readers always anticipates posterity is, indeed a blunder in literary history; but the foreigner often stands far enough off, yet not too far to see a man in his true proportions. And Tennyson, by reason of his fineness of form, his classical lucidity, is in the class upon which foreign judment [sic "judgment"] is fairest.

 M. Faguet's article is to be found in that centenary number of the "Quarterly Review" of which some account has already been given in these columns. He traverses the severe sentence of Taine, and certainly that prophet of disillusion was not the man to sit in judment [sic, same typo for "judgment"] on "In Memoriam". This is no place to deal with the whole of the essay but one sentence, full of suggestion worthy of the great masters of French criticism may be quoted. Tennyson was "comme le rendez vous en un seul homme de tous les genres de poesie qui avaient brille dans la generation precedente." The dictum may be commended to those who insist upon filiation of Tennyson to Keats till the one is

Another of the letters was dated December 5, 1914 and sent from Madrid to a William Kepple in Los Angeles. His great granddaughter, Lisa Weston contacted me. The wording is very close to identical, but the handwriting is different and there are a few minor differences (e.g., this letter uses the dollar sign for "$480.000" while the Seltzer one writes out the word "dollars"). The address to reply to is very different:

Soma-General Alvaro Castro 5 tienda decrecha
Madrid (Spain)
Explanation: Kepple

Lee Sheingold, a volunteer at a thrift shop in Oregon wrote to me about a letter and clipping that she stumbled upon at work tucked in an old book. Dated October 20, 1911, this letter was sent to someone named Pfeifle and like the others was handwritten on graph-style paper. The handwriting is different from the Seltzer and Kepple letters and it is signed Sadrowsky, instead of Solovieff. The cablegram response was supposed to go to:

Romon Guerra
Calle Santander 10
Valladolid (Spain)
Mande detalles
Pfeifle

The switch of names makes it clear that the perpetrators had the ability to doctor the clippings (which wouldn't have been easy in the days before photocopying and photo offset printing.) The doctoring probably accounts for the instances of irregular spacing.

It's with the second letter, in the possession of Sherry Grabinsky that it becomes clear that this is a scam. The target is supposed to travel to Spain immediately and will bring money -- $2000, preferably in cash, in US dollars.

Her first letter, dated April 4, 1913, is identical to the Seltzer letter, including the underlines and the S. Solovieff signature, but without the information about how to send the cable response.

In this case, there are two newspaper clippings. The one in English is identical to the one sent to Seltzer. The other in Spanish was roughly translated (presumably by "Solovieff") above. On the reverse side of the English clipping is the exact same text as was on the back of the Seltzer one.

The second letter is from Madrid dated April 23, 1913:

Dear Sir,
With great pleasure I have received your cablegram and I pass to explain you my circumstances so briefly as possible.

Before all I must say you, as you will herein after see, that the person aiding us in the matter is a gaoler of the prison who is a good man at all whose confidence I have obtained. The person to whom you have cabled is his brother in law but without begin sure about having yourself received my first letter I have not deemed convenient to inform you about the name and quality of said good man, that is to say, the gaoler.

The matter is the following:
I have established as a Banker in St.-Petersburg (Russia) and after some unfortunate speculations which would take too long to explain, I was about to be arrested for fraudulent bankruptcy when I resolved to fly for shelter to another country. My downfall was mainly caused by the prolonged political revolutions in Russia which caused me tremendous losses in the Exchange and as I was seriously implicated for an enormous deficit and unable to pay interest to my depositors, I realized all what I still had in cash, 1.200.000 rubles ($600,000) and left Russia secretly so as to assure my only daughter a fortune and to save a part of the fortune for which I had worked so many years.

I must not omit to mention that some 15 days before my flight I had sent my daughter to Spain accompanied by a young lady with whom I had had intimate relations.

Thereafter I embarked for America under a false name and well disguised. I landed in New York and proceeded to Chicago where through the medium of the London-Mexico Bank I deposited in an important Bank the amount of $480.000 in gold and obtained for same a check payable to bearer. Keeping 600.000 francs in ready money for my private expenses afterwards. I hid said check in the bottom of a secret pocket of a portmanteau made for that purpose and embarked for Europe to meet my dear daughter and her companion in Madrid.

Having arrived to Madrid, under my assumed name I lived in a Hotel, but one day a serious thing happened. I had always trusted the young lady refered to with regard to money matters but one day having myself gone out with my daughter for a walk, on my return I found said young lady absent and also 500.000 francs which I had left in the room. Fortunately, she was not aware of the check in the portmanteau.

After having been searching for her all over the city, to my great surprise I encountered a brother of her who had arrived form Russia and on my asking for his sister telling him what she had done, he told me that he himself had advised his sister to rob me and that should I denounce her he would on his turn denounce me to the authorities as an embezzler. From this point we came to words and blows and during the struggle I drew my revolver and shot him fatally.

Beside myself with grief, I hastened to the Hotel tooking [sic] my portmanteau and 12 hours later I had crossed the French frontier on my way to London (England). I need scarcely say that I did not have even the time to see my daughter.

I arrived safely to London and stayed in a Hotel awaiting a steamer to go to New York, but two days after I was arrested by a Spanish detective sent for the purpose in cooperation with the english [sic] police and put at the Spanish Ambassador's disposal.

When the extradition formalities where [sic] finished I was told that I ws to be taken to Spain to stand my trial for manslaughter and that afterwards the Russian Government would claim me to be tried for fraudulent bankruptcy. Therefore I was brought from London to Madrid where I have since been closely imprisoned, being [sic] my baggage seized by the court. Such baggage consists of two portmanteaus, one of which contains a cleverly disguised secret pocket inside of which is the check for $480.000 payable to bearer at Chicago.

My poor daughter, 15 years old, was placed in a State orphan's asylum on the outskirts of Valladolid.

When my arrestation took place, ordered by the Spanish Consul in London my baggage in the Hotel was seized and searched in my presence, but the secret was not discovered. The portmanteaus where [sic] then all sealed and brought to Spain with me and placed in the warehouse of this jail used for such purposes.

My trial has just finished having the jury given me a soft verdict sentencing me to 5 years imprisonment, to pay an indemnity of $2.600 to the family of the deceased, and to pay also the costs of the trial. Now, according to spanish [sic] Laws if the costs of a trial and the indemnity are not paid within 90 days, all prisoner's belongings must be sold by public auction.

It is therefore absolutely necessary that I may recover the portmanteau before the date of the date [sic] auction, as otherwise the bidders by too frequent examination might by chance hit on the secret and then the authorities would enter into possession of the check and after deducting expenses would send the balance to Russia for my creditors, being all lost for me if such should be the case. This would be the greatest misfortune.

Under the circumstances, as you may clearly see, being myself without assistance and without money, I beg of you to come here to pay the costs and expenses and to take charge of the check with part of which I hope to obtain a commutation of my sentence because in Spain all is attained by money.

Your name has been known to me as follows: Same has been given to me by a gentleman subject of your country who is detained in this prison. I don't know his real name, being he registered under a false one because he does not wish that his family may never [sic] know his imprisonment. He says you will recognize him when seeing him as you know him very well.

Doubtless you will be surprised about the confidence I place in you, but if you take into consideration my actual position you will see that I must trust in someone and having myself satisfied with what I have heard about you I wish everything and place myself in your hands. You will thus save me this money and assure the welfare of my daughter, whom I must confide to you during my captivity.

I have no relations and I can not trust in my old Russian friends because knowing my actual position I could expect from them nothing but treachery and deceit. I know no one in Spain, having never been here before, and beside I would not trust a Spaniard as he might denounce me to the authorities.

I am happy to tell you however that I have obtained the confidence of the warder in charge of the warehouse where the baggage is kept, having offered him $10.0000 if he would get me some family papers in one of my portmanteaus, but he refused saying that he would have to break the seals to do so, which would cause him to be perhaps imprisoned and to lose his situation. If he had accepted I should have sent my daughter to you carrying the check with her. This not being possible and not having myself the amount wanted for recovering the portmanteau, I again approached the warder on the subject and he has promised me the following, viz.: That if someone of my friends come and pay the expenses he would agree to do as I asked him, but under the sole and absolute condition that said expenses should be paid as soon as he deliver the papers. Among those papers will be the check so that expenses paid someone can obtain the order for taking out the luggage and although one seal may be broken he will not of course complain. The luggage will then be valueless, as the check will already be in your possession.

Now you know the conditions and I beg of you to come and help me. You will have to pay no money till the check may be in your possession. When the jailer knows you are here he will be convinced you are coming to pay the expenses and to help me and he will then go to the warehouse and acting under my instructions he will find the secret pocket and will deliver you several papers and a sealed envelope containing the check for $480.000. Please immediately open same noting number of check, as I don't exactly remember it, and for your personal satisfaction you may cable the Branch of the Bank at Chicago where said check is payable asking whether check number ___ for $480.000 is payable to bearer at sight and begging an immediate reply to your name at the Hotel where you shall lodge. On receipt of the answer the jailer will definitely deliver to you the envelope and contents and you at your turn will deliver the amount necessary for all expenses due to my trial.

You will then leave immediately with my daughter to Chicago where you will cash said check, keeping yourself for you the third part that is to say $160.000 and depositing the rest in safe Bonds at four percent in my daughter's name. I omitted to say that $10.000 must be sent back with my daughter for the jailer and that interest on the capital must be send to Madrid.

However, I am explain [sic] all this better on your arrival here, as I shall be able to obtain an order from the Judge to permit you to visit me in the visitors' gallery and in our interview you may satisfy yourself about everything.

I send you enclosed a cutting of a newspaper of this city together with an official copy of my sentence, both translated into english [sic] and also the official receipt of my baggage kept under seizure. When coming please bring with you these papers being same required for taking out my baggage.

In the sentence you will see that the expenses are 1.987 pesetas 40 centimes for the law suit and 12.000 pesetas for indemnity, which altogether makes a total of $2.000 U.S. money, that is the amount which must be paid for taking out my baggage, that is to say for recovering the hidden check.

You will also note that the sentence being dated on the 19th last March, the 90 days expire on the 19th next month of June.

I can not tell you to write directly to me because I fear that your letters may be intercepted, being our secret discovered if such should be the case. For such a reason it will be best to cable according to the directions which I give you.

Now you know the extent of my misfortunes and tribulations and and you can understand why I can not trust myself to more than one person, as it would be dangerous for me. So please take everything into consideration, resolve quickly, and energetically and get ready to come as soon as possible. Trusting so I can assure you that my gratitude will recompense your services to which will be added the everlasting gratitude of my dear daughter and greatly contributing to her happiness.

Trusting you will faithfully carry out my instructions and hoping to see you soon.

Believe me.

Your ever sincerely

Serge Solovieff

Translation of newspaper cutting [continuation in the same handwriting]

Law Courts

The ex-Banker of St. Petersburg, Serge Solovieff, as it is known was arrested in London for the death of a countryman of him in this City.

He was brought to Madrid and yesterday appeared before the Judge appointed for the case to answer for his crime and in spite of the brilliant defence made by his lawyer Bejarano, he has been declared guilty by the Jury, who commended him to the mercy of the Court, the Judge sentencing him to 5 years imprisonment, indemnity to the dead man's family, and to pay cots.

According to information received from St. Petersburg, Solovieff has had a Banking house in St. Petersburg and eloped [sic] from that city with his daughter 15 years old, leaving debits [sic] amounting to 5 millions of rubles.

From the evidence produced in Court, it seems that the motive of the crime was that a sister of the deceased who accompanied prisoner [sic] robbed him 500.000 francs [sic], and that deceased on arriving in Spain being sent for by his sister, met prisoner and in the altercation which ensured deceased was shot.

In spite of all what the Russian Consul has done to help the police in finding out what had been done by prisoner with the money he is known to have left Russia with, nothing has been found on him although his baggage and person were strictly searched when being arrested in London.

It is possible that after having served his sentence here Solovieff may be sent to Russia to stand his trial for embezzlement.

Translation of Sentence [also a continuation in the same handwriting]

Applying to the article 411 and 412, etc... etc...

We must condemn and we order Serge Solovieff, ex-Banker, 48 years of age, widower, born in St. Petersburg (Russia), to the penalty of 5 years imprisonment and an indemnity of 15.000 pesetas for the manslaughter of Nicholas Moravief, jeweler, married, 58 years old, born in Odessa (Russia).

We must condemn him also to pay the Courts and the costs of the proceedings amounting to 1.987 pesetas 40 centimes, which together with the 13.000 pesetas of indemnity in favour of the family of the deceased makes a total amount of:  Fourteen thousand nine hundred and eighty-seven pesetas and forty centimes.

(14.987 pesetas 40 centimes) (gold value)

And if in the installment of 90 days counting form the date of this sentence he has not had satisfaction of the aforesaid amount, all the objects of his property will be sold by public auction.

etc... etc...

Madrid, 19th March 1913

Instructions for your voyage [continuation in the same handwriting]

Please observe these instructions minutely so as not to meet with any mishap.

As soon as you receive this letter get ready to start.

From your town you will go to New York where you will take a steamer to France or to England, as you like and when reaching Europe your itinerary must be the following: Paris Yrun [?] (Spanish frontier) Valladolid, in which town I desire that you stop for carrying my daughter, and Madrid.

At Paris (Quai d'Orsay station) please take the Rapid train that leaves at 7 h. 40 pm obtaining your ticket directly to Valladolid being Valladolid in the route from Madrid.  I desire from you to stay at Valladolid in order to take my daughter from the Orphan's house, coming her with you [sic] to Madrid, because I desire that she may be present when doing the operations for giving her all instructions and recommendations before you.

For giving you facilities I will send the gaoler to Valladolid with a letter from mine [sic] containing instructions and he will go with you to the Orphans' house in order to carry out my daughter.

When leaving New York please cable to the gaoler whose address you will see hereunder, saying the line you take for coming and the name of the steamer in order that I amy calculate when you can arrive and thus the gaoler will know when he must demand the chief of the prison for a permission of 24 hours for having liberty when you may arrive, in order to go to Valladolid to await you and carry my daughter out.

Independently of said cablegram I beg you very particularly that as soon as you arrive Paris please send the gaoler a second telegram  saying if you take the Rapid train, in order that we may have certainty about your arrival to Valladolid.

I say you to take said train not only for being the most rapid and comfortable but also because doing so you can arrive Valladolid at 5 h. 30 pm. which is an hour very convenient for taking my daughter out of the Orphanage and going afterwards to Madrid in the same day.

When reaching Valladolid please lodge in Victoria Hotel to which end you will see at the railway station the omnibus and the interpreter of said Hotel. To this Hotel will go the gaoler to meet you giving you a letter from mine [sic] and resting entirely at your disposal. Thereafter you will come to Madrid with my dear daughter in order to do the operation.

I beg to recommend you again the utmost reserve in regard to this affair, as my trial drew a great deal of public attraction and the least word you might drop might prove compromising.  If anybody on your journey should ask you why you come to Spain tell them it is for family affairs.

Please remark the following important advise about the manner of bringing your money.

As our matter must be finished at once because as I have said you [sic] it is necessary at all to do the payment for leaving free the seizure the same day of your arrival, that is to say, the same day that gaoler will do the operation you know, it shall be the most convenient for you to bring all your money in U.S. banknotes and not in a check nor any other banking paper, because in Spain when cashing a foreign check or the like is required as a guarantee the signature of a local trading firm. Obviously that neither I in my actual situation nor the gaoler owing to the delicateness of the matter can procure you [sic] such a warranty signature and the best for avoiding all kind of troubles and losses of time will be to bring the amount in American Banknotes and in such a way you will not be troubled when cashing.

Notwithstanding, if for precaution should you prefer crossing the sea carrying with you your money in a check, you can do so bringing a check cashable at London or at Paris, but of course for the above reasons same must be cashed by you at London or at Paris before taking the train crossing to Spain.

American, English or French banknotes are immediately accepted and exchanged in Spain without any troubles at all.  Please bear in mind such an important advise [sic].

I beg you not to forget the sending of both telegrams, begging you also to follow carefully my instructions for avoiding losses of time, because all must be done here as I have explained you being the matter finished the same day of your arrival.

Awaiting anxiously the most [word illegible] your business,

I am, dear friend,

Your truly,

Solovieff

Address of the gaoler where you must send the two telegrams:

Canoles

Calle Almirante Quadruplicado tercero izquierda Madrid

Or course you must have understood how easy is the matter for you because the only necessary is to come and to pay the $2.000 departing immediately with my daughter to cash the check. Nothing more easy.

Please write the address very legibly for avoiding any mislead [sic].

My best guess is that hundreds, if not thousands of these letters were sent to random recipients (like modern email spam), and that enough of these recipients took the bait and enriched the perpetrators to make this a very profitable venture -- one to be tried again and again and to be passed along from one schemer to another. Impediments to trans-Atlantic travel brought on by World War I may have brought it to an end. In any case, it is probable that the perpetrators were never caught.

If you too have such a letter or have any further information regarding this mystery, please let me know, and I'll update this article accordingly.

For more details, including links to photo images of the original documents, see www.samizdat.com/solovieff.html

Mercy Warren: Conscience of the American Revolution --

Review of her book "The Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution"

I didn't just read this book, I typed it -- all 1317 pages of it.

I love fresh views of historical events written by people who lived at that time, as opposed to works written long after, in which the selection of events and their presentation are flavored by what happened later -- history written backwards, focusing on what "caused" the events and the consequences that followed -- teleological history where the importance of an event depends on its relationship to a world view held much later.

I had read about Mercy Warren and had read her plays years ago when I wrote a play about her and General Burgoyne. But I had never read her history of the American Revolution. The length was daunting, and the only available edition of it -- a photographic facsimile of the 1805 edition that I found in the Boston Public Library -- was unreadable.  The old style typography ("s's" looked like "f's") combined with the out-dated spelling and punctuation (sentences that ran on line after line after line) were very hard on the eyes. I could force myself to decipher a paragraph or so, but then my mind would wander. Typing it would force me to concentrate and pay attention to every word.

Why should I want to pay such close attention?  Here was a little-known first-hand account of the American Revolution, the events leading up to it, and the circumstances that followed it. This was an important work that could have reshaped and could still today impact our image of our nation's origins and destiny. I wanted to make it available to all, in readable understandable form. And thanks to the Internet, it wouldn't take years or money or the enthusiastic support of a well-established publishing company for me to do so. All I needed to do was type it -- modernizing the typography and punctuation, and editing for readability -- and I could make it freely available to everyone through my Web site, and also, just using my PC, I could make it (and related materials) available on CD ROM.

The author of this monumental work was a woman, writing at a time when it was unheard of for women to write history books. Yes, her style was a bit pompous, apparently mimicking the rhythms of Burke's speeches and Gibbon's history of Rome, as if that were the standard for serious history; and, like Alexander Pope, emphasizing her judicious conclusions about the nature of man and war and politics, rather than providing all the raw data and first-hand observations on which those conclusions were based. But her personal voice comes through, becoming louder and clearer toward the end of the war, and virtually screaming in the volume after that where she expresses her concern for the future fate of the young republic, daring to criticize Washington's dependence on his military cronies in his two administrations, and harshly (and probably rightly) accusing her life-long friend, John Adams, of having lost faith in democracy and favoring monarchism. She wrote those words in 1801, just after the end of his term as president. She wrote those words with the passion of fear -- the fear of possible civil war because the divide was becoming so great between those who believed in equality, in the principles so clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence, and those who had a nostalgic reverence and desire for the aristocratic style, titles, and pomp of European courts. She foresees, with dread, the Guilded-Age pseudo-royalty conspicuous consumption of the super-rich "400" in New York and in their summer resort at Newport nearly a hundred years later.

In her day, the primary political divide was between those who, like herself, believed in the Republic as a moral, even a religious necessity, and those who saw it as a temporary expedient. To Mercy, the American experiment in democracy of the people, for the people, and by the people was a beacon to the world, the shining example that could eventually lead all nations, all peoples to free themselves from the tyranny that kept the many in misery, poverty, and slavery. Men like Adams responded to the French Revolution with fear and loathing, and from that blood-fest concluded that democracy was flawed, that it was at best a temporary solution. Mercy cites with disdain and disappointment a book of his ("Defense of Their Constitutions") that "drew a doleful picture of the confusion and dissolution of all republics".  She makes no mention of the undeclared war which Adams had waged on the seas against republican France. She makes no mention of his Alien and Sedition Acts which revoked much of the Bill of Rights purportedly for public security (in a political atmosphere resembling that of the McCarthy era 150 years later). Rather, she focuses on what was to her more important and more insidious -- his love affair with monarchy. It was as if he had taken a mistress (monarchy/aristocracy) while still ostensibly sleeping with his wife (republicanism/democracy).

She admits that he was not alone in this betrayal:

"It is true the revolution in France had not ultimately tended to strengthen the principles of republicanism in America. The confusions introduced into that unhappy nation by their resistance to despotism and the consequent horrors that spread dismay over every portion of their territory have startled some in the United States, who do not distinguish between principles and events, and shaken the firmness of others, who have fallen off from their primary object and by degrees returned back to their former adherence to monarchy. Thus, through real or pretended fears of similar results, from the freedom of opinion disseminated through the United States, dissensions have originated relative to subjects not known in the Constitution of the American Republic. This admits no titles of honor or nobility, those powerful springs of human action; and from the rage of acquisition which has spread far and wide, it may be apprehended that the possession of wealth will in a short time be the only distinction in this young country. By this it may be feared that the spirit of avarice will be rendered justifiable in the opinion of some as the single road to superiority."

"The veracity of an historian requires that all those who have been distinguished, either by their abilities or their elevated rank, should be exhibited through every period of public life with impartiality and truth. But the heart of the annalist may sometimes be hurt by political deviations which the pen of the historian is obliged to record.

"Mr. Adams was undoubtedly a statesman of penetration and ability; but his prejudices and his passions were sometimes too strong for his sagacity and judgment."

"...unfortunately for himself and his country, he became so enamored of the British Constitution and the government, manners, and laws of the nation, that a partiality for monarchy appeared, which was inconsistent with his former professions of republicanism....

"After Mr. Adams's return from England, he was implicated by a large portion of his countrymen as having relinquished the republican system and forgotten the principles of the American Revolution, which he had advocated for near 20 years."

Mercy wrote early drafts of this monumental work near the time of the events described, and completed it about four years before its appeared in 1805. She explains the delay as due to health problems, temporary bouts of blindness, and grief at the death of her only son.

She writes in the third person, trying to avoid personal bias, while advocating the republicanism she so ardently believes in.  She doesn't spare friends like John Adams, or acquaintances like John Hancock, or public idols like George Washington. She calls it as she sees it, shot by shot -- good and bad, not expecting people to be consistent and predictable. She treats her immediate family with that same impartiality:  her brother James Otis (early advocate of the rights of the colonies), her husband James Warren (speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives during the Revolution), and her son Winslow Warren (the would-be diplomat).

The early chapters provide interesting details on the steps leading up to the Revolution, particularly the events happening in Boston, near her home in Plymouth.

She also, in Chapter 6, tells the little known tale of the British emancipation of slaves in the south. In 1775, Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, freed the slaves in his colony and armed them, as a way to intimidate the colonial rebels.

"He [Dunmore] had the inhumanity early to intimate his designs if opposition ran high to declare freedom to the blacks, and, on any appearance of hostile resistance to the King's authority to arm them against their masters. Neither the House of Burgesses nor the people at large were disposed to recede from their determinations in consequence of his threats nor to submit to any authority that demanded implicit obedience on pain of devastation and ruin. Irritated by opposition, too rash for consideration, too haughty for condescension, and fond of distinguishing himself in support of the parliamentary system, Lord Dunmore dismantled the fort in Williamsburg, plundered the magazines, threatened to lay the city in ashes and depopulate the country: As far as he was able, he executed his nefarious purposes.

"When his lordship found the resolution of the House of Burgesses, the committees and conventions was nowhere to be shaken, he immediately proclaimed the emancipation of the blacks and put arms into their hands. He excited disturbances in the back settlements and encouraged the natives bordering on the southern colonies to rush from the wilderness and make inroads on the frontiers."

In Chapter 7, she paints an interesting picture of Washington's genius during these early days. He arrives in Boston in the summer of 1775, after the Battle of Bunker Hill, to take charge of the rag-tag army of rebels that had assembled. The Continental Congress had not yet decided what it wanted to do, whether they might still be reconciled with England should the right terms be offered. But they needed to organize some kind of defense. So before deciding on independence, they decided on a commander in chief of their army. Yes, the rebel force was small and untrained, facing British veterans and Hessian mercenaries. But worst of all, Washington, much to his surprise, discovers that he has almost no gunpowder, with just three rounds per soldier. He kept that deficiency a secret and with amazing cool deployed his troops building fortifications on the hills around British-occupied Boston and generally acting as if he had all the ammunition he might ever want. If the British had realized they were so ill-supplied, they could have wiped out the colonists with the greatest of ease.

How did he build up his supplies? The local farmers had little gunpowder to spare, the southern colonies eventually sent along a little. The locals did their best to tool up to produce gunpowder locally, but that took time. But what made a real difference was the Continental Congress empowering pirates ("privateers") to prey on British shipping and thereby capture whatever military supplies they could -- and that was a year before the Declaration of Independence.

Better known, but still often forgotten, the New York militia under General Montgomery unsuccessfully invaded Canada in the fall and winter of 1775 -- once again long before the Declaration of Independence. And, in conjunction with that invasion, Benedict Arnold led a thousand troops from the Continental Army near Boston overland, in a heroic and almost impossible march through previously unexplored, mountainous forest to meet up with Montgomery outside Quebec.

Mercy also paints an interesting portrait of General Burgoyne. He marched south from Canada into northern New York in 1777, with arrogance and confidence, having boasted that he could crush this little rebellion with just a handful of troops. Now with a large army of seasoned veterans in his command, he expected the rebels to cower and run at the mere rumor of his approach. As part of his plan of terror, he brought with him and set loose on the American settlements in his wake, large numbers of Indians, recruited with promises of plunder. Then out-maneuvered and soundly defeated at Saratoga, Burgoyne surrendered his entire army to General Gates. Imagine this general and his troops, totally humiliated, marching as prisoners over primitive roads past amazed and staring crowds in all the little towns from Saratoga to Boston. And remembers the historical context -- soldiers were expected to and often did act with honor. The British officers were permitted to retain their hand arms, as a mark of respect. And the rebels only guarded this procession of thousands of prisoners with a small handful of troops. It would have been trivially easy for the prisoners to escape and wreak havoc. But they made no attempt to do so -- they had given their word. Burgoyne waited months in Boston with his troops, expecting that under the terms of the treaty they would all be shipped back to England, having given their word ("parole") that they would never again take up arms against America. But Congress was hesitant, trusting the honor of these soldiers, but not believing that the British government would follow through with its obligations under the treaty. Burgoyne himself was allowed to return to England, having given his parole; and while already in England, being considered still a "prisoner" subject to negotiations for prisoner exchange. His troops meanwhile were forced to march once again, this time from Boston to Virginia. And Burgoyne himself, still a "prisoner", was elected a Member of the House of Commons, and, now a convert to republicanism, repeatedly, eloquently pleaded the cause of American independence and peace.

While today's school textbook version of the American Revolution focuses on the activities of Washington in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, Mercy, in addition to covering that, devoted considerable space to events in the south, where General Gates, the hero of Saratoga, assumed command of the rebel forces, until his humiliating defeat at Camden. Other major players included General Nathaniel Greene, who took over from Gates, and General Lincoln. With the devastation in Georgia and the Carolinas, with the Loyalists playing a major role, and with the British increasingly using a strategy of terror -- burning homes, destroying crops, and sometimes taking no prisioners (killing everyone) -- this often reads like the Civil War that raged there four-score years later.

As for the Battle of Yorktown, as described here, that wasn't really a battle at all. Cornwallis was maneuvered and pushed back with a series of skirmishes, and forced into an impossible geographic position by orders from General Clinton in New York. Then it became a contest of shovels. The British had just 400 shovels; the colonists far more. The colonists dug trenches parallel to the British earthwork defenses, moved up their cannon and bombarded. Then they dug channels leading closer and dug parallel again so they could move their guns up again. And so on, while the British, stuck on a narrow peninsula, blocked on the land by the combined American and French armies, and on the sea by the French fleet, were running out of food and ammunition. Despairing that his army would be totally destroyed before promised reinforcement arrived from Clinton in New York, Cornwallis surrendered. A few days later Clinton arrived by sea to find the Chesapeake firmly in the control of the French fleet and no British troops left on the ground. He had no choice but to turn back.

Why the delay? Once again, Washington finessed the British. He made Clinton believe that an attack on New York was imminent. Such an attack had been planned, troops had been massed; and Clinton's spies had intercepted messages from Washington to that effect. So Washington let him continue to believe that; leaving skeleton forces in nearby forts, with orders to playact as if they were preparing an attack, while, in fact, totally unknown to the British, Washington marched south all the way to Virginia. All the way up until a few days before Washington reached Yorktown, Clinton was frantically preparing his defenses and even sending messages by sea to Cornwallis ordering him to send some of his troops back to New York, when that was not only foolish, but impossible.

Another reason for the delay was the slow arrival of a fleet under Lord Digby with major reinforcements from England. Mercy explains:

"Lord Digby, however, arrived at New York on September 29. One of the princes of the blood (Prince Henry, the Duke of Clarence) had taken this opportunity to visit America, probably with a view of sovereignty over a part or the whole of the conquered colonies. This was still anticipated at the Court of St. James; and perhaps, in the opinion of the royal parents, an American establishment might be very convenient for one of their numerous progeny."

Here we read the story of Henry Laurens, who was president of the Continental Congress at the time of passage of the Articles of Confederation. He was sent as plentipoteniary to negotiate a treaty of alliance with Holland (which had been, for many years, an ally of Britain). His ship was intercepted and overrun by the British. At the last moment he threw overboard a trunk containing the secret correspondence with sympathizers in Holland, his instructions and letters of introduction and authority. But a British sailor having seen him do so dove into the sea and caught hold of the trunk before it sank. Once the British realized who he was and what his mission was, they sent him to England, where he was imprisoned for several years in the Tower of London.

By coincidence, Lord Cornwallis was the hereditary owner/commander of the Tower of London. When Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Washington arranged that the surrender be accepted by Colonel Laurens, the son of Henry Laurens. So the owner of the Tower of London surrendered to the son of a man held prisoner there.

Meanwhile, general devastation, destruction, and murder took place outside the realm of the well-known battles. New Bedford, Massachusetts, Fairfield, Connecticut, and countless other defenseless towns up and down the coast were attacked and destroyed by the British, in actions that generally go unmentioned in history books, remembered only on plaques in those little towns and sometimes by local tourist guides. Mercy makes it clear that this war impoverished and greatly disrupted the lives of nearly everyone, not just the soldiers. The drama didn't end when the last shot was fired. She emphasizes the economic side of the devastation, the hyperinflation with soldiers and suppliers paid in paper money that then became worthless; and the ruthless activities of speculators, buying up promissory notes for practically nothing from patriots and then demanding and getting payment from Congress. It isn't an entirely pretty picture. The brave, cold, hungry, sick soldiers mutiny more than once. Some are executed. Everyone doesn't live happily ever after. But the Republic survives, stumbles forward, and tries to find the true path to a destiny that could change the world forever.

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Movie Endings -- what works and when?

I recently got a query from a movie buff who is interesting in film endings and how they have changed through history. She had found my article "Endings Then and Now -- from Taxi Driver to Silence of the Lambs" www.samizdat.com/taxi.html and was interested in further thoughts of mine along that line.

I replied:
Have you read A Sense of an Ending by Frank Kermode? It's an essay in literary criticism that covers from the middle ages to today in very few, very excellent pages. (If you get into the middle ages part of it -- and their apocalyptic notion of an "ending", you might also enjoy A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman).

I believe that movie endings are characteristic of the time when they were made. In Kermode's language, our "sense of an ending" changes over time, from one cultural period to the next. We need to feel that the movie "ends" for us to be satisfied with it as entertainment; but what constitutes an acceptable ending changes.

In WWII and in the 60s, the ending would have been a matter of the creative collaboration between the writer and the director. Today, it is a matter of test screenings and focus groups -- sometimes several different endings being filmed and then tested on audiences to see what gets the best response.

I'm tempted to go to a videostore with a large collection of DVDs and check the back covers of all of them, identifying those that contain "alternate" endings, then analyzing why the rejects were rejected.

Today (in 2002), we seem to have more tolerance now for films that don't really end, that are deliberate setups for sequels.

Think of the first Star Wars -- which had a great rousing emotional finish. Compare that to Empire Strikes Back, which was a cliff hanger and was nowhere near as satisfying (it was a major disappointment to viewers, though eventually it made money). Return of the Jedi then had a "real" ending, and made the trilogy as a whole work.

Today we have Phantom Menace, which doesn't really end, but was very successful at the box office.

Back in the 70s we had a version of The Lord of the Rings done with a combination of actors and pseudoanimation which didn't end and was a terrible flop. Around the same time there were the cartoon-only versions of The Hobbit and The Return of the King, covering the same Tolkien tale, but having an ending. (Return of the King deliberately starts near the end of the trilogy
so it can have an ending.)

Today we have the Fellowship of the Ring, which doesn't end and is an enormous success. We also have the first Harry Potter movie, which only partially ends -- Voldemort is still alive and clearly more needs to be told.

In these cases, the movies are based on books and the books have endings.The movies choose to capitalize on those endings, or not, depending on what part of the story is told and how.

If you have time, you also might want to read The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama (see review of another Fukuyama book at www.samizdat.com/isyn/fukuy.html). That would be important from the perspective of understanding the alternate (but intimately related) meaning of the word "end" -- in the sense of purpose, final goal.

The "end" of a movie is in some sense its reason for being. Change the ending and you change the sense of the whole thing, because we (unaccountably) continually think backwards, reevaluating events based on what they lead to, what the outcome is.

My Internet: a Personal View of Internet Business Opportunities by Richard Seltzer, on CD, includes four books, 162 articles, and 49 newsletter issues that will inspire you and provide the practical information you need to build your own personal Web site or Internet-based business, helping you to become a player in this new business environment.

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A library for the price of a book.
 

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