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September 6, 1929.

Mr. Kenneth L. Roberts, Kennebunk Beach, Maine.

My dear Mr. Roberts;- I am much interested in your new novel and I wish that we could send you a great deal of material which might be useful and interesting to you. It is a continual source of regret to us that we have so very little on the maritime history of Maine. It has not been adequately written about in even one section of one period, and, so far as we know, there are only scattered, fragmentary and unsatisfactory references. We have no documentary material, and our catalog lists only one or two log-books, only one of which (The log of the Grand Turks, by Robert Peabody) is of the period in which you are interested. There is one log of the Revolutionary period; the others are much later than 1812.

Some time ago, I heard that Lincoln and Joanna Colcord were writing a history of the ships and shipping of Maine, and surely they must have assembled a great deal of sea stuff, even if they haven't progressed far on the history, and undoubtedly they have log books. If you haven't visited the Peabody Museum and the Essex Institute of Salem, it might be worth while for you to go there.

We have a number of genealogies but not one of the Nason family, and we have not, as yet, found any references to Daniel Nason. BotheBradbury's and Remich's History of Kennebunk refer to the building and the capture of the McDonough and probably your great grandfather was sent to Dartmoor at that time. You mention that besides the Prisoner's Memoirs you have another book similar to it. Is this "A green hand's first cruise; together with five months in Dartmoor", by Cobb, Boston, 1841? We do not have this book, but probably you can borrow it from the Boston Public Library or the Essex Institute Library. If your local librarian can't get this for you, let us know and we will try and borrow it for you.

We have the Memoirs of Rev. Andrew Sherburne. We are sending it to you, with Coggeshall, the log of the Grand Turks, and the old Massachusetts Report. We shall be glad to lend you any other books that we have which might help.you.

I looked in the Annual Register for the years of the war, but in a hurried examination I didn't find much of interest. As you probably know, the Chronicle section is quite newsy, not like the general history section, but there seemed to be more about murders and accidents than about the war with the United States. Sometimes it is quite an interesting source of reference since it is contemporary.

I was so interested to hear that Arundle had gone to the publishers. Surprised, too, because it didn't seem possible that you could have completed in so short a time a book requiring so much research. Evidently I don't know much about how real authors work. I hope that the book will be out before Christmas, because I plan to give it to several of my friends. I can't think of any historical novel of Maine that is really readable, and I am very glad that you have written one.

I enclose a list of references on the War of 1812.

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