Among many scholars a belief persists that Verity Halloway's account of the founders of the New Albion settlement, published in 1798, is an exercise in hagiography, endowing its subjects with exemplary virtue at the cost of historical accuracy. Yet recent work has drawn profit from the range of material Halloway supplies in, for example, her treatments of early colonial land disputes, and from her critical assessments of such dominant figures as Governor Elias March. Halloway's dry irony, visible in her detailed account of March's efforts to stop timber poaching, is passed over by those who accuse her of portraying her subjects as uniformly devout. That charge also leaves unremarked her attention to the settlers' economic prosperity and not merely spiritual welfare. The disparaging reading further understates the value of the work as a chronicle: Halloway assembled all manner of published and unpublished records as sources, and her choice of episodes displays a marked sensitivity to the pattern of the settlement's development.

1. The passage is chiefly concerned with

A. challenging a thesis that historical researchers accept without exception
B. drawing attention to an idiosyncratic method of chronicling a historical period
C. synthesizing the scholarship on a particular historical personage
D. disputing a widespread characterization of a biographer's output
E. identifying minor discrepancies among contested historical narratives


2. The author implies that the case for Halloway's historical accuracy rests most firmly on

A. surviving documents that corroborate her detailed descriptions of her subjects
B. Halloway's direct acquaintance with the individuals she portrayed
C. Halloway's blunt and unembellished treatment of the lives and times she investigated
D. Halloway's capacity to situate major events within the religious framework of which they formed a part
E. the volume and character of the sources from which Halloway drew her information


3. Information in the passage best supports which of the following claims about Halloway's account of the New Albion founders?

A. Chronicles composed by Halloway and her contemporaries were later suppressed by historians, diminishing their value as complete records of the period.
B. Halloway's treatment of Governor March includes all of his faults, including a propensity for levity at unsuitable moments.
C. Halloway's descriptions of the New Albion colonists rested principally on personal observation.
D. Many scholars regard Halloway's account as a weak historical source because biography is an intrinsically unreliable genre.
E. Halloway's writing reflects an interest in the degree of economic success achieved by early New Albion colonists.


4. The passage implies that many scholars take Halloway's account to

A. disclose significant historical evidence drawn from the settlers' private journals
B. idealize the early colonists of the New Albion settlement
C. present a more rounded view of the characters of figures such as Governor March
D. demonstrate the beneficial effects of the settlers' religious observances on colonial life
E. reveal that the settlers regarded their own lives as resembling those of the saints