This finding meant that these two groups of memories were qualitatively different and ruled out the
misdating explanation.
An "eye-skip" similar to that leading to Hawthorne's
misdating of Franklin Pierce's arrival at Puebla (23: 653) probably accounts for Hawthorne's error.
Cases of criminal prosecution for
misdating an acknowledgement when there is not a direct financial gain are rare.
Evidently these kinds of discrepancies or gaps are sometimes due to technical glitches, the consequence of
misdating or misfiling a few pages amid millions.
Theories about the false dates so far have centered on how they accord with Shakespeare's authorship, but I think it is worth considering how other collection principles, such as seriality and historicity, may have motivated the
misdating.
Greater care would have avoided errors such as
misdating the Embargo Act (22); describing Andrew Jackson as a senator in 1811 (29); stating that William Henry Harrison "provoked a quarrel with Tecumseh by violating a treaty signed two years earlier," although it was actually the Treaty of Fort Wayne itself, not a violation of it, that inflamed the Indians (29); having Thomas Pinckney lead the Patriots into East Florida in March 1812 instead of George Mathews (33); saying the army captain in command of Fort Washington in 1814 was a naval officer (325); speaking of the "ever inventive Richard Fulton" (349); or declaring that the Treaty of Fort Jackson removed Indians to the West, when it did no such thing (370).
A reference to the English reformer "Matthew Tyndale" (6) is an unfortunate slip, as is the
misdating (96) of the fifth-century philosopher Pseudo-Dionysius.
The issue of backdating (or
misdating) options has increased focus on what constitutes the "grant date" The determination of the grant date is a facts-and-circumstances test, and the answer may be different for legal, tax, and financial accounting purposes.
In sum, the only clearly noticeable editorial error in this book is the inconsequential
misdating of an italicized quote that appears on a transition page which separates two sections of the book.
