Re-classed 8- 6 - 3 1 7 DA
THIS page
the last to be written is the author's own.
Here he may speak to his reader without restraint, and, if he
will, as to a friend. The writer, in availing himself of the privi-
lege accorded to all, would remark, in the first place, that who-
ever opens this volume in the expectation of finding mention of
every challenge given and of every duel fought, in the United
States or elsewhere, will be disappointed. The work, in its
claims as a record, is sufficiently moderate.
Bred to active business, and employed nearly the whole of his
life in commercial or kindred pursuits, the author's leisure hours
-only have been devoted to books. In order to make the most of
these hours, the plan of taking and filing away for use, as occa-
sion might admit, memoranda of incidents and facts of interest,
was adopted in early youth, and has been continued until the
present moment. These NOTES are, then, simply the results of
common and every-day reading, observation, and conversation,
for a series of years, in this particular direction.
As, in preparing the "American Loyalists" for the press, the author was cheered in seasons of discouragement by the reflection, that his labors would at least diminish the hate which had existed for two generations between the inhabitants of the British Colonies and those of his native country, - between the losers and the winners in the Revolutionary strife, and their children, - and thus hasten the period of a peaceful and permanent