affairs of a particular colony, but the desideratum is a composition which shall present in one connected view, the transactions of all those colonies which now form the United States.

The materials for the complete execution of such a work are perhaps not to be found in America; and, if they do exist, their collection would require a length of time, and a labour of research, which neither the impatience of the public, nor the situation of the author would enable him to bestow on the subject. Yet he thought it more eligible to digest into one volume the most material of those facts which are now scattered through several books, than to commence his history abruptly with the war between Great Britain and her colonies.

The difficulties attending even such an undertaking as this, were soon perceived to be greater than had been expected. In several of the English colonies, either no accounts whatever, or such vague accounts of their transactions have been given, that long intervals of time pass away without furnishing a single document relative to their affairs. In others very circumstantial details of their original settlements have been published, but the relation

stops at an early period. In New England alone has the history of any colony been continued to the war of our independence; mr. Belknap, mr. Hutchinson and mr. Minot have faithfully transmitted to those who succeed them, the events which occurred in New Hampshire and Massachussetts. Mr. Trumbull is engaged in a similar undertaking for Connecticut, but has not yet progressed far in its execution. In New York, mr. Smith has made a valuable commencement; and in Vir. ginia mr. Stith, and mr. Beverly, have detailed at great length the hardships of the original settlers; but in the other colonies, until we reach South Carolina and Georgia, scarcely an attempt has been made at a history of any sort. To the reign of William and Mary, mr. Chalmer has furnished almost all the facts which the historian of the United States would require. It is much to be regretted that he has not prosecuted his very valuable work according to his original design. So far as it has been executed, it contains internal evidence of the means he possesses for its completion: means unattainable by any inhabitant of the United States. The author has made free use of the materials he has furnished, as well as of those

collected by mr. Belknap, mr. Hutchinson, mr. Minot, mr. Smith, and the historian of South Carolina and Georgia. He has also made large extracts from the two chapters written by mr. Robertson and published since his decease. Had that gentleman lived to finish the work he began, an elegant and valuable history of our country would have been in possession of the public, and the author of the following sheets would have deemed it unnecessary to have introduced the Life of General Washington with any narrative of events preceding the time when that great man appeared on the theatre of action. But we have received from mr. Robertson only an account of the settlements of the two eldest colonies, and therefore the necessity of prefixing to this work some essay, though a crude one, towards a general history of the English settlements on this continent, still remained.

If mr. Chalmer, or any other person, shall complete the publication of that collection of facts which he has so successfully commenced, and intelligent individuals of other states could be induced to follow the example set them by mr. Belknap, mr. Hutchinson, mr. Minot, and mr. Trumbull, a fund of information would then be collected from which a correct and va

luable history of the now United States might readily be compiled. Until one or both of these events occur, such a history is not to be expected. The author is by no means insensible of the insufficiency of that which is now presented to the public, but the Life of General Washington required some previous general knowledge of American affairs, and he thought it more advisable to accompany that work with even the imperfect sketch of our history which he has been enabled to draw, than to give it publicity unconnected with any narrative whatever of preceding events.

In executing the determination produced by this opinion, he soon perceived that though human nature is always the same, and consequently man will in every situation furnish useful lessons to the discerning politician; yet few would be willing to employ much time in searching for them through the minute details of the sufferings of an infant people, spreading themselves through a wilderness preoccupied only by savages and wild beasts. These details can interest themselves alone, and only the desire of knowing the situation of our own country in every stage of its existence, can stamp a value on the page which contains them. He has, therefore, omitted entirely many transac

tions deemed of great moment while passing, and yet he is more apprehensive of having overcharged his narrative with facts not of sufficient importance to be preserved, than of having contracted it too much.

For any inattention to composition an apology ought never to be necessary. A work of any importance ought never to be submitted to the public until it has been sufficiently revised and corrected. Yet the first part of the Life of General Washington goes into the world under circumstances, which might bespeak from candour less severity of criticism, than it will probably experience. The papers from which it has been compiled have been already stated to be immensely voluminous, and the public was already looking for the work, before the writer was fixed on and the documents from which it was to be composed placed in his hands. The impatience since discovered by many of the subscribers has carried the following sheets to the press much more precipitately than the judgment of the author would have. permitted him to part with them, and he cannot flatter himself that they are free from many defects which on a re-perusal will attract even his own observation.