PREFACE TO THE CANADIAN EDITION. 



A CYNIC has suggested that after a certain interval 

 -*■ *- the return to life of our dearest relative might often 

 occasion as much perplexity as pleasure. 



However harshly this sentiment may grate on the ears of 

 Constancy, I confess to a kindred feeling of embarrassment 

 in being suddenly confronted, after so many years, with the 

 alien self that reappears in the following pages ; but I am 

 told that the friendly community with which I am now con- 

 nected, and with whose fortunes my own are temporarily 

 interwoven, may be disposed to take an interest in the 

 youthful yatching experiences of their present Governor 

 General. 



But for this I should never have had the hardihood to 

 appear as an author before the public of this Continent, 

 whose geographical position and fiscal arrangements 

 enable its inhabitants to skim the cream from the litera- 

 ture of Europe, without troubling themselves either with 

 its sedimentary deposits, or the irritating restrictions of 

 its copyrights. Once indeed through the " enterprise " of 

 a transatlantic Editor, whose nationality shall be nameless, 

 a mutilated issue of these "Letters" obtained an ephemeral 



