PREFACE 7 



book, which however contains much that is beautiful 

 and true. If perhaps there may be asked of me more 

 detailed and circumstantial information regarding 

 moral, political, ceconomical, and mercantile conditions, 

 I can offer apology for incompleteness in no other way 

 but that these subjects were not precisely a part of my 

 plan, and that the period of my travels immediately 

 after the war when judgments and opinions were still 

 uncertain, statistical accounts unreliable, and peace and 

 order, especially, had not yet been firmly re-established, 

 the time, I say, was not the most opportune for these 

 things. Besides, there is no lack of writings giving 

 trustworthy information in the items of the agriculture, 

 trade, exports and imports of the former British col- 

 onies but the changes arisen in these matters during 

 and since the war were as yet hardly to be determined 

 with certainty. Just as during the period of my 

 journey all manner of plans were making and institu- 

 tions beginning, and everything was still in a ferment, 

 so it will be easily understood if certain of my intelli- 

 gence comes too late and appears superfluous because 

 of newly hit-upon changes what I have learned in 

 this respect I have made note of, and the rest may serve 

 to show how matters were at that time. 



I hope I shall not bring upon myself by any of my 

 remarks the reproach of having blamed without reason 

 or maliciously, and where there may be the appearance 

 of such a thing it should be known that every thing I 

 say here I myself gave expression to in America, where 

 freedom of thought, of speech, and of the pen are 



