PREFACE. 



The motive for submitting any political or lite- 

 rary undertaking to the public, is frequently 

 asked and frequently given; mine is easily ex- 

 plained, and is a very simple one. Being em- 

 ployed in the preparation of a legislative mea- 

 sure acknowledged to be one of great practical 

 difficulty, and having embodied in it — and in 

 the familiar publications which accompanied it, 

 the experience of the greater part of my life, 

 I am unwilling to allow my contributions to 

 the general stock of knowledge to be altogether 

 estranged from me, or to lie entombed in the 

 periodicals in which they were originally pub- 

 lished. 



The purpose I proposed to myself at the 

 time these articles first appeared in print, was, 

 to delineate a system for the administration of 



