iv PREF AC E. 



The Publifhers having concurred with the Author in 

 this opinion, he was proceeding in the execution of his 

 plan ; when an appointment from his Sovereign called 

 him to fulfil its duties in a diftant country. 



Thus fituated, he prevailed on me to undertake a 

 tafk for which I felt myfelf but ill calculated ; a tafk that 

 I have performed with reludtance, and which nothing 

 but the delire of complying with his wifli could have 

 induced me to perform at all. An early fufpicion, that 

 the deep intereft which I had in the Narrator would, if 

 it did not impede my progrefs, at leaft render it painful, 

 was fully verified. Scarcely a page was examined, which 

 did not give birth to fome uneafy fenfation ; and my 

 mind was by turns a prey to terror and difguft. It cannot 

 be matter of wonder, that, beholding my fellow-creatures 

 fo loft to evejy fenfe of feeling, fo funk in hopelefs de- 

 pravity, as to prefer their former evil courfes, when even 

 temptation had ceafed to hold out a lure, and when 

 comfort and competence were the probable, if not certain 

 rewards of a different condudt, created in my bofom a 

 degrading idea of the human heart, and led me to tremble 

 at the recolle&ion that the Hiftorian, whofe faithful 

 records had given birth to thofe fenfations, might at that 

 very hour be expofed to the fame evils and the fame 

 perils which he had but too recently experienced. That 

 this fliould be poflible, did, indeed, fill me with afto- 



i ^ufhment, 



