ixxiv 



PREFACE. 



takes away, as far as in him lies, the character of 

 millions of the natives of North America, under the 

 pious pretext of a profound regard to the interests 

 of religion. Cant and hypocrisy are the sword and 

 shield of cruelty, ambition, lust, and revenge ; and, 

 as the world was probably never more corrupt than 

 now, so, in no age of its existence, w as there ever 

 so much display of pretended piety. The author of 

 this Journal judges no man: but if it might be per- 

 mitted him to return good for evil, he would humbly 

 suggest to the Quarterly Reviewer, to refrain in 

 future, from disgracing his country, his religion, and 

 his God, by thus sneakingly hiding his political an- 

 tipathies, his bitter, splenetic, and outrageous party 

 violence, behind the sacred shield of evangelical 

 zeal. If he is really sincere in the belief that he is 

 doing service to the cause of religion by this species 

 of literary crusading, he is an object of singular pity ; 

 but if, as is most undoubtedly the case, his rehgion 

 is nothing but politics, and his labours only those of 

 an interested hireling, gaining his daily bread, not 

 by the honest sweat of his brow, but by calumny 

 and detraction, pity must give place to contempt 

 and detestation of such rank and interested hy- 

 pocrisy. 



The author of this Journal must now apologize 

 for having thus long detained the reader with his 

 justification. It may be thought, that the labour 

 thus bestowed was not necessary ; that the asper- 

 sions of a publication so notoriously scurrilous to- 

 wards all nations, and particularly the Americans; 

 so devoid even of that appearance of candour, which 

 is necessary to give to falsehood its most fatal poison, 

 were unworthy of notice. The author thought so 

 too, until he reflected, that various circumstances 

 had given to this Review a weight and influence in 

 this country, utterly disproportioned to its merits, 



