Vlll 



PREFACE. 



^' In hinting at any similitude, however, we would not 

 be understood to allude, in the most distant manner, to the 

 capture or destruction of the whale-fishing vessels in the 

 Southern Pacific, and the mass of individual distress occa- 

 _sioned thereby : — private property, met with on the sea, 

 however innocently employed, is, by the practice of war, 

 unfortunately excluded from that protection which is usu- 

 ally granted to it on shore. Our charges against Captain 

 Porter are of a more flagitious nature, and out of his own 

 mouth shall we condemn him. 



" The style, or rather jargon of the book, is that of a 

 boatswain's mate ; and with regard to any new information, 

 nautical, geographical, or moral, it is so trifling in its ex- 

 tent, and of so little importance in any point of view, that 

 the notice of it will not detain us long. By far the great- 

 er part of the book is occupied with a tedious detail of 

 the author's exploits in capturing unarmed whalers, in 

 maltreating his prisoners, and in wantonly murdering unof- 

 fending savages, of all which he is hardy enough to make 

 an exulting recital." 



The foregoing extract contains the substance of 

 the principal charges brought against the author of 

 this Journal. In a subsequent part of the Review, 

 these charges are separately enforced, and sustained 

 by various quotations from this work, together with 

 various comparisons of the writer's conduct, with 

 that of English navigators, all which are of course 

 to his disadvantage. These will be taken in the 

 order in which they appear in the Review. 



It is presumed, that most readers are acquainted 

 in some degree with the history and character of 

 this Capt. Morgan, with whom the author is thus 

 brought into comparison. He was a native of Great 

 Britain, and one of the most bloody and remorseless 

 of all those desperate adventurers of the seventeenth 

 century, who, without a commission from any 

 power, made war on all, and committed the most 

 horrible excesses, both by sea and land. Did his 

 limits permit, and did the author not fear to outrage 



