X 
INTRODUCTION. 
" Navy Department, September 1st, 1834. 
" Sir, 
" Your letter of the 27th ultimo has been received, enclosing a 
copy of Commodore Downes' letter to yourself, consenting to 
your application for a copy of his instructions. 
" The Secretary of the Navy will be here in a few days, when 
your request shall be submitted to him. 
"I am, respectfully, yours, 
(Signed) "John Boyle, 
" Acting Secretary of the Navy. 
" J N. Re)Tiolds, Esq., New-York." 
" Navy Department, 27th September, 1834. 
. " Sir, 
"Your letter of the 20th inst. has been received; Commodore 
Downes has the permission of the department to furnish you 
with copies or extracts, as may be most desirable to you, of his 
instructions and reports in relation to his operations at Quallah- 
Battoo. 
"I am, very respectfully, yours, 
"Mahlon Dickerson. 
"P. S. Commodore Downes has this day been authorized to 
furnish the above papers. 
"J. N. Reynolds, Esq., New- York." 
With such credentials in my hands, and the consciousness of 
a well intended effort in my heart, I would respectfully make my 
debut before the American public — ^uninfluenced by vain ambi- 
tion, unembarrassed by ill-timed diffidence. If my plain narra- 
tive of maritime incidents, perils, and achievements — 
" All that occurred, part of which 
I was **********" 
f 
has no pretension to the charms of fine vvrriting, it has at least 
the honest merit of truth and fidelity in the delineation of such 
facts as it purports to record. 
