via 
PREFACE. 
a nephew of Wilson’s, and his confidential friend for many years, 
must be deemed authentic ; and we have to regret that the plan 
and limits of our publication did not allow us to make a freer use 
of what was so kindly placed at our disposal. 
To Mr. Duncan, Mr. Miller, and Mr. Lawson, the writer owes 
many obligations, for the promptitude with which they intrusted 
to him their letters ; and his acknowledgments are equally due to 
Colonel Robert Carr, who furnished him with the letters to the late 
William Bartram. The friendship which subsisted between Wil- 
son and the latter was of the most exalted kind ; and the warm 
expressions of confidence and regard which characterize these let- 
ters, will afford a proof of how much of the writer’s happiness was 
derived from this amiable intercourse. The reader’s obligations to 
Colonel Carr will not be lessened, when it is stated that the greater 
part of these interesting epistles were mislaid during the latter days 
of the venerable botanist to whom they were addressed ; and that 
it was through the care of the above-mentioned gentleman they 
were rescued from oblivion. 
The errors of nomenclature which were committed in the first 
edition, it has been the author’s endeavour to correct in the pre- 
sent. These errors arose from the idea which he unadvisedly en- 
tertained, that he ought not to change those names which Wilson 
himself had sanctioned by adoption. A little more experience 
would have taught him the absurdity of this opinion, as science 
can be but ill advanced by a reliance on authority, independent of 
personal investigation. 
