Ill 
my friends and country, without your encouragement 
and kind assistance, I should have been too diffident to 
publish these volumes. Lavish as you were with the 
former, I must ever regret that your avocations did not 
allow me more of the latter. I have now embarked too 
far to recede; you must be my pilot: whatever may 
be the imperfection of these memoirs, your name will 
impress them with the seal of truth. 
You need no adulatory expressions to convince 
you of the sincerity with which I subscribe myself 
Your sincere, and affectionate friend. 
Stanmore Hill, 
At ay 1, 1812. 
JAMES FORBES 
