Acknowledgment

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[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1832,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New-York.]

Acknowledgment

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TO THE READER.

The devotees of sects and parties are exceedingly
prone to imagine that every book, whatever may be its
nature or object, is intended to operate in favour of or
against their cherished doctrines or policy, and to test
its opinions and sentiments by that standard alone.
Such a rule, applied to fictions more especially, is calculated
to put a tyrannical restraint on an author in the
delineation of characters, as well as in detailing the
sentiments and language naturally growing out of their
particular habits, manners, and situations. Having
conceived a character, it should be his aim to make
it act and talk as such a person might naturally
be supposed to do in similar circumstances. But we
think he ought not to be held responsible for this any
farther than probability and the decorums of life are
concerned. Neither, as it appears to us, is he justly
chargeable with hostility to any particular class, or profession,
or sect, if he should happen to exhibit a character
for the purpose of exposing their occasional excesses
or absurdities. All we conceive a writer justly
responsible for, in this point of view, are those sentiments
and opinions he puts forth when he appears in
his own proper person, and makes his bow to the reader.
Thus, for instance, the little exhibitions of hostility to
the Yankees occasionally introduced in the following
work are given as characteristic of the feelings and
prejudices of those to whom they are ascribed, and not
as the sentiments of the author. So also with regard
to the scene in Philadelphia, which is simply an exhibition
of what it is supposed would naturally be the

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feelings of a sagacious slave in the situation and under
the circumstances described. The author yields to
none in respect for the motives of those who are sincerely
anxious to rid this country of the embarrassments
of slavery; and none more heartily wishes the thing
were possible, at a less risk to the happiness of both
master and slave.

The great aim of the author has been to combine an
important moral, with the interest of a series of incidents,
and sketches of scenery, character, manners, and modes
of thought and expression, such as he knows or imagines
exist, or have existed, in particular portions of
the United States. The story professes no connexion
with history, and aspires to no special chronological
accuracy; though it is believed that sufficient regard
has been had to truth in this respect to give
it the interest of something like reality. For very
many of his ideas of the great Mississippi Valley the
author is under particular obligations to the “Recollections”
of the Rev. Timothy Flint, which contain by
far the most picturesque description of that remarkable
region which has ever fallen under his observation.
This work has not met its deserts, and he should be
highly gratified if this passing notice served in any way
to call the public attention to its interesting details.