Читать книгу The Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake - Henry Timberlake - Страница 4

THE
PREFACE.

Table of Contents

After extracting this detail from my Journal, and supplying many circumstances from my memory, I was very much at a loss what title to give it. Memoirs seemed to answer my design with the greatest propriety; but that being so commonly misapplied, I was afraid the public would expect a romance, where I only intended laying down a few facts, for the vindication of my own conduct. I do not, however, by this mean to suggest to my reader, that he will find here only a bare uninteresting narrative; no, I have added all in my power to make it useful and agreeable to others, as it was necessary to myself; and indeed it was highly so, since a person who bears ill treatment without complaining, is generally held by his friends pusillanimous, or believed to be withheld by secret motives from his own justification. I know not what mine think, but it will not be amiss to inforce their good opinion of me, by laying all my actions open to their view, And as once publishing will be more general, and save many repetitions of a disagreeable narration, this motive first induced me to write, to exchange my sword for a pen, that I wield as a soldier, who never dreamt of the beauties of stile, or propriety of expression. Excuse then, gentle reader, all the faults that may occur, in consideration that these are not my weapons, and that tho’ I received almost as good an education as Virginia could bestow on me, it only sufficed to sit me for a soldier, and not for a scholar; but tho’ this was the chief end I proposed from it, I have, occasionally deviating from my main design, added whatever I thought curious and entertaining, that occurred to my observation, in the Cherokee country, and my travels to and from it, not omitting the principal dangers I have passed through, and the expences I have been at, that the reader, weighing them and the rewards I have received, may judge where the balance is due. I do not doubt but I shall be censured for exposing so freely the actions of Mr. Κακοανθροπος; but to this I was constrained by the clamours made against the unnecessary and extravagant expences into which the reception of the Indians had drawn the government. To unveil where the unnecessary and extravagance of it lay, became my duty; and I cannot say but I took some pleasure in detecting the person in the crime he so arfully had laid to my charge: It is, I presume, very pardonable in a person who has so much reason to complain of his unfair practices towards him. As to the manners of the Indians, I grant they have been often represented, and yet I have never seen any account to my perfect satisfaction, being more frequently taken from the reports of traders, as ignorant and incapable of making just observations as the natives themselves, than from the writer’s own experience. These I took upon the spot, and if I have failed in relating them, it is thro’ want of art in expression, and not of due knowledge in point of facts. As, however, I did not take upon me to write as an author who seeks applause, but compelled by the necessity of vindicating myself, I once more beg the public to pass over, with a candid indulgence, the many faults that may deserve their censure.