University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

In order that our readers and ourselves may
at once come to a proper understanding, we will
confess, without any circumlocution, that we sat
down to write this history before we had thought
of any regular plan, or arranged the incidents,
being fully convinced that an author who trusts
to his own genius, like a modern saint who relies
solely on his faith, will never be left in the
lurch. Another principle of ours, which we have
seen fully exemplified in the very great success
of certain popular works, advertised for publication
before they were begun to be written, is,
that it is much better for an author to commence
his work, without knowing how it is to end, than

to hamper himself with a regular plot, a succession
of prepared incidents, and a premeditated
catastrophe. This we hold to be an error little
less, than to tie the legs of a dancing master, to
make him caper the more gracefully, or pinion
a man's arms behind his back, as a preparative
to a boxing match. In short, it is taking away,
by a sort of literary felo de se, all that free will,
that perfect liberty of imagination and invention,
which causes us writers to curvet so gracefully
in the fertile fields of historical fiction.

Another sore obstacle in the way of the free
exercise of genius, is for a writer of historical novels,
such as we have reason to suspect this will
turn out to be, to embarrass his invention by an
abject submission to chronology, or confine
himself only to the introduction of such characters
and incidents as really existed or took place
within the limits of time and space comprised in
the groundwork of his story. Nothing can be
more evident than that this squeamishness of the
author must materially interfere with the interest
and variety of his work, since, if, as often
happens, there should be wanting great characters
or great events, coming lawfully within
the period comprised in the said history, the
author will be proportionably stinted in his materials.

To be scared by a trifling anachronism,
in relation to things that have passed away a
century, or ten centuries ago, is a piece of literary
cowardice, similar to that of the ignorant
clown, who should be frightened by the ghost
of some one that had been dead a thousand
years.

So far, therefore, as we can answer for ourselves
in the course of this history, we honestly
advertise the reader, that although our hero is
strictly an historical personage, having actually
lived and died, like other people, yet in all other
respects, not only he, but every character in the
work, belongs entirely to us. We mean to make
them think, talk and act just as we like, and
without the least regard to nature, education or
probability. So also as respects the incidents
of our history. We intend, at present, reserving
to ourselves, however, the liberty of altering our
plan whenever it suits us in the course of our labours,
to confine our labours to no time nor place,
but to embody in our work every incident or
adventure that falls in our way, or that an intimate
knowledge of old ballads, nursery tales,
and traditions, has enabled us to collect together.
In short, we are fully determined, by the example
of a certain Great Unknown, that so long

as we hold the pen, we will never be deterred
from seizing any romantic or improbable adventure,
by any weak apprehension that people will
quarrel with us because they do not follow on in
the natural course, or hang together by any
probable connexion of cause and effect.

Another determination of ours, of which we
think it fair to apprize the reader, is, that we
shall strenuously endeavour to avoid any
intercourse, either directly or indirectly, with
that bane of true genius, commonly called common
sense. We look upon that species of vulgar
bumpkin capacity, as little better than the
instinct of animals; as the greatest pest of authorship
that ever exercised jurisdiction in the
fields of literature. Its very name is sufficient to
indicate the absurdity of persons striving to produce
any thing uncommon by an abject submission
to its dictates. It shall also be our especial
care, to avoid the ancient, but nearly exploded
error, of supposing that either nature or probability
is in anywise necessary to the interest of a
work of imagination. We intend that all our
principal characters shall indulge in as many inconsistencies
and eccentricities, as will suffice to
make them somewhat interesting, being altogether
assured that your sober, rational mortals,

who act from ordinary impulses, and pursue a
course of conduct sanctioned by common sense,
are no better than common-place people, entirely
unworthy the attention of an author, or his
readers. It is for this special reason that
we have chosen for our scene of action, a forgotten
village, and for our actors, an obscure
colony, whose existence is scarcely known,
and the incidents of whose history are sufficiently
insignificant to allow us ample liberty in giving
what cast and colouring we please to their
manners, habits and opinions. And we shall
make free use of this advantage, trusting to the
example of the great writer to whom we before
alluded, that the good-natured public will give
us full credit for being most faithful delineators
of life and manners. Great and manifold are the
advantages arising from choosing this obscure
period. The writer who attempts to copy existing
life and manners, must come in competition,
and undergo a comparison with the originals,
which he cannot sustain, unless his picture
be correct and characteristic. But with regard to
a state of society that is become extinct, it is like
painting the unicorn, or the mammoth;—give
the one only a single horn, and make the other
only big enough, and the likeness will be received
as perfect.

Certain cavillers, who pretend to be the advocates
of truth, have strenuously objected to the
present fashion of erecting a superstructure of
fiction on a basis of fact, which they say is confounding
truth with falsehood in the minds of
youthful readers. But we look upon this objection
as perfectly frivolous. It cannot be denied
that such a mixture of history and romance is exceedingly
palatable; since, if the figure may be
allowed us, truth is the meat, and fiction the salt,
which gives it a zest, and preserves it from perishing.
So, also, a little embellishment will save certain
insignificant events from being entirely lost or
forgotten in the lapse of time. Hence we find
young people, who turn with disgust from the
solid dulness of pure matter of fact history, devouring
with vast avidity those delectable mixed
dishes, and thus acquiring a knowledge of history,
which, though we confess somewhat adulterated,
is better than none at all. Besides this,
many learned persons are of opinion that all
history is in itself little better than a romance,
most especially that part wherein historians pretend
to detail the secret motives of monarchs and

their ministers. One who was himself an old
statesman, writes thus:
Such, then, being the case with history, we think
it a marvellous idle objection to this our mode of
writing, to say that it is falsifying what is true,
since it is only sprinkling a little more fiction
with it, in order to render it sufficiently natural
and entertaining to allure the youthful and romantic
reader.

Before concluding this introductory chapter,
which is to be considered the key to our undertaking,
we will ask one favour of the reader. It
is, that if on some occasions we shall, in the
course of this work, appear somewhat wiser in
various matters, than comports with the period
of our history, and at other times not so wise as
we ought to be, he will in the one case ascribe it
to the total inability of authors to refrain from
telling what they know, and in the other, to an

extraordinary exertion of modesty, by which we
are enabled, at that particular moment, to repress
the effervescence of our knowledge.

Finally, in order that the reader may devour
our work with a proper zest, we hereby assure
him, (in confidence,) that our bookseller has covenanted
and agreed to pay us ten thousand dollars
in Kentucky bank notes, provided the sale of
it should justify such inordinate generosity. We
will now plunge directly into the thickest of our
adventures, having thus happily got over the first
step, which is held to be half the battle: