University of Virginia Library

Biography, in its purer form, confined to the ended
lives of the true and brave, may be held the fairest
meed of human virtue—one given and received in entire
disinterestedness—since neither can the biographer
hope for acknowledgment from the subject, nor the
subject at all avail himself of the biographical distinction
conferred.

Israel Potter well merits the present tribute—a private
of Bunker Hill, who for his faithful services was
years ago promoted to a still deeper privacy under the
ground, with a posthumous pension, in default of any
during life, annually paid him by the spring in evernew
mosses and sward.

I am the more encouraged to lay this performance at
the feet of your Highness, because, with a change in
the grammatical person, it preserves, almost as in a
reprint, Israel Potter's autobiographical story. Shortly
after his return in infirm old age to his native land, a
little narrative of his adventures, forlornly published
on sleazy gray paper, appeared among the peddlers,
written, probably, not by himself, but taken down from
his lips by another. But like the crutch-marks of the
cripple by the Beautiful Gate, this blurred record is
now out of print. From a tattered copy, rescued by
the merest chance from the rag-pickers, the present
account has been drawn, which, with the exception of
some expansions, and additions of historic and personal
details, and one or two shiftings of scene, may, perhaps,
be not unfitly regarded something in the light of a
dilapidated old tombstone retouched.

Well aware that in your Highness' eyes the merit
of the story must be in its general fidelity to the main
drift of the original narrative, I forbore anywhere to
mitigate the hard fortunes of my hero; and particularly
towards the end, though sorely tempted, durst
not substitute for the allotment of Providence any
artistic recompense of poetical justice; so that no one
can complain of the gloom of my closing chapters more
profoundly than myself.

Such is the work, and such the man, that I have the
honor to present to your Highness. That the name

here noted should not have appeared in the volumes
of Sparks, may or may not be a matter for astonishment;
but Israel Potter seems purposely to have
waited to make his popular advent under the present
exalted patronage, seeing that your Highness, according
to the definition above, may, in the loftiest sense,
be deemed the Great Biographer: the national commemorator
of such of the anonymous privates of June
17, 1775, who may never have received other requital
than the solid reward of your granite.

Your Highness will pardon me, if, with the warmest
ascriptions on this auspicious occasion, I take the liberty
to mingle my hearty congratulations on the recurrence
of the anniversary day we celebrate, wishing
your Highness (though indeed your Highness be somewhat
prematurely gray) many returns of the same, and
that each of its summer's suns may shine as brightly
on your brow as each winter snow shall lightly rest on
the grave of Israel Potter.