University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

The volume now presented to the public concludes the history
of Virginia from 1763 to the year 1847, and contains also a
review of her present condition. The Author has found the task
more interesting and more difficult than the composition of the
first volume; and as no one can estimate its difficulty more fully,
so it is probable that none can perceive its defects more clearly
than himself. But he has persevered in the plan of stating facts
upon none but the best authorities, of giving the names of his
witnesses to his readers, and of laying open his inferences to full
inspection.

It will be at once remarked, that his plan has brought him in
contact with many delicate subjects, and with individuals either
now living themselves or having near relatives alive. He can
hardly hope that he will give satisfaction to all. Were he to
pretend that he has no preferences in politics, in religion, or in
views of the social system, he would instantly forfeit all right to
public confidence. But preferences may be well founded. He
has eagerly striven to divest his mind of all prejudice and undue
prepossession, and to reach the truth wherever it could be attained.
If, therefore, any reader shall find in this work any
statement which does not please him, he is earnestly asked to
pause, to reconsider his own opinion, to examine carefully the
authorities cited for facts, and the deductions drawn from them.
When he shall have bestowed as much labour in reviewing the
statement as has been devoted to its original preparation, if his
objections are not removed, the Author will be pleased to hear
them from him.

The first volume of the work has been received with a degree
of favour for which the Author is truly grateful. It has been

most kindly commented upon by many who were competent to
judge of its merits. In confessing the pleasure he has derived
from favourable criticisms, he would not forget to render his
acknowledgments to those who have undertaken the important
duty of pointing out his sins of omission and commission. He
has endeavoured to give proper heed to their rebukes. Wherever
the censure has seemed to him to be just, and not the result of
inexperience, false taste, and undue self-esteem in the critic, he
has allowed it full weight in his subsequent labours. Evidence
of his willingness to correct what he has thought inaccurate in
the first, will be found in the present volume.

There is a healthful philosophy to be learned from the history
of Virginia, and the Author would be grieved to think that he
had entirely failed in inculcating it. On this subject an immature
critic will easily fall into errors. History must not teach her
lessons by long courses of reflection and trains of argument,
continued like the reasonings in a work on ethics or political
economy. She must teach by a proper selection and arrangement
of her basis of facts. To make a child hate national ingratitude,
many laboured reflections on the subject might be administered to
him without effect, but if the banishment of Aristides from Athens
were related to him, with a single sharply-pointed comment, it
would make an impression never to be erased. And men are but
"children of an older growth." If the reader of these volumes
shall learn from them that idleness and profligacy will produce
want and wretchedness; that perseverance against obstacles will
insure success; that tyranny in government will lead to rebellion
in its subjects; that ceaseless vigilance is the price of independence;
that religion, in order to be pure, must be free; that
weakness in government may be as dangerous as strength; that
children will suffer because of the sins of their parents; and that
education is necessary to national happiness,—he will learn lessons
in philosophy such as Virginia should be glad to teach, and such
as her people will act upon when they fulfil their proper duties
as citizens of the oldest member of the American Confederacy.