This page has been validated.
PREFACE.
THE Author presumes to claim the indulgence of the Public towards the literary faults, which he fears are too numerous in the following pages. He trusts it will be recollected that a sailor's life affords few moments of "learned ease;" and that he is fitted, both by education and habit, more for action than for thought. Connected arrangement, and logical deductions, are the offspring of retired meditation; but meditation, pensive Nymph, "shuns the noise of folly," or flies before the mirth of thoughtlessness: hence it will scarcely be expected to find a correct work produced amidst the interruptions of active
service,
