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Experience ought to have taught me that it is not for a poor man to wrestle with official power. Undefined Discretion, whether sound or rotten, is an immense field of authority. Maxims of state, for aught I know, may have imperiously called for the measures adopted towards me. "Might is right," I have often both heard and felt; and I should have humbly kissed the rod, and retired to my original obscurity, from the Proud state of Popular Celebrity, which, it seems, I was in danger of attaining, had it not been for the kind and solicitous suggestions of those generous protectors, who, impressed as it would seem, with an opinion that I was an object of unmerited severity and something very like gratuitous oppression, have not only extended to me their liberal contributions for my present relief, but urged me to this effort of publishing my history, as a means of exciting in my behalf the liberality of that people whose glorious character it is to detest oppression and vindicate the oppressed.
Having thus cleared the ground by explaining the motives which have urged me to the awkward and most reluctant office of my own Biographer, I shall now proceed to a detail, which I feel can have little, if any thing, to excite interest; and which must owe its success to the generous protection and countenance of the noble, the amiable, and most kind supporters who have recommended the effort; and whose goodness shall ever be indelibly graven in the heart and memory of the humble individual who has now the honour of submitting to them and the generous public the simple occurrences of his unfortunate life.
