THE HISTORICAL MAGAZINE, AND NOTES AND QUERIES, CONCERNING THE ANTIQUITIES, HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY AMERICA. VOL. IV. SECOND SERIES. MORRISANIA, N. Y. PREFATORY NOTE. During the year 1868, we were overtaken by sickness and that of a character which kept us from our duties during several weeks. This affliction, added to other causes which preceded it, threw us in arrears, in the publication of the Magazine, for more than six months; and several of our friends kindly offered to relieve us from some portion of the duties which, in addition to the current demands of the hour, were thus thrown upon us. We availed ourself of their offers to edit the closing volume of 1868, while we hopefully carried on the series from January, 1869; and it is now our privilege to close the gap in the publication, to which we have referred, after delays which we could not avoid and surrounded by anxieties which we have not yet overcome. The series is now completed, as far as it has gone: there is no opening in the line: our subscribers-patient and kind-have no received what, but for the causes referred to, they would have received before New-Year's, 1859. guest. There have been delays in the publication of this volume which we would gladly have avoided ; but we have been crippled, more than we ought to have been, by the want of money, by the vexation of too many unpaid subscriptions, and by gradually failing health, which is still our unwelcome We should have been glad to have been able to do better: we are grateful to a kind Providence which has enabled us to do so well: without reproaching ourself because of the shortcomings of the Past, we confidently press forward, assuring ourself that strength will be given to us, with the necessary means, sooner or latter, in the Future, to gain the object for which we still toil, painfully-the privilege of seeing THE HISTORICAL MAGAZINE in line with its contemporaries; its Editor relieved of some portion of the toil which now wearies him by day and of the anxiety which too often deprives him of his rest by night; and the Magazine, itself, more than it has ever been in the Past, a fearless, vigilant, and uncompromising witness to the Truth of History, carrying shame and confusion into the columns of the well-fed and arrogant falsifiers of the Truth who crowd the Devil's turnpike, and extending to the weary, half-starved, and lonely plodders scattered, here and there over God's high-way, the encouragement and assistance which the World, the Flesh, ant the Devil have generally "too much to do" to extend to them. We aim at nothing more than this: we trust that we shall, one day, surely secure what we desire. Our grateful acknowledgements are due and heartily tendered to Messrs. GILLETT, JONES, WHITMORE, GOODWIN, MYERS, and DEAN, each of whom have edited a number of this volume so well and so acceptably; to our young and talented nephew, ALFRED B. HALL, of this town, who has so admirably engraved the portrait which accompanies the December number; and to those of our subscribers who have so patiently waited for the completion of the volume and, in many instances, cheered us by words of encouragement which have strengthened our weakness and smoothed the rugged road over which we have staggered. To those other "patrons" of the Magazine-male and female-who have railed at the shortcomings which they could have very much modified by paying for what they had received, we tender neither thanks nor condemnation-we leave them to themselves: like the scorpion, they can have no more deadly enemy on earth. MORRISANIA, N. Y. November, 1870. HENRY B. DAWSON. |