This is said in anticipation of certain strictures that will be likely
to follow some of the incidents of our story, it not being always
deemed an essential in an American critic, that he should understand
his subject. Too many of them, indeed, justify the retort of the man
who derided the claims to knowledge of life, set up by a neighbour,
that "had been to meetin' and had been to mill." We can all obtain
some notions of the portion of a subject that is placed immediately
before our eyes; the difficulty is to understand that which we have no
means of studying.
On the subject of the nautical incidents of this book, we have
endeavoured to be as exact as our authorities will allow. We are fully
aware of the importance of writing what the world thinks, rather than
what is true, and are not conscious of any very palpable errors of
this nature.
It is no more than fair to apprize the reader, that our tale is not
completed in the First Part, or the volumes that are now published.
This, the plan of the book would not permit: but we can promise those
who may feel any interest in the subject, that the season shall not
pass away, so far as it may depend on ourselves, without bringing the
narrative to a close. Poor Captain Wallingford is now in his
sixty-fifth year, and is naturally desirous of not being hung up long
on the tenter-hooks of expectation, so near the close of life.
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