ABSTRACT
I have stated the narrative of Mr Collins, interspersed with such other information as I was able to collect, with all the exactness that my memory, assisted by certain memorandums I made at the time, will afford. 1 [] I do not pretend to warrant the authenticity of any part of these memoirs except so much as fell under my own knowledge, and that part shall be stated with the same simplicity / and accuracy that I would observe towards a court which was to decide in the last resort upon every thing dear to me. 2 [] The same scrupulous fidelity restrains me from altering the manner of Mr Collins’s narrative to adapt it to the precepts of my own taste; and it will soon be perceived how essential that narrative is to the elucidation of my own history.
