ABSTRACT
The Work I now offer to the Public has been written under great disadvantages; and, might I quote in my apology for the defects of so trifling a composition as a Novel, the expression used in regard to his great and laborious work by Dr. Johnson, I might justly plead in excuse for those defects, That it has been composed amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow!2 – at a time when long anxiety has ruined my health, and long oppression broken my spirits; at the end of more than ten years (a very great portion of human life) during which I have been compelled to provide for the necessities of a numerous family, almost entirely by my own labour. And when I am yet to look forward to no other prospect for the future but a repetition of exertions on my part, of injustice and evasion on the part of those who have detained the property of my children from them, or even to greater inconvenience and distress for them, when, quite worn out by my sufferings, I shall no more be able to assist them.
