ABSTRACT
The story which I now take up the pen to relate, derives no interest from myself. I was born in the middle, or I might rather say, the humbler walks of society, and should probably, as far as relates to my own rank and that of my parents, and to any intrinsic qualities I possess, have been born and die, like the herbage of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow falls under the scythe of the great mower, who cuts down whole fields of the common growth of the soil at his pleasure. But, though insignificant in myself, and uncharacterised / by those vehement passions or that inordinate ambition, which places some men on the roll of the distinguished, and perpetuates their memory to honour or to shame, it has been my lot to be connected with persons whose story has a more substantial claim on the curiosity of mankind. It is their adventures, and not my own, that I am about to relate.
