performance, to produce something which shall be found free from the above defects. It has been his intention, throughout, to make the work serviceable in the highest degree, both as a school-book and as a volume adapted to the fireside and the student's closet; to relate everything necessary to be known in the history of our country, with the utmost accuracy in the narrative and precision in the dates; and, at the same time, to preserve those interesting details, anecdotes, and illustrations, which constitute the life and soul of history, and without which such a work as this would become little better than a chronological table, or a dry and dull compilation of annals, difficult to read, and impossible to remember.
As a necessary introduction to the work, it has been judged requisite to give a pretty copious account of the original inhabitants of the western continent, and of the earliest conquests and settlements by other nations than the English, both in North and South America. It is believed that the present History comprises a more complete and accurate body of facts, in relation to the history of the United States and its subsidiary topics, than any volume of its size that has yet made its appearance among us. A plain and intelligible style of narration has been observed throughout the performance; and the sentiments and moral reflections which occasionally fall from the pen of the narrator, will, we trust, be found true to virtue, patriotism, and philanthropy.