or would
he wish to gratify it, I am sure, at the expense of the character of
others.

NOTE BY THE EDITOR.

Perhaps even contrary to the wish of Mr. Franchere, I have left the
above almost word for word as he wrote it. It is a part of the
history of the affairs related as well in Mr. Irving's ASTORIA as
in the present volume, that the reclamations of one of the clerks
on that famous and unfortunate voyage of the Tonquin, against the
disparaging description of himself and his colleagues given in the
former work, should be fairly recorded. At the same time, I can not
help stating my own impression that a natural susceptibility,
roused by those slighting remarks from Captain Thorn's
correspondence, to which Mr. Irving as an historian gives currency,
has somewhat blinded my excellent friend to the tone of banter, so
characteristic of the chronicler of the Knickerbockers, in which
all these particulars are given, more as traits of the character
of the stern old sea-captain, with his hearty contempt for
land-lubbers and literary clerks, than as a dependable account of
the persons on board his ship, some of whom might have been, and as
we see by the present work, were, in fact, very meritorious
characters, for whose literary turn, and faithful journalizing
(which seems to have especially provoked the captain's wrath), now
at the end of more than forty years, we have so much reason to be
thankful. Certainly Mr. Irving himself, who has drawn frequently on
Mr. Franchere's narrative, could not, from his well-known taste in
such matters, be insensible to the Defoe-like simplicity thereof,
nor to the picturesque descriptions, worthy of a professional pen,
with which it is sprinkled.

THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest
Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific, by Gabriel Franchere

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHWEST COAST OF AMERICA ***

***** This file should be named 15911.txt or 15911.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/9/1/15911/

Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will