our constant endeavours have
been to inculcate the best principles into youthful minds, the only
probable means of mending mankind; for the foundation of most of our
virtues, or our vices, are laid in that season of life when we are most
susceptible of impression, and when on our minds, as on a sheet of white
paper, any characters may be engraven; these laudable endeavours, by
which we may reasonably expect the rising generation will be greatly
improved, render particularly due to you, any examples which may teach
those virtues that are not easily learnt by precept and shew the
facility of what, in mere speculation, might appear surrounded with a
discouraging impracticability: you are the best judge, whether, by being
made public, they may be conducive to your great end of benefiting the
world. I therefore submit the future fate of the following sheets
entirely to you, and shall not think any prefatory apology for the
publication at all requisite; for though a man who supposes his own life
and actions deserve universal notice, or can be of general use, may be
liable to the imputation of vanity, yet, as I have no other share than
that of a spectator, and auditor, in what I purpose to relate, I presume
no apology can be required; for my vanity must rather be mortified than
flattered in the description of such virtues as will continually accuse
me of my own deficiencies, and lead me to make a humiliating comparison
between these excellent ladies and myself.

You may remember, Sir, that when I took leave of you with a design of
retiring to my native county, there to enjoy the plenty and leisure for
which a few years labour had furnished me with the necessary requisites,
I was advised by an eminent physician to make a very extensive tour
through the western part of this kingdom, in order, by frequent change
of air, and continued exercise, to cure the ill effects of my long abode
in the hot and unwholesome climate of Jamaica, where, while I increased
my fortune, I gradually impaired my constitution; and though one who,
like me, has dedicated all his application to mercantile gain, will not
allow that he has given up the substance for the shadow, yet perhaps it
would be difficult to deny that I thus sacrificed the greater good in
pursuit of the less.

The eagerness with which I longed to fix in my wished-for retirement,
made me imagine that when I had once reached it, even the pursuit of
health would be an insufficient induce