nd that, if they have sometimes eluded
my search, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence, on whose
faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend.

[Footnote 4: See Dr. Robertson's Preface to his History of America.]

I shall soon revisit the banks of the Lake of Lausanne, a country which
I have known and loved from my early youth. Under a mild government,
amidst a beauteous landscape, in a life of leisure and independence,
and among a people of easy and elegant manners, I have enjoyed, and may
again hope to enjoy, the varied pleasures of retirement and society.
But I shall ever glory in the name and character of an Englishman: I am
proud of my birth in a free and enlightened country; and the approbation
of that country is the best and most honorable reward of my labors. Were
I ambitious of any other Patron than the Public, I would inscribe
this work to a Statesman, who, in a long, a stormy, and at length an
unfortunate administration, had many political opponents, almost
without a personal enemy; who has retained, in his fall from power,
many faithful and disinterested friends; and who, under the pressure of
severe infirmity, enjoys the lively vigor of his mind, and the felicity
of his incomparable temper. Lord North will permit me to express the
feelings of friendship in the language of truth: but even truth and
friendship should be silent, if he still dispensed the favors of the
crown.

In a remote solitude, vanity may still whisper in my ear, that my
readers, perhaps, may inquire whether, in the conclusion of the present
work, I am now taking an everlasting farewell. They shall hear all that
I know myself, and all that I could reveal to the most intimate friend.
The motives of action or silence are now equally balanced; nor can I
pronounce, in my most secret thoughts, on which side the scale will
preponderate. I cannot dissemble that six quartos must have tried,
and may have exhausted, the indulgence of the Public; that, in the
repetition of similar attempts, a successful Author has much more to
lose than he can hope to gain; that I am now descending into the vale
of years; and that the most respectable of my countrymen, the men whom
I aspire to imitate, have resigned the pen of history about the same
period of their lives. Yet I consider that the annals of ancient and
modern times may afford many rich and interesting subjects; that I am
still possessed of health and leisure; that by the practice of writ