Many circumstances discouraged him from
finishing his Play, and among them must be reckoned a prevailing opinion
that recent events are unfit subjects for tragedy. These discouragements
have at length all given way to his desire of bringing a story on the
Stage so eminently fitted, in his opinion, to excite interest in the
breasts of an American audience.

In exhibiting a stage representation of a real transaction, the
particulars of which are fresh in the minds of many of the audience, an
author has this peculiar difficulty to struggle with, that those who know
the events expect to see them _all_ recorded; and any deviation from what
they remember to be fact, appears to them as a fault in the poet; they are
disappointed, their expectations are not fulfilled, and the writer is more
or less condemned, not considering the difference between the poet and the
historian, or not knowing that what is intended to be exhibited is a free
poetical picture, not an exact historical portrait.

Still further difficulties has the Tragedy of Andre to surmount,
difficulties independent of its own demerits, in its way to public favour.
The subject necessarily involves political questions; but the Author
presumes that he owes no apology to any one for having shewn himself an
American. The friends of Major Andre (and it appears that all who knew him
were his friends) will look with a jealous eye on the Poem, whose
principal incident is the sad catastrophe which his misconduct, in
submitting to be an instrument in a transaction of treachery and deceit,
justly brought upon him: but these friends have no cause of offence; the
Author has adorned the poetical character of Andre with every virtue; he
has made him his Hero; to do which, he was under the necessity of making
him condemn his own conduct, in the one dreadfully unfortunate action of
his life. To shew the effects which Major Andre's excellent qualities had
upon the minds of men, the Author has drawn a generous and amiable youth,
so blinded by his love for the accomplished Briton, as to consider his
country, and the great commander of her armies, as in the commission of
such horrid injustice, that he, in the anguish of his soul, disclaims the
service. In this it appears, since the first representation, that the
Author has gone near to offend the veterans of the American army who were
present on the first night, and who not knowing the sequel of the action,
felt much disposed to condemn h