The Sufferings and Escape of Capt. Chas. H. Brown From an Awful Imprisonment by Chilian Convicts

The Sufferings and Escape of Capt. Chas. H. Brown From an Awful Imprisonment by Chilian Convicts

The preface to a book is very often nothing more than a respectable cloak, allowed by the conventionalities of literature, in which an author may wrap his excuses and apologies for troubling the public with his lucubrations. This dressing up of excuses in order to introduce them into notice under another name, is a thing so tempting to poor human nature, such a pleasant little offering to self esteem and vanity, that it would be very hard if authors were to be debarred from a luxury in which all their fellow mortals indulge. Yet, if it be true that a good wine needs no bush, it is equally true that a good book needs no excuse; and in this age of ready writers, it is very certain that no excuse or apology can justify the publishing a bad one. To apologise for poor or careless writing, because there has not been time or opportunity to make it better, provokes the question, What necessity was there for writing at all?a question not always easily answered. But this is not an apology for my own book; it is simply a preface to the narrative of another person, in which I can claim no part except that[Pg 8] of collecting the facts from different sources, of arranging and compiling them. If in performing this task, I have in any way come tardy off, my excuses are due to both captain Brown and his readers. In writing out this account, I have labored under the disadvantage of being able to hold no communication with captain Brown, except by letters. His legal papers connected with his claim for salvage, and his own concise narrative of his sufferings and escape, drawn up for Mr. Websters information at the time the claim for salvage was first made, were put into my hands; and his letters from time to time have supplied me with the details. I have, in every case where it was possible, retained his own spirited language; but I feel that had it been possible for me to have seen and heard him, the narrative as taken down from his lips might have been, not, I believe, more correct as to facts, but perhaps more graphic and life-like as to detail. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 57456
Author: Brown, Charles H.
Release Date: Jul 7, 2018
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Appleton, Elizabeth Haven, 1815-1890