iv 2. To reply to, and comment upon pamphlets, 3. To promote by original discussion, practicable ameliorations connected with improvement in the frame of society. 4. To bring more into notice, the too little known and most valuable information, contained in the "parliamentary reports." 5. To review all unprincipled publications. In these useful designs, not prejudice will sway, but "Common-Sense;" and the Editors hope, that the spirit of inveterate party having now subsided; conflicting opinions will be but so many streams, flowing through various courses to the same reservoir; that, of "public good ;" and under this impression, they submit "The COMMONSENSE BOOK" with due deference, to the patronage of a nation, whose dispassionate verdict is sound and definitive. Gentlemen desirous of having their sentiments, upon the many questions which continually arise to affect general and individual interests, appear in print; are invited very respectfully to communicate with the Publisher. And, the practical man of business, who may honour him with the results of his experience upon matters of impending legislation; (as in the instances of "Usury," "Bankruptcy," "Lien," &c. &c.) may in return, have his facts embodied in "The Common-Sense Book," probably with satisfaction to himself and benefit to the community. The professed Author will be generously compensated; but mere theory-will run the risk of the shelf. B 2 nature, buttered bread for others to eat, and left his children to cry for it. In my growing up I was rather ricketty, and several times during Mary's reign, narrowly escaped being burnt to death. Thank God! I have as yet been preserved for a better fate. In the days of "Flirting Bess" I strutted about and quizzed the Dons finely; and at the Union of England and Scotland, I was looked upon as a prodigy of learning. In the reign of Charles the First, I had again many narrow escapes for my life; nor was it till I had played the hypocrite during the Commonwealth, and the rake and bully in the two succeeding reigns (during which period of folly, I, however, spared time to improve myself in the art of navigation), that I approached to a steadiness of character: this began at the period of "the Revolution," I being then in the hundred and sixty-eighth year of my age, a time of life when a man should think seriously of the past, and apply himself with anxiety to the future. Through all Queen Anne's wars, I was aide-decamp to Marlborough, but in the first George's time, I became rather shy of fighting, and more careful of my person; besides, I did not exactly understand continental politics; therefore, in his successor's reign, I amused myself with poetry and translated Homer, thus proving that the greatest Pope is of British origin. For the soul of me, I could not refrain from turning out in the reign of "George the Good;" and though I deserted from America, I made up for it in other quarters, and served in Spain and at Waterloo under Wellington. During this long period, I also occasionally applied myself to engineering and farming; but I got dreadfully in debt, which I am at this moment paying off as fast as possible; yet without the smallest stain upon my honour or credit. And now-in the reign of "George the Magnificent," finding myself threatened to be outelbowed by a parcel of finical chaps, who write on, and talk on, and do nothing; and being fearful of getting too fat and too rich, I am determined to fret myself thin by turning author; and before I die (with some experience and no little misfortune undergone) I here present to all those to whom this short history of my long life may come, "A Book," or, as the French have it, |
