PREFACE.

SOME persons who may cast their eyes upon this book, with the hope of finding that the whole work is new, may be disappointed, and even consider themselves deceived, by discovering that they have at second-hand what they have already read in the introduction to my report of my Speeches and Despatches.' But I hope my explanation will satisfy them that I have acted for the reader's benefit in thus repeating what has been already read, instead of furnishing him with an article entirely original.

6

The fact is, that after I had proceeded some way in my task I found that my memory of past transactions was not, after the lapse of some years, so lively as it had been when I wrote the original introduction. I have, therefore, satisfied myself with copying in the first pages the work which I had already published.