PREFACE
The writer of the following tour would not trouble the reader with a Preface, did not some circumstances render it in a certain degree necessary.
It might be asked why he had not commenced the tour with a particular description of Philadelphia. His reasons for not doing so were, in the first place, Philadelphia is a city so minutely described in every modern geographical publication, that few readers are unacquainted with its local situation between the rivers Delaware and Schuylkill, its regularity of plan, its rapid progress, &c. Whereas the country through which the author travelled has been very little treated of by tourists, of course is little known to strangers; though an account of its appearance, its natural properties, its improvements, and the manners of its mixed population, perhaps merits a place on the shelves of the literati, as much as the numerous tours and travels through Europe, Asia and Africa with which they are loaded. Indeed, in one point of view, such a book may be much more useful, as it may serve for a record of the situation of a country, in its infancy, which from its rapid improvement in a very few years, will form a wonderful contrast to its present state, while the trans-Atlantick travellers have to treat of countries either arrived at the highest state of improvement, or of others buried in the gloom of ignorance and barbarity, and of course both stationary, and therefore not affording any variety of consequence, during the two last centuries, (in which time they have been the theme of so many able pens) excepting the style of writing and manner of description.
In the second place—It was the author’s wish to condense as much into one cheap volume as he could make it contain, and had he entered into minute descriptions of places the best known, he would [have] had so much the less room for the original matter, with which he intended to constitute the bulk of the work.
It was intended to have put the work to the press in the winter of 1807, the year in which the tour commenced, but a series of disappointments essayed by the author, has unavoidably postponed it, and has given him an opportunity of adding to the original plan, some account of the lower parts of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and the countries washed by them, particularly the Mississippi territory, which has become of great importance to the United States, and is not without its value to Europe, from its immense supply of cotton to the European manufacturers.
{viii} As the intention of the author was the increase of information, he makes no apology for the plainness of his style, and he expects, on that account, to be spared any criticism. Should however any one think proper to bestow a leisure hour in the remarking of his inaccuracies, or the incorrectness of his language, he can have no possible objection, as criticism of that kind always tends to general improvement.
THE AUTHOR
Mississippi territory, 20th Oct. 1809.