Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/24

xiv in favour of the novelty or usefulness of the subject. Without attempting to be curiously elegant, I have aimed at perspicuity; and having paid the strictest attention to this particular, I hope to meet with indulgence, if some errors of less moment have escaped my notice. It was owing to the repeated corrections of some valuable friends, to which I submitted my manuscript, that I sent it late to the press; but from the unexampled activity of the printer, I am enabled to lay my work before the public even sooner than I expected. The Chart, on which our line of circumnavigation is delineated, has been engraved by the ablest artist in that branch, and I constructed it with the most minute attention from the best authorities, which are mentioned in its margin. After specifying the above particulars, of which I thought it my duty to apprize the reader, it only remains to discharge a promise made in the course of the work, respecting an account of the education and equipment of O-Mai in this country. (See vol. I. p. 389.) In the narrow limits of a Preface I can only comprehend in a few lines the substance of what might furnish an entertaining volume. O-Mai has been considered either as remarkably

stupid,