Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/18

 PREFACE.

HE Author presumes to claim the indulgence of the Public towards the literary faults, which he fears are too numerous in the following pages. He trusts it will be recollected that a sailor's life affords few moments of "learned ease;" and that he is fitted, both by education and habit, more for action than for thought. Connected arrangement, and logical deductions, are the offspring of retired meditation; but meditation, pensive Nymph, "shuns the noise of folly," or flies before the mirth of thoughtlessness: hence it will scarcely be expected to find a correct work produced amidst the interruptions of active service,