Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/20

xii public documents when such correction was attainable; and when it was not, he has selected among his narrators, those, whose opportunities to know the fact in question, seemed to be the best. This he has done, without the slightest intention to throw a shadow of suspicion on the credit of any gentleman, who has been so obliging as to answer his inquiries; but merely from the necessity which he was under, either of making some selection, or abandoning the work altogether; and because he knew of no better rule of selection, than that which he has adopted.

Although it has been so long since the collection of these materials was begun, it was not until the summer of 1814: that the last communication was received. Even then, when the author sat down to the task of embodying his materials, there were so many intricacies to disentangle, and so many inconsistencies, from time to time, to explain and settle, and that too, through the tedious agency of cross-mails, that his progress was continually impeded, and has been, to him, most painfully, retarded.

Other causes too, have contributed to delay the publication. The author is a practising lawyer; and the courts which he attends, keep him perpetually and exclusively occupied, in that attendance, through ten months of the year: nor does the summer recess, of