possible, with a view to give, as far as he could, something like a
literal transcript of the sentiments that gave rise to the original
minutes, and avoid undue addition or interpolation.

It was the wish and intention of the writer, before leaving England, to
extend his travels by visiting some of the islands in the Caribbean Sea,
a course which he regrets not having been able to follow, from
unforeseen circumstances, which are partially related in the following
pages. He laments this the more, as it would have added considerably to
the interest of the work, and enabled him to enlarge upon that fertile
subject, the relative position at the time of the negro race in those
islands, and the demoralized condition of their fellow-countrymen, under
the iniquitous system of slavery, as authorized by statute law, in the
southern states of America. As it was, he was enabled to travel through
the most populous parts of the states of New York and Ohio, proceeding,
_viâ_ Cincinnati, to the Missouri country; after a brief stay at St.
Louis, taking the direct southern route down the Missouri and
Mississippi rivers, to New Orleans in Louisiana, passing Natchez on the
way. The whole tour comprising upwards of three thousand miles.

From New Orleans he crossed an arm of the Gulf of Mexico to the
Floridas, and after remaining in that territory for a considerable time,
and taking part under a sense of duty in a campaign (more to scatter
than annihilate), against the Seminole and Cherokee tribes of Indians,
who, in conjunction with numberless fugitive slaves, from the districts
a hundred miles round, were devastating the settlements, and
indiscriminately butchering the inhabitants, he returned to Tallahassee,
taking stage at that town to Macon in the state of Georgia, and from
thence by the Greensborough Railway to Charleston in South Carolina,
sailing after rather a prolonged stay, from that port to England.