might conceive this work would be liable, I might now undertake a
more pleasing task, and fall at once to the direct and positive
praises of the work itself; of which indeed, I could say a
thousand good things; but the task is so very pleasant that I
shall leave it wholly to the reader, and it is all the task that
I impose on him. A moderation for which he may think himself
obliged to me when he compares it with the conduct of authors,
who often fill a whole sheet with their own praises, to which
they sometimes set their own real names, and sometimes a
fictitious one. One hint, however, I must give the kind reader;
which is, that if he should be able to find no sort of amusement
in the book, he will be pleased to remember the public utility
which will arise from it. If entertainment, as Mr. Richardson
observes, be but a secondary consideration in a romance; with
which Mr. Addison, I think, agrees, affirming the use of the
pastry cook to be the first; if this, I say, be true of a mere
work of invention, sure it may well be so considered in a work
founded, like this, on truth; and where the political reflections
form so distinguishing a part. But perhaps I may hear, from some
critic of the most saturnine complexion, that my vanity must have
made a horrid dupe of my judgment, if it hath flattered me with
an expectation of having anything here seen in a grave light, or
of conveying any useful instruction to the public, or to their
guardians. I answer, with the great man whom I just now quoted,
that my purpose is to convey instruction in the vehicle of
entertainment; and so to bring about at once, like the revolution
in the Rehearsal, a perfect reformation of the laws relating to
our maritime affairs: an undertaking, I will not say more
modest, but surely more feasible, than that of reforming a whole
people, by making use of a vehicular story, to wheel in among