APPENDIX. A LETTER FROM GOVERNOR HUTCHINSON


AUTHOR'S PREFACE

IN writing this ponderous tome, the author's desire has been to describe
the eminent characters and remarkable events of our annals in such a
form and style that the YOUNG may make acquaintance with them of their
own accord. For this purpose, while ostensibly relating the adventures
of a chair, he has endeavored to keep a distinct and unbroken thread of
authentic history. The chair is made to pass from one to another of
those personages of whom he thought it most desirable for the young
reader to have vivid and familiar ideas, and whose lives and actions
would best enable him to give picturesque sketches of the times. On its
sturdy oaken legs it trudges diligently from one scene to another, and
seems always to thrust itself in the way, with most benign complacency,
whenever an historical personage happens to be looking round for a seat.

There is certainly no method by which the shadowy outlines of departed
men and women can be made to assume the hues of life more effectually
than by connecting their images with the substantial and homely reality
of a fireside chair. It causes us to feel at once that these characters
of history had a private and familiar existence, and were not wholly
contained within that cold array of outward action which we are
compelled to receive as the adequate representation of their lives. If
this impression can be given, much is accomplished.

Setting aside Grandfather and his auditors, and excepting the adventures
of the chair, which form the machinery of the work, nothing in the
ensuing pages can be termed fictitious. The author, it is true, has