As I do not intend then to write often, I shall not
wire-draw my subjects, for the mere purpose of filling
my pages. Still a book should be perfect within itself,
and intelligible without reference to other books. Authors
are vain people, and vanity as well as dignity is indigenous
to a colony. Like a pastry-cook's apprentice, I see so
much of both their sweet things around me daily, that I
have no appetite for either of them.

I might perhaps be pardoned, if I took it for granted,
that the dramatis personae of this work were sufficiently
known, not to require a particular introduction. Dickens
assumed the fact that his book on America would travel
wherever the English language was spoken, and, therefore,
called it "Notes for General Circulation." Even Colonists
say, that this was too bad, and if they say so, it must
be so. I shall, therefore, briefly state, who and what
the persons are that composed our travelling party, as
if they were wholly unknown to fame, and then leave them
to speak for themselves.

The Reverend Mr. Hopewell is a very aged clergyman of
the Church of England, and was educated at Cambridge
College, in Massachusetts. Previously to the revolution,
he was appointed rector of a small parish in Connecticut.
When the colonies obtained their independence, he remained
with his little flock in his native land, and continued
to minister to their spiritual wants until within a few
years, when his parishioners becoming Unitarians, gave
him his dismissal. Affable in his manners and simple in