that all that time my declaration has been perfectly well known to my
publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, that no consideration on earth
would induce me to write one. But what I have intended, what I have
resolved upon (and this is the confidence I seek to place in you), is,
on my return to England, in my own person, in my own Journal, to bear,
for the behoof of my countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes
in this country as I have hinted at to-night. Also, to record that
wherever I have been, in the smallest places equally with the largest,
I have been received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet
temper, hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for
the privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation here
and the state of my health. This testimony, so long as I live, and so
long as my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall cause
to be republished, as an appendix to every copy of those two books of
mine in which I have referred to America. And this I will do and cause
to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but because I regard it
as an act of plain justice and honour."

I said these words with the greatest earnestness that I could lay upon
them, and I repeat them in print here with equal earnestness. So long as
this book shall last, I hope that they will form a part of it, and will
be fairly read as inseparable from my experiences and impressions of
America.

CHARLES DICKENS.

May, 1868.