The favourable reception this Work has met with, claims the Author’s most grateful acknowledgments. A large edition having run off in a few months, and the sale appearing to be still unabated, a new impression is become necessary. On this occasion was he to conceal his feelings, and pass over, in silence, a distinction so beneficial and flattering, he would justly incur the imputation of ingratitude. That he might not do this, he takes the opportunity, which now presents itself, of conveying to the Public (though in terms inadequate to the warm emotions of his heart) the sense he entertains of their favour; and thus transmits to them his thanks.
In this new edition, care has been taken to rectify those errors which have unavoidably proceeded from the hurry of the press, and likewise any incorrectness in the language that has found its way into it.
The credibility of some of the incidents related in the following pages, and some of the stories introduced therein, having been questioned, particularly the prognostication of the Indian priest on the banks of Lake Superior, and the story of the Indian and his rattle snake, the author thinks it necessary to avail himself of the same opportunity, to endeavour to eradicate any impressions that might have been made on the minds of his readers, by the apparent improbability of these relations.
As to the former, he has related it just as it happened. Being an eye-witness to the whole transaction (and, he flatters himself, at the time, free from every trace of sceptical obstinacy or enthusiastic credulity) he was consequently able to describe every circumstance minutely and impartially. This he has done; but without endeavouring to account for the means by which it was accomplished. Whether the prediction was the result of prior observations, from which certain consequences were expected to follow by the sagacious priest, and the completion of it merely accidental; or whether he was really endowed with supernatural powers, the narrator left to the judgment of his readers; whose conclusions, he supposes, varied according as the mental faculties of each were disposed to admit or reject facts that cannot be accounted for by natural causes.
The story of the rattle snake was related to him by a French gentleman of undoubted veracity; and were the readers of this work as thoroughly acquainted with the sagacity and instinctive proceedings of that animal, as he is, they would be as well assured of the truth of it. It is well known, that those snakes which have survived through the summer the accidents reptiles are liable to, periodically retire to the woods, at the approach of winter; where each (as curious observers have remarked) takes possession of the cavity it had occupied the preceding year. As soon as the season is propitious, enlivened by the invigorating rays of the sun, they leave these retreats, and make their way to the same spot, though ever so distant, on which they before had found subsistence, and the means of propagating their species. Does it then require any extraordinary exertions of the mind to believe, that one of these regular creatures, after having been kindly treated by its master, should return to the box, in which it had usually been supplied with food, and had met with a comfortable abode, and that nearly about the time the Indian, from former experiments, was able to guess at? It certainly does not; nor will the liberal and ingenuous doubt the truth of a story so well authenticated, because the circumstances appear extraordinary in a country where the subject of it is scarcely known.
These explanations the author hopes will suffice to convince his readers, that he has not, as travellers are sometimes supposed to do, amused them with improbable tales, or wished to acquire importance by making his adventures savour of the marvellous.
SOME
ACCOUNT
OF
CAPTAIN J. CARVER.
THERE is a disposition peculiar to every mind, that early predominates, and continues its influence through every period of life. Many circumstances may, indeed, obscure or divert its progress; but on all interesting occasions this constitutional bias will recur, and exhibit the natural character and genius of the individual.
Jonathan Carver, the author of the following work, was grandson of William Joseph Carver, of Wigan, in Lancashire, who was a captain in the army under king William, and served in Ireland with such distinguished reputation, that that prince was pleased to reward him with the government of Connecticut in New-England, which appears to have been the first appointment to that station by the crown.
Our author was born, anno 1732, at Stillwater, in the province of Connecticut, since rendered famous by the surrender of the army under General Burgoyne; his father, who resided at this place, and acted as a justice of the peace, died, when he was only fifteen years of age. He had received the rudiments of as liberal an education as could be procured in that neighbourhood, and, being designed for the practice of medicine, he was soon after his father’s death placed with a gentleman of that profession in Elizabeth Town, in the same province. A profession that requires not only a close and regular attention, but likewise a steady perseverance, was not suited to that spirit of bold enterprize and adventure, which seemed to be the ruling passion of our author, who, at the age of eighteen, purchased an ensigncy in the Connecticut regiment, in which, as I have been informed, he acquired so much reputation, as to obtain the command of a company. Of this event, however, I have not found the least mention among his papers, nor, indeed, of any other important circumstance of his life till the year 1757, when he was in the army under General Webb, and fortunately escaped the dreadful massacre at Fort William Henry, where nearly 1500 brave troops were destroyed in cold blood by the Indians in the French army of General Montcalm.