REASONS FOR G O I N G A B R O A D .
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ing the kindness of my friends; I was all things to all men and to all women; I ate this to please my aunt Lucy, and drank that to oblige my aunt Margaret; I was steamed by one, showered by another, just escaped needling by a third, and was nearly boiled to the consistency of a pudding for the love of an oblong gentleman of Ireland, who had cured so many of his tenants on a bog in Tipperary by that process, that he offered to stake his salvation upon the success of the experiment. It failed, and, the benefit of the obligation not being transferable, I forgave him the debt. If this little book had been one of the thousand and one journals of tours in France or Italy or Switzerland; or if it had been a true and authentic history of Loo-Choo, of the Ashantees, or of a Polar expedition, I should not have taken the trouble of writing this preliminary chapter. But the West Indies are quite another thing. I have seen men set down as fanatics or tyrants before their speech has been listened to, and as I have a creditable anxiety for the sale of my work, it imports me much that I should make myself well understood on this head. I do not wish any one to entertain a good opinion of me, but I shall feel deeply indebted to any person who will be kind enough to have no opinion whatever of me or about me. I am in perfect charity with all mankind; that is to say, I care infinitelv nothing about any of them, except some dozen B
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