As the Indians never attempted to prevent me either from reading or writing, I kept a Journal, which I revised shortly after my return from captivity, and which I have kept ever since: and as I have had but a moderate English education, have been advised to employ some person of liberal education to transcribe and embellish it — but believing that nature always out shines art, have thought, that occurrences truly and plainly stated, as they happened, would make the best history, be better understood, and most entertaining.