The little tour which gave birth to the following remarks, was taken<br />immediately after the exchange of the ratifications of a peace,<br />necessary, but not inglorious to my country, after a contest<br />unexampled in its cause, calamity, extension, vicissitudes and glory;<br />amidst a people who, under the influence of a political change,<br />hitherto unparallelled, were to be approached as an order of beings,<br />exhibiting a moral and political form before but little known to<br />themselves and to the world, in the abrupt removal of habits and<br />sentiments which had silently and uninterruptedly taken deep root<br />in the soil of ages.<br />During a separation of ten years, we have received very little account<br />of this extraordinary people, which could be relied upon. Dissimilar<br />sensations, excited by their principles and proceedings, ever partially<br />and irregularly known, have depicted unaccording representations<br />of them, and, in the sequel, have exhibited rather a high-coloured,<br />fanciful delineation, than a plain and faithful resemblance of the<br />original. Many are the persons who have been thus misled.<br />These fugitive sketches, in which an attempt is made to delineate,<br />just as they occurred, those scenes which, to my mind at least, were<br />new and interesting, were originally penned for the private perusal<br />of those whom I esteem; and by their persuasion they are now<br />offered to the public eye. Amongst them I must be permitted to<br />indulge in the pride and pleasure of enumerating William Hayley,<br />esq. a name familiar and dear to every elegant and polished mind.<br />Enlightened by his emendations, and supported by the cherishing<br />spirit of his approval, I approach, with a more subdued<br />apprehension, the tribunal of public opinion; and to my friends I<br />dedicate this humble result of a short relaxation from the duties of an<br />anxious and laborious profession. If, by submitting to their wishes, I<br />have erred, I have only to offer, that it is my first, and shall be my<br />last offence.<br /><br />Totnes, August, 1802. JOHN CARR.