silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on
the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame.
But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over
my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and
agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future fate of my
History, the life of the historian must be short and precarious. I will
add two facts, which have seldom occurred in the composition of six,
or at least of five quartos. 1. My first rough manuscript, without any
intermediate copy, has been sent to the press. 2. Not a sheet has been
seen by any human eyes, excepting those of the author and the printer:
the faults and the merits are exclusively my own.

I cannot help recollecting a much more extraordinary fact, which is
affirmed of himself by Retif de la Bretorme, a voluminous and original
writer of French novels. He laboured, and may still labour, in the
humble office of corrector to a printing-house; but this office enabled
him to transport an entire volume from his mind to the press; and his
work was given to the public without ever having been written with a
pen.

After a quiet residence of four years, during which I had never moved
ten miles from Lausanne, it was not without some reluctance and terror,
that I undertook, in a journey of two hundred leagues, to cross the
mountains and the sea. Yet this formidable adventure was achieved
without danger or fatigue; and at the end of a fortnight I found myself
in Lord Sheffield's house and library, safe, happy, and at home. The
character of my friend (Mr. Holroyd) had recommended him to a seat in
parliament for Coventry, the command of a regiment of light dragoons,
and an Irish peerage. The sense and spirit of his political writings
have decided the public opinion on the great questions of our commercial
interest with America and Ireland.

The sale of his Observations on the American States was diffusive, their
effect beneficial; the Navigation Act, the palladium of Britain, was
defended, and perhaps saved, by his pen; and he proves, by the weight
of fact and argument, that the mother-country may survive and flourish
after the loss of America. My friend has never cultivated the arts of
composition; but his materials are copious and correct, and he leaves
on his paper the clear impression of an active and vigorous mind. His
"Observations on the Trade, Manufactures, and present State