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Title: An Englishman's Travels in America
His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States

Author: John Benwell

Release Date: January 6, 2004 [EBook #10619]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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AN ENGLISHMAN'S TRAVELS IN AMERICA:

His Observations Of Life and Manners in the Free and Slave States.

1857

BY J. BENWELL.

PREFACE.

Personal narrative and adventure has, of late years, become so
interesting a subject in the mind of the British public, that the author
feels he is not called upon to apologize for the production of the
following pages.

It was his almost unremitting practice, during the four years he resided
on the North American continent, to keep a record of what he considered
of interest around him; not with a view to publishing the matter thus
collected, for this was far from his thoughts at the time, but through a
long contracted habit of dotting down transpiring events, for the
future amusement, combined, perhaps, with instruction, of himself and
friends. It therefore became necessary, to fit it for publication, to
collate the accumulated memoranda, and select such portions only as
might be supposed to prove interesting to the general reader. In doing
this he has been careful to preserve the phraseology as much as
possible, with a view to give, as far as he could, something like a
literal transcript of the sentiments that gave rise to the original
minutes, and avoid undue addition or interpolation.

It was the wish and intention of the writer, before leaving England, to
extend his travels by visiting some of the islands in the Caribbean Sea,
a course which he regrets not having been able to follow, from
unforeseen circumstances, which are partially related in the following
pages. He laments this the more, as it would have added considerably to
the interest of the work, and enabled him to enlarge upon that fertile
subject, the relative position at the time o