THENTIC AND TOLERABLY MINUTE LIFE OF OGLETHORPE IS A DESIDERATUM."
Such a desideratum I have endeavored to supply. This, however, has
been a very difficult undertaking; the materials for composing it,
excepting what relates to the settlement of Georgia, were to be sought
after in the periodicals of the day, or discovered by references to
him in the writings or memoirs of his contemporaries. I have searched
all the sources of information to which I could have access, with the
aim to collect what had been scattered; to point out what had been
overlooked; and, from the oblivion into which they had fallen, to
rescue the notices of some striking incidents and occurrences in the
life of Oglethorpe, in order to give consistency and completeness to
a narrative of the little that had been preserved and was generally
known.

[Footnote 1: Gulian Veerplanck, Esq. _Anniversary Discourse before the
New York Historical Society_, December 7, 1818, page 33.]

To use the words of one who had experience in a similar undertaking:
"The biographer of our day is too often perplexed in the toil of his
researches after adequate information for composing the history of men
who were an honor to their age, and of whom posterity is anxious to
know whatever may be added to increase the need of that veneration,
which, from deficient knowledge, they can but imperfectly bestow."

My collected notices I have arranged so as to form a continuous
narrative, though with some wide interruptions. The statements of the
most important transactions have generally been made in the terms of
original documents, or the publications of the day; as I deemed it
more just and proper so to do, than to give them my own coloring.
And I must apprize the reader, that instead of aiming to express
the recital in the fluency of rhetorical diction, or of aspiring to
decorate my style of composition with studied embellishments, MY
PURPOSE HAS SIMPLY AND UNIFORMLY BEEN TO RELATE FACTS IN THE MOST
PLAIN AND ARTLESS MANNER; and I trust that my description of _scenes_
and _occurrences_ will be admitted to be natural and free from
affectation; and my inferences, to be pertinent, impartial, and
illustrative. I hope, too, that it will not be thought that the detail
of _circumstances_ is needlessly particular, and the relation of
_incidents_ too minute. For, these, though seemingly inconsiderable,
are not unimportant; and, though among the minor operations of active
life, serve to ind