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ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following volumes were promised to the public, early after my return from England to the United States, some months ago.

It was my intention, before putting the work to press, to remodel the letters contained in it, and to embrace in them, sentiments and impressions on many points coming under the title I have chosen, as well as on the state of politics, morals, and religion in the United Kingdom,which had been purposely omitted, in my correspondence with America, till the observations of the entire tour should give me full confidence in their truth and correctness.

Orders from Government, however, for immediate duty in the office I hold in the Naval Service, rendered this impracticable; and good faith to the gentlemen who are my publishers, made it necessary to print from the manuscript in an unaltered form. One volume only could be hastily gotten through the press before I left the United States; and the second, copied rapidly while crossing the Atlantic, is now despatched to the compositor, without the advantage even of a reperusal.—A statement of circumstances in

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cumbent on me to make, in explanation of the delay which has occurred in the appearance of these volumes, if not in apology for the matter and manner of their contents.

My companion in the travel of the summer, it will be perceived, was Captain Bolton, of the Navy. It was under the command of this gentleman, as Captain Finch, that in the U. S. Ship Vincennes, I made the voyage of the world, of which an account has been given to the public. Circumstances have recently occurred to induce him to the resumption, by act of Congress, of an ancestral surname. It is by the appellation of Bolton only, that he will hereafter be known; and I have, therefore, made use exclusively of it, in alluding to him, though at the time the letters were written, the change had not taken place.

In availing myself of the present opportunity of assuring my readers, that I am not insensible to the kindness which they have shown towards the volumes which I have previously ventured to publish, I have only to regret that the work now placed in their hands-from the widely different spheres of observation on men and things in the different cases cannot, like those which have preceded it, unfold in its details the merits of any subject of special interest to the hearts of the philanthropist and Christian, or embrace in its direct tendencies the moral good and melioration of my fellows.

U. S. SHIP DELAWARE 74,

At Sea, Sept. 10th, 1833.

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