MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE, LATE MAJOR-GENERAL IN THE SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AN INTREPID SOLDIER, A SKILFUL COMMANDER, AN ARDENT LOVER OF LIBERTY, A DISINTERESTED PATRIOT, AND A TRUE PHILANTHROPIST, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY HIS OBLIGED AND GRATEFUL SERVANT, MATHEW CAREY. Lewes, July 26, 1787. I EMBRACE with pleasure the opportunity offered by the commencement of the present volume, to offer my most fincere acknowledgments to my friends and the public, for the indulgence and protection the American Museum has experienced, Per It began under fingular disadvantages. So far was public opinion against it, and fo very confined were the expectations formed of a work which profeffed to be void of originality, and to be, in some measure, only a hand-maid to the news-papers, that, at the appearance of the first number, there were not twenty fubfcribers. This circumftance did not in the least discourage me, fectly fatisfied, that such a publication was highly necessary, and muft prove of elsential service to the public that the want of it had configned many invaluable pieces to oblivion-and that, among an enlightened people, it only required to be known, in order to meet with fuitable encouragement-I looked forward, with confidence, to the day when the lift of fubfcribers should attain that degree of respectability it now possesses, both as to numbers, and the characters that composeit. My hope, however visionary it might then appear, has not deceived me. It is not, I truft, at the present time, necessary to expatiate largely on the falutary tendency of this performance; which seems to be univerfally admitted by tho those who have inspected it : a few remarks, for those who have W Il fuffice. not, Whoever examines the paft numbers, will find various effays, written in the most masterly manner, with the most benevolent and patriotie intentions, and as well calculated to promote the happiness of society, as likely to answer that important end. Most of these had made their firll appearance in news-papers; and with them had been thrown afide and forgotten. although deserving of the most careful preservation. They are now refcued from that unworthy fate: and their good effects are likely to extend beyond the present generation. This alone would be fufficient to fatisfy every candid person of the utility of this undertaking: however, another observation yet remains to be made. In the first volume, independent of the smaller pieces, there have been given several entire pamphlets, which, as fold feparately, amount to confiderably more than double the subscription for it. For inflance : -Common Sense* - Address to the Armies of Americat-Poem on the Happiness of America -M'Fingal || - General Washington's celebrated circular letter Enquiry into the principles of a commercial system for the united states and the chief of dr. Ladd's Poems **. An opinion has been entertained, that it would be impoffible to procure matter fufficient to fupply the work. This opinion is extremely ill-founded, After feven months publication, the materials which I had previously prepar ed, are not perceptibly diminished, to say nothing of a great accumulation during that period. Moreover, as the plan extends to lectures, orations, and pamphlets-and as it is not confined to writings on any fubject, or of amy age or country (although American publications, caeteris paribus, shall always meet a preference) but has all the literary fores of ancient and mo dern times to range through, there is not the most distant reason to appre hend a scarcity. After a careful examination of the various shoals on which periodical publications have been wrecked, in this and other countries, I am in dread of only * Price 2s, 6d. Price 5s. Price 1s. 6d. NOTES. + Price as. 6d. fterling in London. I Price 25, Price 15, 6d, ** Price 7s. 6d. : |