Preface.
The following Memoirs were chiefly written at sea, in February, 1832, during a passage of nineteen days from Rio de Janeiro to Bahia, and the Editor has at length been induced to submit them to publication, from an anxious wish of collecting in one volume the many detached fragments contained in the Appendix. The greater part of these fragments, not generally accessible even now, would in a few years otherwise have been lost, and, as interesting at least to the family and friends of the deceased, they have been thought worthy of being preserved. To others the collection may appear too diffuse, but, as it either confirms or elucidates the previous narratives, the Editor was unwilling to curtail it.
In composing the Memoir of Sir Isaac Brock, the Editor deeply regrets having laboured under the disadvantage of being unable to consult any of the general's private papers, although he perfectly remembers, and is otherwise assured, that the few letters written by him to his family, during the
