However, as I had been appointed his assistant in the course of this expedition, I thought it incumbent upon me, at least to attempt to write such a narrative. Every consideration prompted me to undertake the task, which it was no longer in his power to perform. It was a duty we owed to the public; I had collected sufficient materials during the voyage, and I had as much good will to begin with, as any traveller that ever wrote, or any compiler that was ever bribed to mutilate a narrative. I was bound by no agreement whatsoever, and that to which my father had signed, did not make him answerable for my actions, nor in the most distant manner preclude his giving me assistance. Therefore in every important circumstance, I had leave to consult his journals, and have been enabled to draw up my narrative with the most scrupulous attention to historical truth.
Two anonymous publications on the subject of our voyage have already appeared; but the present age is too enlightened to credit marvellous histories, which would have disgusted even the romantic disposition of our ancestors. The incidents of our voyage are various, and deeply interesting, without the assistance of fiction. Our course has been by turns fertile, and barren of events; but as the industry of the labourer reaps some advantage from the most ungrateful soil, so the most dreary solitudes have yielded instruction to the inquisitive mind.
