aware of having reason to fear appearing in the presence of any man,” he told me the question had been officially put to him, whether I could be punished under the “Foreign Enlistment Act,” for the part I had taken in the liberation of Chili, Peru, and Brazil?  To this I replied, that “if Government was indiscreet enough further to persecute me for having thrown open to British commerce the largest field for enterprise of modern times, they could take what steps they chose, for that I, having accepted service in South America before the passing of the Act, was not afraid of the consequences of having infringed its provisions.”  It is almost needless to say that no such prosecution was instituted, though the will was good, despite the national benefits conferred.

I will not enter farther into the subject in a preface to volumes which themselves form only a summary of events in which I was a principal actor, but at the same time, one, which I hope will prove satisfactory and decisive.  It would have been easy to have dilated the narrative, but my object is solely to leave behind me a faithful record of events which must one day become history, and there is no history like documentary history.

To those high personages who have advocated my cause with other nations, the present volume will give satisfaction, as affording additional proof that their advocacy rested upon no visionary basis.  To the members of the press, who have adopted the same views, this exposition will be equally satisfactory.  To all these I owe the thanks of recognising in me, a love for that service, from which—­for a time I was unjustly expelled.  It is my intention, if God spare my life, to add to these Memoirs a narrative of my former experience in the British navy, and, what may be of greater utility, an exposition of that which, from jealousy and other causes no less unworthy, I was not permitted to effect.  To these I shall add a few remarks upon my connexion with the liberation of Greece, developing some remarkable facts, which have as yet escaped the notice of historians.  These reminiscences of the past will, at least, be instructive to future generations and if any remarks of mine will conduce to the permanent greatness and security of my country, I shall deem the residue of my life well spent in recording them.

At my advanced age, such a task as that now partially executed, would, perhaps, have presented insuperable difficulties, but for the assistance rendered me by Mr. Earp, who, with great perseverance, has unravelled—­what, in the lapse of time, had become the almost inextricable confusion of my papers.  That, however, has, with his assistance, been accomplished in such a way as to base upon original documents every incident contained in the work—­the more important of these documents being adduced, so as to admit of neither doubt nor question.  The same course will be pursued in the forthcoming English portion of my career, with a result, I trust, equally clear and convincing.