political and diplomatic annals, which have hitherto received comparatively but little illustration.
In this and every other portion of the work, we have relied only on original, and, in some instances, unpublished documents; and in remounting to the sources of our History, apocryphal versions of it, which have become current by repetitions upon trust from one writer to another, have not unfrequently been rectified by the lights of contemporary evidence.
In reviewing these great scenes of our early national struggles, we have not felt ourselves at liberty to suppress anything which the truth of history required to be uttered or disclosed. And on the other hand, we have not been unmindful, we trust, of the obligations of justice and candor due to all the illustrious actors of the time. We have endeavoured, in forming our judgments, to guard against every influence but that of truth, and to give way to no impressions but such as the facts transmitted to us would, of themselves, naturally produce upon every unbiassed mind; keeping always before our eyes the great moral law of History-Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat.