STEPHEN BURROUGHS: CONTAINING MANY INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE "He left a villain's name to other times, COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. NEW YORK: PUBLIS IED BY NAFIS & CORNISH, St. Louis, (Mo.)-Nafis, Cornish & Co. The following is a Letter from the Author to a Friend, who had requested a Narrative of his Life. DEAR SIR, WASHINGTON, July 25, 1791. The uninterrupted attention of your politeness to my welfare, since my arrival in this country, is a sufficient inducement for me to attend to any request which you shall barely intimate. You mentioned yesterday, whilst I was enjoying the agreeable society of your family, that a relation of my adventures would be highly gratifying at some convenient time, when opportunity would serve. You say, that what had come to your knowledge previous to any acquaintance with me, but more especially what has occurred since my residence in this place, has filled you with an almost irresistable anxiety to be made acquainted with the more minute circumstances of a life which has been filled with so many curious anecdotes and unheard of occurrences. I fear the relation will poorly answer your expectations. My life, it is true, has been one continued course of tumult, revolution and vexation; and such as it is, I will give to you in detail, (in this method, rather than verbally, it being more convenient to peruse it at your leisure, than to listen to the dull tale of egotisms which I must make use of in a verbal relation.) When you become tired with reading, you will be under no necessity of holding the book in your hand from the feelings of delicacy, but can lay it by at leisure. This liberty you could not so conveniently take with a dull relater of a more dull narrative. You say my character, to you, is an enigma; that I possess an uncommon share of sensibility, and at the same time, maintain an equality of mind which is uncommon, particularly in the midst of those occurrences which are calculated to wound the feelings. I have learned fortitude in the school of adversity. In draining the cup of bitterness to its dregs, I have seen aught to despise the occurrences of misfortune. This one thing I fully believe, that vi our happiness is in our power more than is generally thought; or at least, we have the ability of preventing that misery which is so common to unfortunate situations. No state or condition in life, but from which we may (if we exercise that reason which the God of Nature has given us) draw comfort and happiness. We are too apt to be governed by the opinion of others, and if they think our circumstances unhappy, to consider them so ourselves, and of course, make them so. The state of the mind is the only criterion of haphiness or misery. The Cynic Diogenes was more happy than the Conqueror Alexander, and the Philosopher Socrates more happy than either. They all had, undoubtedly, passions and feelings alike, which, not properly regulated, would have rendered them equally unhappy. Yet, whenever reason stood at the helm, the vessel was brought into the haven of peace. |