Those who have judged my works of fiction, relative to the Scotch and Scottish history, as mere novels, have not done me quite justice. My endeavour has been to make such as are historical illustrative of the manners, the circumstances, and the characters of the ages to which the transactions belong; but if the object has not been so obvious as anticipated, still, if correct, it may be at last acknowledged. I have, doubtlessly, wasted my time in writing other books that do not deserve much approbation; but in all my works there has been a constant drawing from nature not altogether unsuccessful. The selection of models may not have been always judicious, in the opinion of my readers, but the truth and the resemblance have never been equivocal to myself.

“Lawrie Todd” is an attempt to describe the career of a Scotchman in the United States of America; but I do not think there is much difference in the rise and progress of a commercial adventurer in the New World from that of a similar character in the Old. As a settler in the woods, however, he is more remarkable: Europe affords no such situation, no such trial of ingenuity, no such test of the energy and the resources of character. I have, therefore, dwelt longer on the progress of settlement than was consistent with the narrative to which I have been much indebted; and have turned to account the result of enquiries and observations made for another purpose. The story is a fiction, but the incidents may be true; they are the result of hearsay and investigation.

I should ill discharge my duty to those who have favoured me with their attention, by omitting to relate the incident upon which the autobiography of Lawrie Todd has been constructed. I was sitting in the American Hotel, with my friend Captain Douglas, of the R. N., one Sunday evening, just before candles were brought into the room, when my servant announced a stranger in the gloom of the twilight.