– –

Preface.

This little book is personal and provisional. These Notes on an early chapter of my life were written ten years ago for the information of family friends, and were not intended for publication. They had to be egoistic to serve their purpose, but I thought they were too much so for general circulation. They are, however, charged with the historical element, from one who was not only behind those early scenes, but who took some effective part in them. They are at any rate the testimony of a witness at first hand, and it seems a pity to throw them into the waste basket of general oblivion. They may be of some little value in the coming years, just as they stand, if the readers only know that they are a family record. I leave my children to dispose of them as they please.