A thought, therefore, like a pound of cotton, must be well spun out to be valuable.
It is very contemptuous to say of a man, that he has but one idea, but it is the highest meed of praise that can be bestowed on a book.

A man, who writes thus, can write for ever.
Now, it is not only not my intention to write for ever, or as Mr.Slick would say "for everlastinly;" but to make my bow and retire very soon from the press altogether.

I might assign many reasons for this modest course, all of them plausible, and some of them indeed quite dignified.
I like dignity: any man who has lived the greater part of his life in a colony is so accustomed to it, that he becomes quite enamoured of it, and wrapping himself up in it as a cloak, stalks abroad the "observed of all observers." I could undervalue this species of writing if I thought proper, affect a contempt for idiomatic humour, or hint at the employment being inconsistent with the grave discharge of important official duties, which are so distressingly onerous, as not to leave me a moment for recreation; but these airs, though dignified, will unfortunately not avail me.

I shall put my dignity into my pocket, therefore, and disclose the real cause of this diffidence.
In the year one thousand eight hundred and fourteen, I embarked at Halifax on board the Buffalo store-ship for England.

She was a noble teak built ship of twelve or thirteen hundred tons burden, had excellent accommodation, and carried over to merry old England, a very merry party of passengers, _quorum parva pars fui_, a youngster just emerged from college.
On the banks of Newfoundland we were becalmed, and the passengers amused themselves by throwing overboard a bottle, and shooting at it with ball.
The guns used for this occasion, were the King's muskets, taken from the arm-chest on the quarter-deck.