He prefers to make a more philosophic and practical application.

The real inference to be drawn is, that he has succeeded very ill in this, somewhat essential, portion of his plan,--on the principle that the composition must be amiss, the design of which is so readily misapprehended.

He may plead guilty to the defect; but he cannot admit the charge to have had any foundation in truth.
The writer confesses to have felt a little concern at an imputation, which was once faintly attempted to be made, he scarcely now remembers by whom, that in the character of Nathan Slaughter he intended to throw a slur upon the peaceful Society of Friends, of which Nathan is described as having been an unworthy member.

This notion is undeserving of serious challenge.

The whole object was here to portray the peculiar characteristics of a class of men, very limited, of course, in number, but found, in the old Indian days, scattered, at intervals, along the extreme frontier of every State, from New York to Georgia; men in whom the terrible barbarities of the savages, suffered through their families, or their friends and neighbours, had wrought a change of temper as strange as fearful.