CONCLUSION.

I HAVE endeavoured to give, in the preceding pages, a full and explicit account of every interesting and important occurrence connected with the late unfortunate enterprise; but being totally unaccustomed to literary composition, and having now, for the first, and probably for the last time, ventured to intrude upon the public attention, I trust indulgence will be extended to its defects and inaccuracies. I do not,

in any degree, aim at the character of an Author; should, therefore, my little Narrative, from the temporary importance of its subject, be considered deserving of notice, it will, I trust encounter mild and lenient criticism.

Had I exclusively consulted my own individual feelings, I would have cautiously

shunned the notoriety to which a work of the kind must, more or less, give rise. My private inclinations, however, have been sacrificed to a sense of public duty, and the earnest solicitations of friends, who (aware of the flattering expectations diligently excited by the Patriot Agents in England, and the injury and sufferings to which a confidence in their sincerity and good faith has given birth) urged me in the strongest manner to publish an immediate and minute statement of every circumstance relative to the formation, history, and fate of the expedition to which I was so unfortunately attached.

Such a detail is, at this time, more peculiarly important; as the Agents, who have, by their intrigues and deception, occasioned the misery or destruction of such numbers of British officers, continue actively engaged in prosecuting similar disgraceful and unwarrantable practices; nor are these proceedings confined to the individuals who have been so long and unaccountably permitted to carry on the system of delusion in this country, under

the real or assumed title of "accredited Agents of the South American Patriots," the hollowness of their profession, and notoriety of their want of faith, might possibly render further exertions on their part, comparatively innoxious ;—but several other persons, apparently independent of each other, and all acting, it is understood, without concert or connexion with Don Mendez, are at this moment zealously engaged throughout the United Kingdom, raising extensive bodies of officers and men, avowedly for the service of the Independent Government; and for the purpose (as may be presumed) of giving their proceedings an impressive air of official consequence, occasional levees are actually held in London, at which those desirous of trans-atlantic military fame experience little difficulty in procuring commissions or the promise of receiving them.

For the correctness of the preceding Narrative, I can, in most instances, personally vouch, the events, in general, having passed under my own immediate observation, and their accuracy not now depending on the

mere impression which such circumstances made upon the memory and recollection ; as, from the day of my departure from England, until that of my return, I carefully preserved a written memorial of every occurrence which appeared in the slightest degree interesting or important, with minute particulars of such information as we procured during our erratic voyages amongst the West India islands.

With reference to those parts, which more or less depend upon information, I have not the most distant apprehension of their being in any important particular contradicted; having, on every occasion, carefully avoided the insertion of any proceedings or intelligence not founded either on general notoriety and undisputed truth, or not received through such channels as justified unqualified confidence and credit.

The accounts which have been introduced of the state of affairs on the Spanish Main, nature of the warfare, &c., were not the result of mere individual communication, or received from parties biassed and prejudiced against the Patriot cause. They

were, in numerous instances, derived from quarters, in which the feelings and prepossessions were at utter variance with the intelligence and the universal sentiment throughout the West Indies, and information, through whatever channel procured, were in these respects, too confirmatory to allow the most remote degree of hesitation or doubt.

The very fate of the expedition is almost conclusive evidence of the extraordinary misconception under which the British officers laboured; and of the illusive and -faithless engagements of those persons in England, by whom it was more particularly encouraged and promoted.

It now only remains for me to express a hope that I may not be considered as having too far trespassed upon the public attention, by the occasional introduction of my own opinion and observation. In this respect, however, I have not presumed much upon the patience of the reader, and never with a hostile feeling towards the cause of the Independents. That cause must stand or fall upon its own insulated merits: confi