It is now upwards of eighteen months since I announced an intention of printing a new edition of my Naval history, and requested to have transmitted to me any corrections necessary to be made in the statements of the former edition. I expended upwards of fifty pounds in advertisements, urging naval officers to assist me in rendering my forthcoming work worthy of them and of the country. Consequently, I do not feel myself answerable for any mistatements, which appeared in the old, and may reappear in the present edition. I trust, however, that there are very few of them. Two or three officers, who have never applied to me directly or indirectly, will find that I have corrected errors which had crept in respecting them, and have expressed my regret that those errors should have occurred. On the other hand some of the most noisy claimants for redress will wish they had remained silent : justice, however, was all they could expect, and justice I hope I have done them.

I have still a trifling topic to touch upon. One evening at eight o'clock, my publishers sent me down two pretty little wide-printed volumes. The title of " Naval Sketch-book," and that by " An officer of rank," made me regret that the work had not appeared a twelvemonth earlier, in order that I might have profited by the naval information I expected to find within it. At the very first thumbful of leaves I turned over, my heart almost leaped into my mouth; for I read as follows: " Inconsistencies, Infidelities, and Fallacies of James." Here was a plurality of faults ! I presently discovered that I, or my printer for me, had made use of main instead of mizen, but that the "officer of rank" had overlooked the circumstance of my having corrected the mistake in the ERRATA ; and that, on another occasion, I had accidentally made an inappropriate use of the term bear up. As these little slips would not justify the heavy imputation cast upon me in the " Contents," I went through the work, and was pleased to find that, having no specific charge to bring forward, the author could only vent his spleen in general abuse of me and my work. I saw clearly, that the "officer of rank" was not what he pretended to be, any more than the sixpenny scribe noticed by him was "Capt. William Goldsmith, R. N." Before one o'clock the next afternoon, I traced the " officer of rank" through every ship he had served in, and

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