should you then, in spite of my endeavours at accuracy, discover any mistatements, I request you will communicate them to me. If I say to an officer who may have a complaint to allege, send your statement in writing, it is because none but a written statement can serve his purpose or mine, and not because I fear him or any other man, or have the least expectation of a renewal of the disgraceful business that once occurred. I should be ill fitted for the task I have undertaken, were I to found a charge against a whole profession upon the misconduct of one of its members.

In the preface to the fourth volume of the old edition, I hinted at the probability of my undertaking an account of the principal naval actions of the first American war, or that commencing in 1775 and ending in 1783. I still think it probable that I shall make the attempt; and I would wish, also, to give a history of signal-making in the British and French navies, as exemplified in the different general actions fought between them. On this abstruse subject, I should be thankful to receive assistance from British officers; and I will undertake to return in safety any signal-books or other documents which they may please to send to me. Should I succeed in completing a volume of this description, a part of it will be devoted to CORRIGENDA AND ADDENDA connected with the present work ; and it is to that end more especially, that I solicit officers to apprize me of any inaccuracies they may discover. Diagrams applicable to actions detailed in these pages, I would willingly insert in the supplementary volume; and I will thank officers to transmit me copies of any letters which they may have forwarded to the Admiralty, describing boat-attacks and other similar services against the enemy; and which, not having appeared in the London Gazette, or only in the shape of abstracts, may not have been recorded in this work. When I state that my postage account for the Naval history, from first to last, has exceeded the sum of one hundred pounds, I shall be excused for requesting officers to endeavour to forward their communications free of charge.

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