Eastern District of Pennsylvania, to wit: BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the thirtieth day of Octo L. S. ber, in the fifty-third year of the Independence of the United States of America, A. D. 1830, CAREY & LEA, of the said district, bave deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors in the words following, to wit: "The Water-Witch, or the Skimmer of the Seas. A Tale; by the author of the Pilot, Red Rover, &c. &c. &c. 'Mais, que diable alloit-il faire dans cette galère?" " In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the times therein mentioned:" And also to an Act, entitled, An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled, 'An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned,' and extend ing the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching his torical and other prints." STEREOTYPED BY J. HOWE. D. CALDWELL, Clerk of the Bequest of Seir L. Barbour 3-77-76 PREFACE. CHRISTENDOM IS gradually extricating itself from the igno rance, ferocity, and crimes of the middle ages. It is no longer subject of boast, that the hand which wields the sword, never held a pen, and men have long since ceased to be ashamed of knowledge. The multiplied means of imparting principles and facts, and a more general diffusion of intelligence, have conduced to establish sounder ethics and juster practices, throughout the whole civilized world. Thus, he who admits the conviction, as hope declines with his years, that man deteriorates, is probably as far from the truth, as the visionary who sees the dawn of a golden age, in the commencement of the nineteenth century. That we have greatly improved or. the opinions and practices of our ancestors, is quite as certain as that there will be occasion to meliorate the legacy of morals which we shall transmit to posterity. When the progress of civilization compelled Europe to correct the violence and injustice which were so openly practised, until the art of printing became known, the other hemisphere made America the scene of those acts, which shame prevented her from exhibiting nearer home. There was little of a lawless, mercenary, violent, and selfish nature, that the self-styled masters of the continent hesitated to commit, when removed from the immediate responsibilities of the society in which they had been educated. The Drakes, Rogers', and Dampiers of that day, though enrolled in the list of naval heroes, |