JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

The intelligent reader of the following record cannot fail to notice occasional inaccuracies in respect to persons, places, and dates; and, as a matter of course, will make due allowance for the prevailing prejudices and errors of the period to which it relates. That there are passages indicative of a comparatively recent origin, and calculated to cast a shade of doubt over the entire narrative, the Editor would be the last to deny, notwithstanding its general accordance with historical verities and probabilities. Its merit consists mainly in the fact that it presents a tolerably lifelike picture of the Past, and introduces us familiarly to the hearths and homes of New England in the seventeenth century.

A full and accurate account of Secretary Rawson and his family is about to be published by his descendants, to which the reader is referred who wishes to know more of the personages who figure prominently in this Journal.

1866.

MARGARET SMITH'S JOURNAL IN THE PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY, 1678-9