Produced by Dianna Adair, allspice and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF DAVID CROCKETT, OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE. I leave this rule for others when I'm dead, Be always sure you're right--THEN GO AHEAD! THE AUTHOR. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. SIXTH EDITION. PHILADELPHIA. E. L. CAREY AND A. HART. BALTIMORE: CAREY, HART & CO. 1834. Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1834, BY DAVID CROCKETT, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Columbia. STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON, PHILADELPHIA. PREFACE. Fashion is a thing I care mighty little about, except when it happens to run just exactly according to my own notion; and I was mighty nigh sending out my book without any preface at all, until a notion struck me, that perhaps it was necessary to explain a little the reason why and wherefore I had written it. Most of authors seek fame, but I seek for justice,--a holier impulse than ever entered into the ambitious struggles of the votaries of that _fickle_, _flirting_ goddess. A publication has been made to the world, which has done me much injustice; and the catchpenny errors which it contains, have been already too long sanctioned by my silence. I don't know the author of the book--and indeed I don't want to know him; for after he has taken such a liberty with my name, and made such an effort to hold me up to publick ridicule, he cannot calculate on any thing but my displeasure. If he had been content to have written his opinions about me, however contemptuous they might have been, I should have had less reason to complain. But when he professes to give my narrative (as he often does) in my own language, and then puts into my mouth such language as would disgrace even an outlandish African, he must himself be sensible of the injustice he has done me, and the trick he has played off on the publick. I have met with hundreds, if not with thousands of people, who have formed their opinions of my appearance, habits, language, and every thing else from that deceptive work. They have almost in every instance expressed the most profound astonishment at finding me in human shape, and with the _countenance_, _appearance_, and _common feelings_ of a human being. It is to correct all these false notions, and to do justice to myself, that I have written.