I had at first intended my notes for the perusal of friendly eyes alone: to my astonishment, I find them praised almost enthusiastically by two powerful critics (—journalists; valued friends; men whose fingers are ever upon the pulse of the nation), and a little later I learnt that the Directors of the M’Korio Delta Development Company would not be displeased to see printed such a vindication of their methods as my pen had produced. I was assured by Lord Benthorpe, in person, that no salaried agent upon the daily press, nor any professional author they had employed—not even “Ultor”—had given them the full satisfaction they had received from my manuscript. I, therefore, reluctantly consented to rewrite and publish the whole, with such added embellishments of style and fancy, as a wider public deserves. It has eagerly been enquired by many clergymen and others whether I had before me a moral purpose in the compilation of this work. I cannot pretend that I had intended it at the outset to convey any great religious or political lesson to the world, but I will confess that long before my monograph was perfected a conscious meaning inspired my pen. Rather let me put it more humbly, and say that I became vividly sensitive to a Guiding Power of which I was but the Instrument. Each succeeding phrase, though intended for nothing but a statement of fact, pointed more and more to the Presence of some Mysterious Design, and I arose from the Accomplished Volume with the certitude that more than a mere record had been achieved. The very soul of Empire rose before me as I re-read my simple chronicle. I was convinced of the Destiny of a People; I was convinced that every man who forwarded this Destiny was directly a minister of Providence. I was convinced that the Intrepid Financier, the Ardent Peer—nay, the Soldier of Fortune, whom twenty surrenders cannot daunt—had in them something greater than England had yet known. To such convictions the reader owes those snatches of hymns, those citations from the sermons of eminent divines, and those occasional ethical digressions which diversify and enliven the pages now before him. * * * * * Of the form of the book I have little to say. Type, paper, and binding I left to the choice of specialists, as did I also the impagination, the size of the margin, the debate as to whether the leaves should be uncut, and the proportion of public advertisement requisite to a merited fame. The proofs I read myself.