Now believing as I do, in spite of such overwhelming authority, that a man may have a club-foot, or a hump-back, or even red hair and yet be a good man--peradventure a great man; that a dwarf with a distorted shape may be a giant in goodness of heart and greatness of temper; and that moral beauty _may_ exist where it appears not to have been suspected by the chief critics of our age, and of past ages--namely, in a deformed body (like that of Æsop,) I have written this book. Let me add however that although such was my principal, it was not my only object. I would call the attention of our novel-writers and our novel-readers to what is undoubtedly native and peculiar, in the early history of our Fathers; I would urge them to believe that though there is much to lament in that history, there is nothing to conceal; that if they went astray, as they most assuredly did in their judgments, they went astray conscientiously, with what they understood to be the law of God in their right hands. The “_Salem Tragedie_” is in proof--that is the ground-work of my story; and I pray the reader to have patience with the author, if he should find this tale rather more serious in parts, and rather more argumentative in parts, than stories, novels and romances generally are. I do not pretend to say that the book I now offer to my countrymen, is altogether such a book as I would write now, if I had more leisure, nor altogether such a book as I hope to write before I die; but as I cannot afford to throw it entirely away, and as I believe it to be much better, because more evidently prepared for a healthy good purpose, than any other I have written, I have concluded to publish it--hoping it may be regarded by the wise and virtuous of our country as some sort of atonement for the folly and extravagance of my earlier writing. The skeleton of this tale was originally prepared for Blackwood, as the first of a series of North-American Stories: He accepted it, paid for it, printed it, and sent me the proofs. A misunderstanding however occurred between us, about other matters, and I withdrew the story and repaid him for it. It was never published therefore; but was put aside by me, as the frame-work for a novel--which novel is now before the reader. JOHN NEAL. Portland, October 1, 1828.