Another objection has been made to my narrative, and I cannot pass it by without a word of remark;—“these Confessions are wanting in scenes of touching and pathetic interest”[*]—true, quite true; but I console myself on this head, for I remember hearing of an author whose paraphrase of the book of Job was refused by a publisher, if he could not throw a little more humour into it; and if I have not been more miserable and more unhappy, I am very sorry for it on _your_ account, but you must excuse my regretting it on _my own_. Another story and I have done;—the Newgate Calendar makes mention of a notorious housebreaker, who closed his career of outrage and violence by the murder of a whole family, whose house he robbed; on the scaffold he entreated permission to speak a few words to the crowd beneath, and thus addressed them:—“My friends, it is quite true I murdered this family; in cold blood I did it—one by one they fell beneath my hand, while I rifled their coffers, and took forth their effects; but one thing is imputed to me, which I cannot die without denying—it is asserted that I stole an extinguisher; the contemptible character of this petty theft is a stain upon my reputation, that I cannot suffer to disgrace my memory.” So would I now address you for all the graver offences of my book; I stand forth guilty—miserably, palpably guilty—they are mine every one of them; and I dare not, I cannot deny them; but if you think that the blunders in French and the hash of spelling so widely spread through these pages, are attributable to me; on the faith of a gentleman I pledge myself you are wrong, and that I had nothing to do with them. If my thanks for the kindness and indulgence with which these hastily written and rashly conceived sketches have been received by the press and the public, are of any avail, let me add, in conclusion, that a more grateful author does not exist than HARRY LORREQUER * We have the author’s permission to state, that all the pathetic and moving incidents of his career he has reserved for a second series of “Confessions,” to be entitled “Lorrequer _Married?_”—_Publisher’s Note_. A WORD OF INTRODUCTION. “Story! God bless you; I have none to tell, sir.” It is now many—do not ask me to say how many—years since I received from the Horse Guards the welcome intelligence that I was gazetted to an ensigncy in his Majesty’s —th Foot, and that my name, which had figured so long in the “Duke’s” list, with the words “a very hard case” appended, should at length appear in the monthly record of promotions and appointments.