To the persuasions of his friends Bruce at last yielded, and, as soon as he resolved to undertake the task, he performed it with his usual energy and application. In about three years he submitted the work, nearly finished, to his very constant and sincere friend, the Hon. Daines Barrington. In the mean while, his enemies triumphantly maintained a clamour against him, and in his study he was assailed by the most virulent accusations of exaggeration and falsehood; and all descriptions of people were against him, from the moralist of the day down to the witty Peter Pindar. In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1789, it is stated that Johnson had declared to Sir John Hawkins, "that when he first conversed with Mr. Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, he was _very much inclined to believe that he had been there, but that he had afterward altered his opinion_!" Peter Pindar amused all people (except Bruce) by his satirical flings, one of which was, "Nor have I been where men (what loss, alas!) Kill half a cow, and turn the rest to grass." In the year 1790, seventeen years after his return to Europe, Bruce's work was printed and laid before the public. It consisted of five large quarto volumes, and was entitled, "Travels to discover the Sources of the Nile, in the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773, by James Bruce of Kinnaird, Esq., F.R.S." The work was dedicated to the king; and in his preface Bruce frankly explains the reasons which had delayed for so many years the publication of his travels, and admits that "an undeserved and unexpected neglect and want of patronage had been at least part of the cause. But," he continues, "it is with great pleasure and readiness I now declare that no fantastical nor deformed motive, no peevish disregard, much less contempt, of the judgment of the world, had any part in the delay which has happened to this publication. The candid and instructed public, the impartial and unprejudiced foreigner, are tribunals merit should naturally appeal to; there it always has found sure protection against the influence of cabals, and the virulent strokes of envy, malice, and ignorance." He concludes his preface with the following noble words: