"The following Essays and Poems, selected from some printed and manuscript papers of Mr. Freneau, are now presented to the public of the United States in hopes they will prove at least equally acceptable with his volume of poems published last year. Some few of the pieces in this volume have heretofore appeared in American newspapers; but through a fatality, not unusually attending publications of that kind, are now, perhaps, forgotten; and, at any time, may possibly never have been seen or attended to but by very few." Of the forty-nine poems in the volume, one, "Slender's Journey," had been published separately by Bailey early in 1787, and nearly half of the others had first seen the light between April, 1786, and January, 1788, in the columns of the _Freeman's Journal_. The greater number of the others were doubtless printed from the poet's manuscripts. A few of the prose papers, like "The Philosopher of the Forest," were selected from the columns of the _Journal_, especially from the series entitled "The Pilgrim," but much of the rest was from the poet's manuscripts now first published. In the meantime the poet was leading a stormy and adventurous career upon the sea. As master of the sloop _Industry_, and later of the schooner _Columbia_, plying irregularly on all kinds of coastwise voyages between Georgia and New York, he experienced every phase of life upon the ocean. As a sample of his adventurous career during this period, note the following letter[8] to Bailey, written from Norfolk, Va., in the summer of 1788: "_Norfolk, Virginia, August 6, 1788._ "_Mr._ BAILEY,