IT now becomes expedient for me to pass over no less than Fifteen Years of my momentous Career. I am led to do this for divers cogent Reasons, two of which I will forthwith lay before my Reader. For the first, let me urge a Decent Prudence. It is not, Goodness knows, that I have any thing to be ashamed of which should hinder me from giving a Full, True, and Particular Account of all the Adventures that befell me in these same fifteen Years, with the same Minute Particularity which I bestowed upon my Unhappy Childhood, my varied Youth, and stormy Adolescence. I did dwell, perhaps, with a fonder circumspection and more scrupulous niceness upon those early days, inasmuch as the things we have first known and suffered are always more vividly presented to our mind when we strive to recall 'em, sitting as old men in the ingle-nook, than are the events of complete manhood. Yet do I assure those who have been at the pains to scan the chapters that have gone before, that it would be easy for me to sit down with the Fidelity of a Ledger-Keeper all the things that happened unto me from my eighteenth year, when I last bade them leave, and the year 1747, when I had come to be three-and-thirty years of age. I remember all: the Ups and Downs; the Crosses and the Runs of Luck; the Fortunes and Misfortunes; the Good and the Bad Feasts I sat me down to, during an ever-changing and Troublous Period. But, as I have said, I have been moved thus to skip over a vast tract of time through Prudence. There may have been certain items in my life upon which, now that I am respectable and prosperous, I no more care to think of. There may be whole pages, close-written and full of Stirring Matter, which I have chosen to cancel; there may be occurrences treated of which it is best, at this time of Day, to draw a Veil over. Finally, there may be Great Personages still Living who would have just cause to be Offended were I to tell all I know. The dead belong to all the World, and their Bones are oft-times Dug up and made use of by those who in the Flesh knew them not; but Famous Persons live to a very Great Age, and it is sometimes scandalous to recount what adventures one has had with 'em in the days of their hot and rash Youth. Had I permission to publish all I am acquainted with, the very Hair upon your Head might stand up in Amazement at some of the Matters I could relate:--how Mean and Base the Great and Powerful might become; how utterly Despisable some of the most Superb and Arrogant Creatures of this our Commonwealth might appear. But I am prudent and Hold my Tongue.