OF NORTH AMERICA; COMPRISING, A Geographical and Statistical VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES, AND OF THE BRITISH CANADIAN POSSESSIONS: INCLUDING A GREAT VARIETY OF IMPORTANT INFORMATION COUNTRY. [By John Talbot " EMBELLISHED WITH PLATES AND MAPS. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LEEDS: PRINTED BY DAVIES AND CO. AND SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS. PREFACE. IN presenting this work to the public, the Editor has been principally solicitous to lay before his readers important facts; he has aimed much more to inform, than to amuse; he trusts, however, that its pages will not be found void of interest, even to those who read principally for amusement. The ọrigin and rise of a mighty empire, however distant in point of time, and however little connected with present events, cannot be contemplated without feelings powerfully awakened. But when this empire has started into life in our own times; when its concerns are intimately connected with our own destinies, and come home to every man's business and bosom, it becomes then an object of intense interest; and every individual must be anxious to be acquainted with the mighty events which have produced so singular a phenomenon in the history of the world. It is not only the philosopher and the politician that are interested in the subjects treated of in this work; the humble cottager, and the industrious artizan are equally concerned in the destinies of a New World, which Providence in its mercy seems to have prepared as an asylum from the persecutions, the privations, and the revolutionary storms which |