OR, OLD TIMES IN THE NEW WORLD. "This affair being taken into consideration, it was adjudged Fragment of Minutes of Council in New-York. NEW EDITION REVISED AND CORRECTED. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-STREET. English collector 10-29-40 41854 KONINGSMARKE. BOOK FIRST. CHAPTER I. Which, together with all the introductory chapters of this work, is forbidden to our female readers, as containing secrets worth knowing. In order that our readers and ourselves may at once come to a proper understanding, we will confess without any circumlocution, that we sat down to write this history before we had thought of any regular plan, or arranged the incidents, being fully convinced that an author who trusts to his own genius, like a modern saint who relies solely on his faith, will never be left in the lurch. Another principle of ours, which we have seen fully exemplified in the very great success of certain popular romances, advertised for publication before they were begun to be written, is, that it is much better for an author to commence his work, without knowing how it is to end, than to hamper himself with a regular plot, a succession of prepared incidents, and a premeditated catastrophe. This we hold to be an error little less, than to tie the legs of a |