Introduction and Preface to the Web Version of

Master Mariner

THE LIFE AND VOYAGES OF

AMASA DELANO

Captain Amasa Delano, 1763-1823

[Amasa⁶, Samuel⁵, Jonathan^{4, 3}, Thomas², Philippe¹]

Welcome to the web-based version of "Master Mariner", originally published by James B. Connolly in 1943, which work was in turn based on "Delano's Voyages", originally published by Amasa Delano in 1817.

Working from an original 1^st edition copy of "Master Mariner", each page was individually scanned on an Epson Perfection™ 636U flatbed scanner using Xerox TextBridge Pro™ 9.03 OCR software; the resulting text was then spell-checked and reformatted in MS-Word™ 2000. Finally, each chapter was converted to HTML with Allaire ColdFusion Studio™ 4.51 before being placed on the web server.

While care has been taken to preserve the original spelling and grammar, certain embellishments in the form of illustrations, historical side-notes, supplementary indices and search engines appear throughout, and the chapters have been formatted in such a manner as to (hopefully) promote ease-of-reading.

What follows below is the title-page of the original 1817 edition of "Delano's Voyages", with a preface by Amasa Delano.

Enjoy!

PREFACE.

"In preparing this book for the public, I have had several objects in view. The principal one was the hope and belief that a large part of the information, which it contains, would be new and interesting to the community. In regard to the Oriental Islands particularly, remarks are made, anecdotes are told, customs are described, and principles and traits of character among the natives are brought to light, which, I trust, my readers will find worthy of their attention.

Having kept journals of my voyages and travels, which were made at the time minute and full upon whatever was extraordinary, and being satisfied that the publication of what I had seen and experienced would be useful, especially to seamen, I also desired to employ and amuse my mind in this work, and to spend, in a rational and profitable manner, a number of months which might otherwise have been left a prey to melancholy and painful meditations. I esteem it an occasion of peculiar gratitude to Providence when a man, depressed in his spirits, can fall upon a mode of beguiling his sadness which is equally reasonable and useful in regard to the community, and at the same time agreeable and reputable in regard to himself.

My friends too were solicitous that I should draw up this narrative, and give it to the press. It is hoped that their partiality will not be greatly mortified by the compliance with their advice, and the respect to their opinions, which I have here shown. No seaman from the United States has enjoyed the same opportunity for observation and discovery in the Eastern Ocean, which was afforded to me by the voyage I made with commodore McClure, My remarks upon the navigation along the coast of New Holland, Van Dieman's Land, New Zealand, and round Cape Horn, will also be new to my readers, and I am confident, of great real value. Although I have to regret that my book is not better, I trust that my countrymen will find it containing information and exhibiting a spirit, of which, notwithstanding its faults, they need not be ashamed. There are many suggestions made in it on the various subjects connected with ship building, with practical navigation, with the management of crews, with the conduct of se3men on shore and in port, and with the duties of owners and masters, which I am confident are deserving of the notice, recollection, and attention of persons employed in these departments of life. It was also thought expedient to introduce such information concerning the places which I visited, as might render the book interesting and instructive to landsmen, and as should give me an opportunity to offer my sentiments, as they occurred, upon various topics in morals, condition, and character.

In undertaking this work, I was aware of the difficulties which I should have to encounter, in consequence of my want of an early and academic education, although I have always seized every possible opportunity during my whole life for the improvement of my mind in the knowledge of useful literature and those sciences that are immediately connected with the pursuits to which I have been professionally devoted. My efforts have not been without success; and I have been often employed in giving instructions to midshipmen, other subordinate officers, and seamen, in mathematics, astronomy, and navigation. --These difficulties therefore were not greater in regard to me than they have been in regard to many other voyagers and travelers, who have very properly and usefully employed their pens in writing accounts of their observations and discoveries for the public. I wished this narrative to have my own character, sentiments, and manner, subject only to such a revision by some of my friends, before the manuscript went to press, as would free it from any gross errors in grammar, and peculiar obscurity in the construction of the sentences. I know that the book is unequally written, that the order is not always as happy as it might have been, that the facts and observations are miscellaneously presented to the reader, and that sometimes those belonging to the same subject are separated from each other at too great a distance. The nature of the narrative is such as to render it of necessity miscellaneous in a high degree, but the considerable defects in point of arrangement have arisen, not merely from my inexperience in the business of book-making, but from the fact that the press was set to work before my manuscript was revised, the sheets were printed as fast as they were prepared, and information sometimes came in, after its proper place was occupied with other matter. I do not attempt to justify this; I only desire to record my most sincere regret for the existence of those circumstances which have compelled me to carry my book through the press in this manner.

My manuscript was very nearly completed for the whole work before it was offered to any one for correction. It has undergone no alteration in respect to the facts, the general arrangement, the matter introduced, or the spirit and tenor of the sentiments and reflections. Although I am but little qualified to appear before the public in this way, yet the responsibility of every thing in the book, where credit is not given, is entirely my own. A number of my friends have been successively employed to revise the different parts of the manuscript, and in consequence of this, the style is in a degree varied according to the several hands. In the first part of my narrative, that which is included in the period when I was with McClure, the reflections are the most numerous, as I made them the most frequently myself in the narrative, and the thoughts were considerably filled out in the correction of the sheets for the press.

The names are spelled differently in different books. The orthography in this work is supported in every instance by some printed authority. The three plates I have procured in addition to the original design, without any addition to the terms and expense contemplated in the prospectus. The whole is written with a spirit of independence, without wounding the feelings, as I trust, of any good man. Perhaps my remarks may sometimes appear to pay too little deference to popular prejudice. I hope however, that what I have always felt may always appear in my expressions, and that is a uniform respect and attachment to all the good and generous qualities of our nature, and an unaffected veneration for the laws of Providence and the principles of true religion.

It may be considered by some of my readers that I have been at times too minute in giving details in this narrative concerning officers and crews, the manner in which they were treated, and the attention paid to their effects after their death. But notices of this kind are valuable to the cause of morality and humanity; and will help, I trust, to stimulate others to do the same things for their fellow men, which are recommended here. What I have neglected myself, and what I have seen deficient in other commanders of vessels, have led me to make such remarks in the course of this work as I thought would be useful to the community, and particularly to those who are called upon, not only for acts of justice, but for those of disinterestedness, at sea."