The following Letters were written under very adverse circumstances, in
a part of France remote from the beaten track in which travellers
generally keep, and where curiosity has seldom led to observation. As
connected with that stupendous object, which has concentrated the
attention not only of Europe, but of every quarter of this planet where
human communications reach, they are offered to the Public. A
considerable part of the collection was unavoidably dedicated to matters
which must, from their nature, be uninteresting to a majority of
readers; but the author trusts to the importance of the subject to
compensate for the poverty of the relation. Since his return to England
they have been revised; and would have been earlier sent to the press,
had not reasons of a private nature interposed to procrastinate his
intention.