From Volume V., The Works of Whittier: Tales and Sketches
The intelligent reader of the following record cannot fail to notice
occasional inaccuracies in respect to persons, places, and dates; and,
as a matter of course, will make due allowance for the prevailing
prejudices and errors of the period to which it relates. That there are
passages indicative of a comparatively recent origin, and calculated to
cast a shade of doubt over the entire narrative, the Editor would be the
last to deny, notwithstanding its general accordance with historical
verities and probabilities. Its merit consists mainly in the fact that
it presents a tolerably lifelike picture of the Past, and introduces us
familiarly to the hearths and homes of New England in the seventeenth
century.
A full and accurate account of Secretary Rawson and his family is about
to be published by his descendants, to which the reader is referred who
wishes to know more of the personages who figure prominently in this
Journal.
1866.
