In selecting the materials for the succeeding volumes, it was deemed proper to present to the public as much as possible of general Washington himself. Prominent as he must be in any history of the American war, there appeared to be a peculiar fitness in rendering him still more so in one which professes to give a particular account of his own life. His private opinions therefore; his various plans, even those which were never carried into execution; his individual exertions to prevent and correct the multiplied errors committed by inexperience, are given in more minute detail; and more copious extracts from his letters are taken, than would comport with the plan of a more general work.
Many events too are unnoticed, which in such a composition would be worthy of being introduced, and much useful information has not been sought for, which a professed history of America ought to comprise. Yet the history of general Washington, during his military command and civil administration, is so much that of his country, that the work appeared to the author to be most sensibly incomplete and unsatisfactory, while unaccompanied by such a narrative of the principal events preceding our revolutionary war, as would make the reader acquainted with the genius, character, and resources of the people about to engage in that memorable contest. This appeared the more necessary as that period of our history is but little known to ourselves. Several writers have detailed very minutely the affairs of a particular colony, but the _desideratum_ is a composition which shall present in one connected view, the transactions of all those colonies which now form the United States.
Commission of Cabot.... His voyage to America.... Views of discovery relinquished by Henry VII.... Resumed by Elizabeth.... Letters patent to Sir Humphry Gilbert.... His voyages and death.... Patent to Sir Walter Raleigh.... Voyage of Sir Richard Grenville.... Colonists carried back to England by Drake.... Grenville arrives with other colonists.... They are left on Roanoke Island.... Are destroyed by the Indians.... Arrival of John White.... He returns to England for succour.... Raleigh assigns his patent.... Patent to Sir Thomas Gates and others.... Code of laws for the proposed colony drawn up by the King.