Lady Good-for-Nothing

~

To My Commodore and old Friend Edward Atkinson, Esq.
of Rosebank,
Mixtow-by-Fowey.

~

NOTE

Some years ago an unknown American friend proposed my writing a story on
the loves and adventures of Sir Harry Frankland, Collector of the Port
of Boston in the mid-eighteenth century, and Agnes Surriage, daughter of
a poor Marble-head fisherman. The theme attracted me as it has
attracted other writers--and notably Oliver Wendell Holmes, who built a
poem on it. But while their efforts seemed to leave room for another, I
was no match for them in knowledge of the facts or of local details;
and, moreover, these facts and details cramped my story. I repented,
therefore and, taking the theme, altered the locality and the
characters--who, by the way, in the writing have become real enough to
me, albeit in a different sense. Thus (I hope) no violence has been
offered to historical truth, while I have been able to tell the tale in
my own fashion.

"Q."

~

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