CHAPTER XII.

‘tne Author’s veracity. His design in publishing this work. His
censure of those travellers who swerve from the truth. . The
Author clears himself from any sinister ends in writing. An
objection answered. The method of planting colonies. His
native country commended. The right of the Crown to those

_ countries described by the Author is justified. The difficulty of
conquering them. The Author takes his last leave of the reader:
proposeth his manner of living for the future, gives good advice,
and concludes.

HUS, gentle reader, I have given thee a faithful
history of my travels for sixteen years and above
seven months, wherein I have not been so studious of
ornament as truth. I could perhaps like others have
astonished thee with strange improbable tales; but I
rather chose to relate plain matter of fact in the simplest
manner and style, because my principal design was to
inform, and not to amuse thee.

It is easy for us who travel into remote. countries,
which are seldom visited by Englishmen or other Euro-
peans, to form descriptions of wonderful animals both
atsea andland. Whereas a traveller’s chief aim should
be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their
minds by the bad, as well as good, example of what they
deliver concerning foreign places.

I could heartily wish a law was enacted, that every .