Eastern District of Pennsylvania, to wit: BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the nineteenth day of February, in the forty-third year of the independence of the United States of America, A. D. 1819, Ezekiel Sanford, of the said district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit: "A History of the United States before the Revolution: with some Account of the Aborigines. By Ezekiel Sanford." In conformity to the act of the congress of the United States, entitled, "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned? And also to the act, entitled, "An act supplementary to an act, entitled, 'An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned,' and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other pints. D. CALDWELL, ADVERTISEMENT. THE title of this volume might appear a solecism, if the reader were not made acquainted with the plan of the author. He divides our history into three separate periods:-the history Before the Revolution; the history During the Revolution; and the history Since the Revolution. Though we have not always been known by the same name, we have always been essentially the same people; and, for the uniformity of title, the reader may be willing to excuse a little inaccuracy of language. The present volume has been written during the vacant hours of a person not yet involved in business; and whether he will hereafter find leisure, or encouragement, to complete the work, time alone can determine. The author must not be supposed to hope, that he has superseded the necessity of all other American histories. Our society is not yet sufficiently advanced in the refinements of luxury, to create a class of men exclusively devoted to literature; and, until that epoch shall have arrived, it will be in vain to expect such a history of our own country, as has been written of others. In the mean time, however, the nation may be gratified with some general account of its progress from childhood to maturity; and, if the author shall be found to have succeeded in such a performance, it is the highest merit, to which he has any pretensions. His object has not been to give the details, but to glance at the summits, of affairs;-sequari fastigia rerum. Compression, therefore, has been his great study; and he fears, indeed, that he has adopted a seale of abridgment too concise; and that, in labouring to be brief, he has often become obscure. It seemed not improper to preface a History of the United States, with some Account of the Aborigines. The author has begun the subject at the highest point; and endeavoured to throw some light upon all the questions connected with their origin, their revolutions, their numbers, and their disappearance. Much has been written concerning the Indians; but the object has too often been to make a book; and we are accordingly treated with speculation, when we ask for knowledge, and find a romance, where we expected a history. Such facts as the author could collect, he has faithfully communicated; and perhaps the third section contains the first attempt at a history of the several tribes, within the territory of the present United States. PHILADELPHIA,? |