Excerpt from The Water-Witch, or the Skimmer of the Seas: A Tale Ir was a bold attempt to lay the scene of a work like this, on the coast of America. We have had our Buccaneers on the water, and our Witches on the land, but we believe this is the first occasion/ on which the rule has been reversed. After an experience that has now l'asted more than twenty years, the result has shown that the public prefer the original order of things. In other words, the book has proved a comparative failure. The facts of this country, are all so recent and so familiar, that every innovation on them, by means of the imagination, is coldly received, if it be not absolutely frowned upon. Perhaps it would have been safer to have written a work of this character with out a reference to any particular locality. The few local allusions that are introduced are not essential to the plot, and 'might have been dispensed with without lessening the interest. Of the tale. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.