as 1411.9.21
B

1860. Sept
Lift of

14

R. Lowell

Prof. Jany tambridge,
of

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860,

By D. APPLETON & CO.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern

District of New York.

PREFACE.

The following correspondence sufficiently explains the origin of the "Mount Vernon Papers," and will serve as an appropriate introduction to the present volume.

LEDGER OFFICE, NEW YORK, September 2, 1858. DEAR SIR :-I have a proposition of a somewhat peculiar nature to make to you: For the purchase of the Mount Vernon property you have done more than any other man, or, I might say, than all other men. To your eloquent appeal in its behalf is pre-eminently due the credit of the progress already made in that noble work, and the favor with which the subject is universally received by our people from one extremity of the land to the other. The heart of the public has naturally warmed towards you, on account of your well-timed and well-directed efforts to rescue the tomb of the Father of our country from neglect and dilapidation.

Knowing that you have been no less distinguished in literature than in official life, it has occurred to me that it might be as agreeable to you to aid the patriotic and benevolent enterprise which you have undertaken, by contributions to the columns of a weekly paper of unprecedented circulation, as by a public address. I have accordingly to propose that, if you will furnish to the NEW YORK LEDGER one original article a week, for one year, I will, immediately