Preface

When the writer prepared the first chapters of The Old Merchants for the columns of the New York Leader, it was with no intention of subsequently making a book of them; but the unexpected popularity of the papers, and the constantly increasing demand for back numbers, have induced him to revise them carefully and offer them to the reader in their present form.

The author feels justified in saying that he has spared neither time nor expense in rendering the volume valuable as a book of reference; though a work involving so much historical detail, and requiring such laborious research, cannot, necessarily, be entirely free from inaccuracies.

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