Excerpt from Yankee Ships and Yankee Sailors: Tales of 1812 The incidents made use of in the following pages are historical, or at least authentic some may perhaps come under the head of tradition. Tradi tion is historical rumor; it may be proved by inves tigation to be actual fact, or it may be accepted at its face value, on account of its probability. To inves tigate, one is led to break open and dissect and some times we destroy a wealth of sentiment in the pro ceeding; by casting aside tradition that is harmless we destroy the color of history; we may lose its side lights and shadows that give vividness and beauty to the whole effect. It has not been a spirit of research into the science of history, or a chance for deep delving into figures and records, that has animated the author, although he has drawn upon state papers for material, and all correspondence and important references can be vouched for. He has endeavored to refreshen the colors by removing the dust that may have settled. He has touched the fragile bric - a-brac of tradition with the feather cluster of investigation. There is suflicient excuse for everything that is written in this book. Facts are not lacking to prove much here to be true. It will not confuse our historical knowledge to accept it thus. 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.