Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive

What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it.

so wondrous wild, the whole might seem
the scenery of a fairy dream

Trade has all the fascination of gambling without its moral guilt.

Look back, and smile on perils past!

Far better was our homely diet, eaten in peace and liberty, than the luxurious dainties, the love of which hath delivered us as bondsmen to the foreign conqueror!