1 PREFACE.
2 xxix
3 unimpaired even by an unsuccessful result; but a successful
4 result will give me a stronger claim to soundness of view,
5 the more, insulated shall have been my industry and persever¬
6 ance.
7 “ To you I beg to reiterate my grateful thanks for that
8 friendly interest, which, to ensure ray personal safety, would,
9 even in this stage, approve the abandonment of the present
10 enterprise.
11 “ You may over-estimate, I may undervalue the personal
12 dangers attending it, and thus we may not come to a similar
13 conclusion; yet I see my course overhung with risks both
14 numerous and formidable.
15 * It may be urged that the extension of British commerce
16 was not within the scope of my mission, and that as much
17 time as such extension may occupy is so much abstracted from
18 its direct and special object.
19 f ‘ I will freely admit the first part of the position, hut not
20 the last, as the countries in which it is proposed to procure
21 horses are not accessible to an European, except as a needy
22 adventurer or as a merchant.
23 “ The former character is absolutely useless in relation to
24 the present object, whilst the latter may subserve the general
25 interests of commerce, and the only mode by which horses arc
26 profitably procurable.
27 “ Hence it follows, I presume, that the time employed in
28 prosecuting that form of intercourse through which alone horses
29 arc profitably obtainable, is legitimately employed in promoting
30 the special objects of my mission.
31 “ And I hesitate not to acknowledge my satisfaction in find¬
32 ing these two objects so blended, and in being he instrument
33 of attaining them.
34 “ I shall not go further into stud affairs, than to state gene¬
35 rally that our materiel has, in relation to its end, always been
36 defective; and this deficiency has increased the expense and
37 delayed the expected return of stud operations.