Memoirs of the Notorious Stephen Burroughs

By Stephen Burroughs.

Excerpt from Memoirs of Stephen Burroughs: A New and Revised Edition; With an Appendix, Containing Authentic Facts Respecting the Latter Part of His Life. In relating the facts of my life to you, I shall endeavor to give' as simple an account of them as I am able, without coloring or darkening any circumstances although the relation of many matters will give me a degree and kind of pain, which only they who feel can describe. I have often lamented my neglect of keeping minutes of the occurrences of my life, from time to time, when they were fresh in my memory, and alive to my feelings the disadvantage of which I now feel, when I come to run over in my mind the chain which has connected the events together. Many circumstances are entirely lost, and many more so obscurely remembered, that I shall not even attempt to give them a place in this account. Not to trouble you with any more preta tory remarks, I will proceed to the relation. I am the only son of a clergyman, living in Hanover, ih the State of new-hampshire; and, were any to expect merit from their parentage, I might {ustly look for that merit. But I am so far a republican, that I consider a man's merit to rest entirely with himself, without any regard to family, blood.

Boston: C. Gaylord, 1835. 370p.