Excerpt from Some Cursory Remarks: Made by James Birket in His Voyage to North America, 1750-1751 The diary here printed under its original title, Some Cursory Remarks made by James Birket, came undoubtedly from the collection of Dr. William Thornton, now on deposit in the Library of Con gress. It was preserved by Mrs. Margaret Bayard Smith, the wife of Samuel Harrison Smith, ' founder and first editor of the National Intelligencer, and descended to Mrs. Smith's grandson, J. Henley Smith, by whom it was presented to the University for publication. Of Birket himself nothing is known, beyond what is stated in his itinerary. He was probably one of Thornton's West India friends, a merchant and sea-captain living in Antigua, where the name is found among the records sufficiently often to estab lish the presence of a Birket family there. Among the Thornton papers is a little brochure, The Ladies' Advocate, a Poem, printed in Antigua in 1748, which bears the name of James Birket, the owner. How the diary came into Thornton's hands we do not know. Presumably it was given to him by Birket, either in Antigua or in Tortola of the Virgin Isles, where Thornton lived, and must have contained information which the latter would value, preparatory to visiting the United States, as he did some years later, when he took up his residence there. 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.