“Sir,—­I am favoured with your’s of the 26th of February, and cannot but be pleased to find myself, as a writer, so high in your esteem.  The curiosity you express, with regard to the particulars of my life and the variety of situations in which I may have been, cannot be gratified within the compass of a letter.  Besides, there are some particulars of my life which it would ill become me to relate.  The only similitude between the circumstances of my own fortune and those I have attributed to Roderick Random consists in my being born of a reputable family in Scotland, in my being bred a surgeon, and having served as a surgeon’s mate on board a man-of-war during the expedition to Carthagena.  The low situations in which I have exhibited Roderick I never experienced in my own person.  I married very young, a native of Jamaica, a young lady well known and universally respected under the name of Miss Nancy Lassells, and by her I enjoy a comfortable, tho’ moderate estate in that island.  I practised surgery in London, after having improved myself by travelling in France and other foreign countries, till the year 1749, when I took my degree of Doctor in Medicine, and have lived ever since in Chelsea (I hope) with credit and reputation.

“No man knows better than Mr. Rivington what time I employed in writing the four first volumes of the History of England; and, indeed, the short period in which that work was finished appears almost incredible to myself, when I recollect that I turned over and consulted above three hundred volumes in the course of my labour.  Mr. Rivington likewise knows that I spent the best part of a year in revising, correcting, and improving the quarto edition; which is now going to press, and will be continued in the same size to the late Peace.  Whatever reputation I may have got by this work has been dearly purchased by the loss of health, which I am of opinion I shall never retrieve.  I am now going to the South of France, in order to try the effects of that climate; and very probably I shall never return.  I am much obliged to you for the hope you express that I have obtained some provision from his Majesty; but the truth is, I have neither pension nor place, nor am I of that disposition which can stoop to solicit either.  I have always piqued myself upon my Independancy, and I trust in God I shall preserve it to my dying day.

“Exclusive of some small detached performances that have been published occasionally in papers and magazines, the following is a genuine list of my productions.  Roderick Random.  The Regicide, a Tragedy.  A translation of Gil Blas.  A translation of Don Quixotte.  An Essay upon the external use of water.  Peregrine Pickle.  Ferdinand Count Fathom.  Great part of the Critical Review.  A very small part of a Compendium of Voyages.  The complete History of England, and Continuation.  A small part of the Modern Universal History.  Some pieces in the British Magazine, comprehending the whole of Sir Launcelot Greaves.  A small part of the translation of Voltaire’s Works, including all the notes, historical and critical, to be found in that translation.