The materials for a life of Marryat are scanty, and I have acknowledged my obligation to them in the text. Mrs. Ross Church collected, in 1872, all the surviving knowledge about her father’s life—all of it, that is, which the family thought it right to publish to the world. The present little book has no pretensions to be founded on new materials. My object has only been to make the best use I could of already published matter—to tell what story there is to tell in the clearest possible manner, and to add the best estimate of Marryat’s work and position in letters that I could supply.

D. H.