No man ever had a stronger inclination for travelling than myself. I consider’d the whole earth as my country, and all mankind as my brethren, and therefore thought it incumbent upon me to travel thro’ the earth and visit my brethren. I have walk’d over the ruins of the antient world, have view’d the monuments of modern pride, and, at the sight of all-devouring time, have wept over both. I have often found great folly among the nations that pass for the most civiliz’d, and sometimes as great wisdom among those that are counted the most savage. I have seen small states supported by virtue, and mighty empires shaken by vice, whilst a mistaken policy has been employ’d to inrich the subjects, without any endeavours to render them virtuous.

After having gone over the whole world and visited all the inhabitants, I find it does not answer the pains I have taken. I have just been reviewing my memoirs concerning the several nations, their prejudices, their customs and manners, their politicks, their laws, their religion, their history; and I have thrown them all into the fire. It grieves me to record such a monstrous mixture of humanity and barbarousness, of grandeur and meanness, of reason and folly.

The small part, I have preserv’d, is what I am now publishing. If it has no other merit, certainly it has novelty to recommend it.