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Excerpt from Memoirs of an American Lady: With Sketches of Manners and Scenes in America, as They Existed Previous to the Revolution After we had announced our design to republish Mrs. Grant's "History of an American Lady," we received from Mr. Grant Thorburn, of New York, the ensuing letter, which is so characteristic of the parties, and so apposite, that we prefix it to the work; as the recent and final attestation of the narrator to the fidelity of the biographical records with which her attractive volume is replete. New York, 1845. Having heard that you contemplate the republication of the "American Lady," by the late Mrs. Grant, of Langan, Scotland, and having been personally acquainted with her, I thought it proper to present to you a few circumstances anent the authenticity of that very interesting history. It is not a romance; nor a novel, nor a fiction, nor a tale partly founded on reality - but it is an authentic detail of facts. Mrs. Grant was the daughter of Duncan McVickar, and was born in 1755. Her father came to this country in 1757, as an officer in the fifty-fifth regiment of the British army. In the following year, 1758, Mrs. McVickar and her daughter also arrived in New York; and speedily after removed to Claverack, where she resided while Mr. McVickar was absent on military service with his regiment. After which his family were first transferred to Albany, and thence subsequently were stationed at Oswego. The description of that romantic journey, as given in the American Lady, from Schenectady to Oswego, in flat-bottomed boats, is one of Mrs. Grants most pleasing efforts; and excited great attention when the volume was first published in London, in 1808. 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 d