The Commander in Chief of the garrison of Gibraltar having indulged the Author of the following pages with leave of absence, he accepted an invitation from an amiable Friend, to accompany him on a Voyage to the Levant.
It was with the most heart-felt satisfaction, that he found himself enabled to profit by so favorable an opportunity of visiting a country, not only interesting from the precious remains of antiquity with which it is still adorned, but from the critical state into which it was thrown by the war already began, which threatened, sooner or later, to involve in it many of the Powers of Europe, and to call forth the just arm of Great Britain, to check the haughty usurpations of the ambitious Court of Russia.
The Author's friends saw his happiness in embarking on such a Tour; and, that they might, in some degree, partake of it, one of them insisted that he should keep, and transmit him, a regular Journal.
This promise the Author readily gave, and faithfully observed.
The compliments paid to this little work, first gave him the idea of appearing in print. Aware, however, that the ground he had travelled over, had often been treated upon by much more able pens, he for some time suppressed his hopes of becoming a candidate for fame in the literary world: but, after the general encouragement he met, he would have been guilty of injustice to himself, and of want of confidence in his friends, had he any longer hesitated to appear before the Public.