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Knowing that most seafaring people, and many serious characters on shore, have not leisure to read much at any one time, the writer has, in a few instances, brought forward some parts of the same truths under different heads. This to a person who should read all the Essays at one or two sittings, might appear like tedious repetition: but such will bear in mind, that many readers will take up the work, and peruse only a few pages, before duty, or some other circumstance, may cause them to lay it by. Hence it was thought better to give "line upon line, and precept upon precept," than to run the risk of not bringing sufficiently often before the reader what was considered of importance to be always on his mind.

In the reflections on the battle of Trafalgar, the writer has pointed out some errors in religious sentiments, and some failures in Christian obligations; which, though found in men of exalted rank and public fame, he considered it his duty to notice, lest some officers in lower stations and of less distinction should be tempted rather to imitate the frailties and mistakes, than the virtues and commendable actions of these their superiors.

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