My Lord,

⁠I have sought permission to inscribe your Lordship's name on this page, as a favour appropriate to my work, under the considerations in which it originated.

I began these translations, partly as a means of acquiring an accurate knowledge of the Spanish language, and partly as a relaxation from other studies and pursuits, about the time when your Lordship, in the course of your statesmanlike visit to America, made, in 1842, a lengthened stay in Cuba, studying the circumstances of those countries, which are soon, perhaps, to take a yet more prominent place, than they do at present, in the history of the world.