PHILADELPHIA:

HAZARD & MITCHELL, No. 178 CHESTNUT STREET.

Crissy & Markley, Printers, No. 4 Minor Street.

1839-1849.

PREFACE.

THE part of the following work comprising the years 1774, 1775 and 1776 was published in the year 1839, and having met with the approbation of those qualified to judge of its merits, extracts from Mr. Marshall's Diary for the year 1777, are now added. The extracts which I have made for the four following years are sufficient to make a second volume of like size, which, I hope, will one day be laid before the public. The Diary, so far as it at present exists, covers only the eight years from 1774 to 1781, inclusive.

Christopher Marshall, the Diarist, was one of the most respectable citizens of Philadelphia. Having accumulated a competency as a druggist, he had retired from business prior to the commencement of the revolution, and having ample leisure, his attachment to the American cause brought him forward into various posts of honor and responsibility connected with the progress of the revolution. It will be seen from the following pages, that he was on friendly and confidential terms with many leading men in the Continental Congress, and the new Government of Pennsylvania.