Part 1 provides a lightly edited version of the manuscript. Nelson's

text is an excellent example of common English usage in early nineteenth century North America. Idiosyncratic misspellings are generally corrected; archaisms and localizations have been maintained. Where the spelling of names is irregular or abbreviated, a consistent spelling is chosen. Punctuation has been somewhat modernized.

Editorial interjections, including section and subsection headings not in the original, are enclosed in brackets. Nelson occasionally used brackets in the text for parenthetical remarks; these have been replaced with braces.