Printed (by Affignment from the Executors of the late Mr. James Dolfsley) By G. Auld, Greville-Street, Hatton Garden, FOR W. OTRIDGE AND SON; R. FAULDER; J. CUTHELL; R. LEA; OGILVY AND SON; J. NUNN; J. WALKER; LACKINGTON, ALLEN, AND CO. E. JEFFERY; AND VERNOR AND HOOD. 1800. PREFACE. IT vil dissentions down from their original causes and earliest appearance, nearly to the point of their ultimate conclufion, in the separation of Great Britain and her colonies. In this course, which constantly required all the labour and attention we were capable of bestowing, we were, by degrees, unwittingly led into the execution of a work far beyond our ability and powers; and upon which we could scarcely have ventured, had we foreseen its extent and difficulty. We were led into the history of a war of fuch a magnitude, as would have afforded a full scope to the genius of the first writers :-a war, by far the most dangerous in which the British nation was ever involved; of the first rank in point of action and event; but of still wider importance, when confidered with a view to its actual or probable consequences. It has already overturned those favourite systems of policy and commerce, both in the old and in the new world, which the wisdom of ages and the power of the greatest nations had in vain endeavoured to render permanent; and it feems to have laid the feeds of still greater revolutions in the history and mutual relations of mankind. Unequal |