PRE FAC E. W E are this year under a neceffity, of particularly claiming that indulgence which we have fo long experienced from the Public. It may probably be thought, that a bare apology is far from being fufficient, and that fome reasonable caufe fhould at least be affigned, for the lateness of our prefent publication. This would certainly be a duty incumbent on us, and with which we should readily comply, if we could fuppofe, that a detail of the private and particular circumftances, or the unforeseen and unavoidable accidents, which contributed to this delay, could be in any degree interefting or entertaining to our Readers; and if we did not apprehend that fuch a recital would rather appear a prefumption, and argue a degree of felfimportance which we are incapable of entertaining. It might be alledged in our defence, and with a confiderable degree of juftice, juftice, that the very imperfect accounts which have been published of foreign transactions of great importance, delayed, in hopes of being able to acquire better information, our entering upon a fubject which could not be treated with any degree of precifion, from the continued contradictions in matters of fact, which attended every part of it. In this, however, as in every thing elfe, we rather chufe to rely upon the indulgence, than pretend to appeal to the candour, of our Readers. The only effectual acknowledgement in our power to make, we have already adopted, by taking fuch meafures as will prevent, for the future, fo well-founded a complaint from being laid against us. Whatever charges of inability, may with juftice be brought againft the compilers of this work, that cenfure, which of all others they would moft dread, is that only, which they are incapable of incurring, an inattention to the duties they owe, or a forgetfulness of the great obligations they are under to the Public. THE THE ANNUAL REGISTER, For the YEAR 1769. THE HISTORY OF EURO P E. CHA P. I. State of the belligerant porers. Expedition to the Mediterranean. Turkys Critical ftate of that empire. State of Poland. Conduct of the neighbouring powers in regard to the war. Auftria. Pruffia. Denmark. Difputes between the ring and the fenate in Sweden. Diet degrades and punifbes the fenate. Treaty of fubfidy concluded with France. France, Bankruptcy and fufpenfion of the French East India company. Spain. Portugal. Mazagan taken by the Moors. WE E faw at the clofe of the laft year, the difpofitions that were making by the great rival powers of the North and Eaft, to plunge Europe and Afia into the calamities of war. The conteft between these powers has been cruel and bloody. If it has not been attended with great and shinVOL. XII. ing actions, it has abounded with thofe, which fhew war under its moft difgufting and hideous aspect; in the ruin and devaftation of countries; in ravage, and in maffacres. Happily, as the neighbouring states have not hitherto interfered in the quarrel, its confequences have been reftrained to [B] the |