Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

THE

ANNUAL REGISTER,

OR A VIEW OF THE

HISTORY,

POLITICS,

AND

LITERATURE,

For the YEAR 1777.

THE FIFTH EDITION.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY ASSIGNMENT, FROM THE EXECUTORS OF THE LATE MR.
JAMES DODSLEY, FOR W. OTRIDGE AND SON; R. FAULDER;
CUTHELL AND MARTIN; OGILVY AND SON; R. LEA;

J. NUNN; J. WALKER; LACKINGTON, ALLEN,

AND CO.; E. JEFFERY; AND

VERNOR AND HOOD,

By J. SEELEY, of Buckingham, and J. WRIGHT, of St. John's Square.

: NEW YORK

LIBRARY

LENOX AND

VOUNDATIONS

L

PREFACE.

HAVING now arrived at the conclusion of our Twentieth Volume, we should have been disposed to have celebrated this year as a sort of jubilee, and season of self-congratulation, if the awful aspect of the times had not forbidden every emotion bordering upon levity, and afforded matter of the most serious consideration and reflection to every member of the community. No circumstance of time, nor state of affairs, can, however, repress our gratitude, or restrain our acknowledgements to the Public, for that continued favour, which, as it has during so many years constantly increased with our labours, so it has alone enabled us to encounter the arduous task of appearing annually before them in so many successive publications, upon each of which, their former esteem and future approbation were, of course, in some degree, hazarded.

The importance and magnitude of our historical business have unhappily risen to nearly the highest pitch at which they seem capable of arriving. We relate events, in which every member of this wide and divided empire is deeply interested; in which many thousands are immediately and personally concerned; and wherein its best blood is too copiously shed. The incidents are numberless, and the parties concerned in every incident numerous. It is not easy to steer a safe course of history, through the rage of civil contest, and amidst the animosity and malignity of contending factions. Under these circumstances, we are obliged to as much caution as will not be injurious to truth. And whilst public affairs continue of such extent and importance, and that matérials of all kinds, both political and military, grow

upon

« AnteriorContinuar »