PRE FAC E. T has been our fortune, to trace our unhappy IT civil diffentions, down from their original caufes and earliest appearance, nearly to the point of their ultimate conclufion, in the feparation of GreatBritain and her colonies. In this courfe, which conftantly required all the labour and attention we were capable of beftowing, we were, by degrees, unwittingly led into the execution of a work far beyond our ability and powers; and upon which we could fcarcely have ventured, had we forefeen its extent and difficulty. We were led into the history of a war of fuch a magnitude, as would have afforded a full fcope 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 ftill wider importance, when confidered with a view to its actual or probable confequences. It has already overturned thofe favourite fyftems 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 fill greater revolutions in the hiftory and mutual relations of mankind, Unequal |