THE ANNUAL REGISTER, OR A VIEW OF THE HISTORY AND LITERATURE For the YEAR 1782. THE THIRD EDITION. LONDON: By G. Auld, Greville-Street, Macron Garden, E. JEFFERY; AND VERNOR AND HOOD, 1800. TT has been our fortune to trace our unhappy ci vil diffentions down from their original causes and earliest appearance, nearly to the point of their ultimate conclusion, in the feparation 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 power's; 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 such 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 considered with a view to its actual or probable consequences. It has already overturned those favourite fyftems of policy and commerce, both in the old and in the new world, which the wisdom of power of the greatett nations had in vain endeavoured to render permanent; and it seems to have laid the feeds of still greater revolutions in the history and mutual relations of mankind. Unequal ages and the |