ADVERTISEMENT. SEVERAL perfons requested I would give a history of the London riots: I promised to undertake the task, and in confequence began to digest my materials. I afterwards reflected, that the duty of the historian, bound him to arraign at the impartial tribunal of truth, both men and actions; unmask the leading characters; examine into their motives; lay open the hidden fprings of proceedings, whether worthy of applause, or deferving to be doomed to cenfure; embellish his narrative with suitable reflections; and, by spreading the wide theatre, without respect to time or perfons, inform the living, and become the monitor of the unborn. I afterwards confidered my own state, exposed, in consequence of the penal laws, to the infult of every ruffian; and, comparing the defenceless fituation of the priest with the duty of the hiftorian, I dropped the attempt. No perfon is obliged to write a history; but when he writes it he must tell the truth: and when we tell the truth in talking of the living, it is hard to avoid giving offence. If my correfpondents be not satisfied with this apology, let them point out a method whereby I can remove the difficulty, and I fhall publish a history of the riots, in London itself, with my name to it: for I difclaim anonymous productions. |