Libr Cana INTRODUCTION. POLITICS in this age embrace fuch a variety of knowledge, and are fo intimately connected with numerous interefting fubjects, that more than a flight or fuperficial attention is neceffary, in order to become tolerably acquainted with the groundwork of the science, if we may be allowed fo to call it. It includes the univerfal interefts of all states and kingdoms, their wealth, force, revenues, conftitution, commerce, manufactures, agriculture, &c. fo far as they combine to form Power. Hence, therefore, the fublimer parts of Geography are taken in: History describes the progrefs of this power; and, to the knowledge of the times, which is oftener talked of than met with, we must have recourfe for the present state of all these circumstances, with thofe tranfitory changes, that fometimes appear trivial, but afterwards turn out to be of great moment. That That the gentleman who would attain a found knowledge of politics, may find this work of real ufe to him, we have been careful to render it a comprehenfive table of these various fubjects. We have felected with all the judgment we are mafters of, the beft information in politics, commerce, manufactures, national agriculture, war, forces, revenues, credit, debts, taxes, navigation, &c. that is to be found in various books and tracts the best calculated for yielding the defired knowledge; and we have farther given original information on various points, in which former writers have been moft defective. We have endeavoured to execute this plan in fuch a manner, that every perfon who in reading, or converfation, meets with a fubject in politics, or affertions on topics that he is not familiar with, may, by turning to this Dictionary, find the best information on fuch fubjects, or fuch points, that the best books can give him. The ufe, therefore, of fuch a work, to those who have not always time to turn over many books, must be obvious; and the more particularly, as we have been been attentive to infert no paffages but what are of fterling merit. Scarcely any affair has of late years drawn the attention of Europe but is here to be found, elucidated by the beft writers of the age: we would not, however, be understood to mean the perfonal factions and politics that diftract this ifland, and which fucceed each other with fuch rapidity, that in ten years the whole is in oblivion: thefe are not our objects, but national difputes; the growth of one power, the declension of another; the progrefs and variations of the trade of Europe: thefe branch out into fuch a variety of interefts, that not a common paragraph of a newspaper can be underflood without a general idea of them. If the effays we have ourselves compofed for this work fhould be found defective, they will be sheltered under the general merit of the reft, which are carefully, and we hope judiciously felected from every confiderable writer, whofe works could throw a light on the fubject: and the fingularity of the defign, no other fuch work being extant, will probably render it interefting. We have Diaionaries of trade, of war, of marine affairs, of ง |