W. OTRIDGE & SON; R. FAULDER; J. CUTHELL; OGILVY & SON: E. JEFFERY; AND VERNOR & HOOD. 1799. PREFACE. THE latest events have at all times appeared the most important. Present scenes seem more crowded than such as are past: and there are few periods, not imagined by the exifting generation to be at least as worthy of a place in history as any that have preceded them. With a full recollection of this partiality, we hefitate not to affirm, that the years 1791 and 1792 are of fingular, and even of unprecedented interest and importance in the history of the world; no antecedent period, of equal duration, has prefented so great a number of extraordinary revolutions: the intercourses of mankind were more extended, and the means of their communication more generally diffufed, as well as eagerly employed among all ranks of society, in all civilized nations. The changes that were produced by the prevail |