LONDON: For the Proprietors of Dodsley's Annual Register, W. OTRIDGE & SON; R. FAULDER; CUTHELL & MARTIN; OGILVY ALLEN, & CO. E. JEFFERY; AND VERNOR, HOOD, & SHARPE. 1806, P R E F A СЕ. THE present Volume, we hope, will be regarded by our Readers as an additional proof of industry, and punctuality in the fulfilment of our engagements to bring up this progressive Work to the latest years, with as mach expedition as is consistent with those principles which, in both its spirit and style, we wish to be uniformly governed. It is not an easy matter to compress that multiplicity of striking events which accompanies the commencement of a great and important æra in the history of the world, nearly within the accustomed bounds of our prece. ding volumes, agreeably to the maxims explained in a former preface, The narrative which, by means of private communica tions, as well as various, and some of these very recent publi. cations, we have been enabled to give of the war in La Vendée, during 1793 and 1794, will, we doubt not, greatly interest every class of our readers. On every subject we have been careful to investigate the truth; and candid, unbiassed, and determined in representing and recording it. If, notwithstanding that care and this disposition, we have involuntarily fallen A 2 fallen into any mistake, we are willing and desirous to correct it, and repair any injury to truth, if any such mistake or such injury shall be pointed out to our conviction, in our subsequent volumes. 1 The affairs of Poland, our readers will observe, are occa sionally mentioned, both in our history of other European nations, and in the debates in the British parliament. To have given an account sufficiently copious of these affairs, interesting and instructive, even beyond the usual tenor of the present times, so fruitful in novelty, would have rendered the present greatly disproportioned to the other divisions of this Work. In our next volume we shall resume the history of Poland, and deduce it from the period of the new constitution in 1791, through the second partition of that kingdom in 1793, to its final dismemberment and partition in 1795, when it ceased to exist as an independent nation.So interesting a tragedy will be exhibited more properly, and with greater advantage in continuity, than if it were interrupted by intervals of time, and detailed in different volumes. THE |