T HE great importance to all nations and people of the most extraordinary Revolution which ever yet marked the various history of mankind, a Revolution which has already produced effects that are senlibly, and unfortunately felt in every quarter of the globe, and which is still capable, in its possible consequences, of mocking all calculations framed by wisdom, or founded on experience, with respect to their extent and duration, has, in our present Work, called forth our utmost powers of diligence, enquiry, and attention, to trace and delineate the circumstances attending so great and so fingular Nor was this by any means an easy task. For, though the sources of information were beyond all example and measure redundant and voluminous, yet they possessed properties little favourable to the formation of history ; being generally framed and calculated merely for the purposes of misrepresentation and deception; their variety, contradictions, and nuinber, all tended to increase the difficulty of discovering the truth. From such heaps of inert or doubtful matter, where the an event. |