8**O************ & **(************** PREFACE.. H AVING now arrived at the conclufion of our Twentieth Volume, we should have been difposed to have celebrated this year as a fort of jubilee, and season of felf-congratulation, if the awful afpect of the times had not forbidden every emotion bordering upon levity, and afforded matter of the moft ferious confideration and reflection to every member of the community. No circumftance of time, nor state of affairs, can, however, reprefs our gratitude, or reftrain our acknowledgements to the Publick, for that continued favour, which, as it has during so many years, conftantly increafed with our labours, fo it has alone enabled us to encounter the arduous task of appearing annually before them in fo many fucceffive publications, upon each of which, their former efteem, and future approbation, were, of course, in fome degree hazarded. The importance and magnitude of our hiftorical business have unhappily rifen to nearly the highest pitch at which they feem capable of arriving. We relate events, in which every member of this wide and divided empire is deeply interested; in which many thousands are immediately and perfonally concerned; and wherein its best blood is too copiously fhed. The incidents are numberlefs, and the parties concerned in every incident numerous. It is not |