ANNUAL REGISTER, OR GENERAL REPOSITORY OF HISTORY, POLITICS, AND LITERATURE, TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, The HISTORY of KNOWLEDGE, LEARNING, and TASTE, LONDON, MDCCXCVII. PREFACE. As no alteration has taken place in the condu&t of the New Annual Regifter; and as the little cavils which have been raised against it by interested perfons, have been completely filenced by time and experience, which have fanctioned our opinions, there is little to be faid in presenting to our readers a new volume. par Our Domestic Hiftory will be found to be chiefly occupied, this year, by the very interefting debates of liament on the celebrated bills which produced fo material an alteration in our fyftem of law concerning treafon and fedition,-on the conduct of the war,-and on the finances of the nation. In this department of the work, we have pursued our. ufual mode, that of bringing together all the debates on every particular topic, in order to prefent to the reader the most complete and fatisfactory view.of the arguments on every subject. The flightest inspection of our Foreign History will convince our readers that it is not compiled from newspapers, or from any common fources of intelligence. It will, therefore, in many respects, be found to differ from the accounts now generally received. We can, how |