this copy, till the author should press him for it; but with a determined purpose, it should never see the light, while there was any hopes of the author's own copy being published, or even preserved.

This resolution he inviolably kept, till he and the world had full assurance, that the Dean's executors, or those into whose hands the original copy fell, were so far from intending to publish it, that it was actually suppressed, perhaps destroyed.

Then, he thought himself not only at liberty, but judged it his duty to his departed friend, and to the public, to let this copy, which he had now kept many years most secretly, see the light.

Thus it has at length fallen into the hands of a person, who publishes it for the satisfaction of the public, abstracted from all private regards; which are never to be permitted to come in competition with the common good.

Every judicious eye will see, that the author of these sheets wrote with strong passions, but with stronger prepossessions and prejudices in favour of a party. These, it may be imagined, the editor, in some measure, may have adopted, and published this work as a kind of support of that party, or some surviving remnant thereof.

It is but just to undeceive the reader, and inform him from what kind of hand he has received this work. A man may regard a good piece of painting, while he despises the subject; if the subject be ever so despicable, the masterly strokes of the painter may demand our admiration, while he, in other respects, is entitled to no portion of our regard.

In poetry, we carry our admiration still farther; and like the poet, while we actually contemn the man. Historians share the like fate; hence some, who have no regard to propriety or truth, are yet admired for diction, style, manner, and the like.

The editor considers this work in another light. He long knew the author, and was no stranger to his politics, connections, tendencies, passions, and the whole economy of his life. He has long been hardily singular in condemning this great man's conduct amid the admiring multitude, nor ever could have thought of making an interest in a man, whose principles and manners he could by no rule of reason or honour approve, however he might have admired his parts and wit.

Such was judged the disposition of the man, whose history of the most interesting period of time in the annals of Britain are now, herein, offered to the reader. He may well ask from what motives? The answer is easily, simply given.

The causes assigned for delaying the publication of this history were principally these:[2] That the manuscript fell into the hands of men, who, whatever they might have been by the generality deemed, were by the Dean believed to be of his party, though they did not, after his death, judge it prudent to avow his principles, more than to deny them in his lifetime. These men, having got their beavers, tobacco-boxes, and other trifling remembrances of former friendship, by the Dean's will, did not choose publicly to avow principles, that had marred their friend's promotion, and might probably put a stop to theirs. Therefore, they gave the inquisitive world to understand, that there was something too strong against many great men, as well as the succeeding system of public affairs in general, in the Dean's History of the Four Last Years of the Queen's Reign, to admit of a publication, in our times; and, with this poor insinuation, excused themselves, and satisfied the weakly well-affected, in suppressing the manifestation of displeasing truths, of however great importance to society.

[Footnote 2: The causes for the delay in the publication of the
"History" are given at length by the present editor in the Introduction.
[T.S.]]

This manuscript has now fallen into the hands of a man, who never could associate with, or even approve, any of the parties or factions, that have differently distracted, it might be said disgraced, these kingdoms; because he has as yet known none, whose motives or rules of action were truth and the public good alone; of one, who judges, that perjured magistrates of all denominations, and their most exalted minions, may be exposed, deprived, or cut off, by the fundamental laws of his country; and who, upon these principles, from his heart approves and glories in the virtues of his predecessors, who revived the true spirit of the British polity, in laying aside a priest-ridden, an hen-pecked, tyrannical tool, who had overturned the political constitution of his country, and in reinstituting the dissolved body politic, by a revolution supported by the laws of nature and the realm, as the only means of preserving the natural and legal, the civil and religious liberties of the members of the commonwealth.

Truth, in this man's estimation, can hurt no good cause. And falsehood and fraud, in religion and politics, are ever to be detected, to be exploded.

Insinuations, that this History contained something injurious to the present establishment, and therefore necessary to be suppressed, serve better the purposes of mistaken or insidious malcontents than the real publication can. And, if any thing were by this, or any other, History to be shown essentially erroneous in our politics, who, that calls himself a Briton, can be deemed such an impious slave, as to conceal the destructive evil? The editor of this work disdains and abhors the servile thought, and wishes to live no longer than he dares to think, speak, write, and, in all things, to act worthy of a Briton.

From this regard to truth and to his country, the editor of this History was glad of an opportunity of rescuing such a writing from those who meant to suppress it. The common cause, in his estimation, required and demanded it should be done; and the sooner it is published, he judged, the better: for, if the conduct of the Queen and her ministers does not deserve the obloquy that has been long industriously cast upon it, what is more just than to vindicate it? What more reasonable than that this should be done, while living witnesses may yet be called, to prove or disprove the several allegations and assertions; since, in a few years more, such witnesses may be as much wanting as to prevent a canonization, which is therefore prudently procrastinated for above an age? Let us then coolly hear what is to be said on this side the question, and judge like Britons.

The editor would not be thought to justify the author of this History, in all points, or even to attempt to acquit him of unbecoming prejudices and partiality. Without being deeply versed in history or politics, he can see his author, in many instances, blinded with passions that disgrace the historian; and blending, with phrases worthy of a Caesar or a Cicero, expressions not to be justified by truth, reason, or common sense, yet think him a most powerful orator, and a great historian.

No unprejudiced person will blame the Dean for doing all that is consistent with truth and decency to vindicate the government of the Queen, and to exculpate the conduct of her ministers and her last general; all good men would rejoice at such a vindication. But, if he meant no more than this, his work would ill deserve the title of an History. That he generally tells truths, and founds his most material assertions upon fact, will, I think be found very evident. But there is room to suspect, that, while he tells no more than the truth, he does not tell the whole truth. However, he makes it very clear, that the Queen's allies, especially our worthy friends the Dutch, were much to blame for the now generally condemned conduct of the Queen, with regard to the prosecution of the war and the bringing about the peace.

The authors drawings of