PRE FAC E. WE E have fo often had occafion to thank the public for the reception with which they have been pleafed to honour our labours, that the doing of it any more may appear to arife from habit, rather than any confcioufnefs of the obligations we are under to them. We fhall, therefore, juft beg leave to affure them, that greater pains have been taken with this volume of the Annual Register, to render it worthy of their perusal, than with any of the former; though we are very far, at the fame time, from meaning to affert, that these pains have been attended with proportionable, fuccefs; and much lefs ftill, that, even in that cafe, we do not equally stand in need of their tenderness, fince every indulgence on their fide is a title to extraordinary exertions on ours. Nay, in one respect, refpect, the latenefs of its appearance, we muft own something more than bare in'dulgence may appear neceffary to absolve us from want of gratitude; but that too, we hope to obtain, when we have affured our readers, that in the delay we facrificed more to their gratification, than to our own convenience. However interesting the topics of the year 1765 may be, we hope those of the year 1766 will prove more agreeable: we fhall then, it is to be prefumed, in confequence of the measures taken in the laft feffion, be able to view the ftorm from port; and our fear of danger will be fucceeded by the pleafing remembrance of it. Befides, there feems to have arifen a spirit of liberty in many parts of the world; and fuch an uncommon one in fome of the Spanish dominions in America, as is not, perhaps, to be equalled in any annals, fince it has engaged thofe whom it actuates to give up, in favour of the rights of mankind, a great deal more than they claim for themselves under the fame title. THE Peaceable afpect of the great powers of Europe towards each other. Refufal of the French and Spanish courts to comply with the demands of Great Britain, no fufficient caufe to apprehend a rupture between them; may in the end prove ferviceable to the latter. Emperor of Germany dies, after fettling his Tufcan dominions on his fecond fon; and is fucceeded, as emperor of Germany, by his eldeft, elected, in his life-time, king of the Romans. Several treaties of marriage and their probable effects. Sweden. Portugal. Poland. Corfica. to N our laft volume, we had the I fatisfaction to leave the neighbouring powers fo much on a balance with each other, or so much taken up with their own internal concerns, as to afford little or no grounds to apprehend any fpeedy interruption in that repofe, which has fo lately fucceeded, if not one of the longeft, at least one of VOL. VIII. the fharpeft and moft general wars, other g other; though much it is to be it. Nor does the progrefs of his wifhed, that every thing had, if poffible, been thoroughly fettled in the last treaty of peace; it is to be hoped from all the apparent circumftances of their prefent fituation, that the two latter of these powers will not fo far perfift in refufing to comply with the juft demands of the former, as to force her, from motives either of honour or interest, into a new war; although their litigious difpofition on thefe points may, probably, afford her just reasons to be more circumfpect and lefs generous with them in future dealings of the fame kind. Nay, this reluctance of the French and Spanish courts to do Great Britain juftice, may, in the end, turn out to her advantage, by ferving to juftify, on thefe occafions, fuch a strict attention to her own interefts, as might other wife give umbrage to the neutral ftates of Europe. They may fee that fuch a conduct is not the effect of arrogance and a fpirit of defpotifm, but proceeds folely from the moft authorised principles of felfdefence. Among the events which ferve to diftinguish the period now under our confideration, the principal, no doubt, would have been the death of the emperor of Germany, had not the troubles ufual on fuch occafions been happily prevented by the previous election of a king of the Romans. Accordingly, the prefent emperor Jofeph II. who the year before had been chofen to that dignity, Aug. 18th afcended the imperial 1765. throne on his father's death, with as little noife and bustle, as if he had been born to reign promife to be lefs peaceable, than its beginning. The late emperor never appeared to take any fhare in the troubles of Germany, but fuch as his gratitude to his confort and her family for his elevation to the imperial dignity, his dependence upon her for the fupport of that dignity, and a very natural regard for his children, feemed to dictate; and which, in any other prince in the fame circumftances, might reafonably be expected to have operated in the fame manner. And the prefent emperor, heir to no part of his father's patrimonial dominions,. fmall and infignificant as they were in the political world, muft be fatis fied to tread in his fteps, or at leaft entirely conform to the views and intentions of his mother the emprefs dowager, in whom, as queen, of Hungary and Bohemia, and fovereign of Auftria and the Netherlands, all the power of the house of Auftria, notwithstanding the admiflion of her fon to the co-regency of them, fubftantially refides ; and who is now, in all appearance, more intent upon fettling her numerous iffue and improving her territories, than upon adding to them, or even upon recovering thofe which fhe has loft. There have, indeed, been, fince the publication of our laft volume, feveral intermarriages, by which the heretofore fo fanguinely rival houfes of Auftria and Bourbon have been drawn nearer to each other, than even by their late political alliances. A little before the late emperor's death, a marriage was concluded between his fecond fon, and an infanta of Spain, |