1 PREFACE. WE have so often had occafion to thank the public for the reception with which they have been pleased to honour our labours, that the doing of it any more may appear to arise from habit rather than any consciousness of the obligations we are under to them. We fhall, therefore, just 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 case, 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, the the lateness of its appearance, we must own fomething more than bare indulgence may appear neceffary to abfolve 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 interefting 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 last feffion, be able to view the form from port; and our fear of danger will be fucceeded by the pleafing remembrance of it. Besides, there seems to have arisen 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 those 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 THE ANNUAL REGISTER. For the YEAR 1765. THE HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHA P. I. Peaceable afpect of the great powers of Europe towards each other. Refusal 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 bis 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. N our laft volume, we had the bouring powers fo much on a balance with each other, or fo much taken up with their own internal concerns, as to afford little or no grounds to apprehend any speedy interruption in that repofe, which has fo lately fucceeded, if not one of the longest, at least one of VOL. VIII. the fharpeft and mcft general wars, time afflicted with. Happily, for the ease of mankind, this pleafing profpe&t ftill holds up. For, as to the points which yet remain in difpute, between the three moft potent of the late belligerent powers, Great Britain on the one fide, and France and Spain on the [B] other; other; though much it is to be wifhed, that every thing had, if poffible, been thoroughly fettled in the laft treaty of peace; it is to be lioped from all the apparent circumflances of their prefent fituation, that the two latter of thefe powers will not fo far perfift in Jefuing to comply with the jutt demands of the former, as to force her, from motives either of honour or intereft, into a new war; although their litigious difpofition on thefe points may, probably, afford her juft reafons to be more circumfect 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 ftrict 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 effe & of arrogance and a fpirit of defpo. tifm, but proceeds folely from the moft authorised principles of feldefence. Among the events which ferve to diftinguith 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 buttle, as if he had been born to And the it. Nor does the progrefs of his 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 ependance 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 faine manner. prefent emperor, heir to no part of his father's patrimonial dominions, fmall and infignificant as they were in the political world, must be fatisfied to tread in his fteps, or at leaft intirely 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 huic of Autiria, notwithstanding the admition of her fon to the co-regency of them, fubftantially refides; and who is now, in all appearance, more intent upon fettling her namerous Mlue, and improving her territories, than upon adding to them, or even upon recovering thofe which the 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 |