[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.