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J. OTRIDGE; J. CUTHELL; LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND
GREEN; E. JEFFERY AND SON; LACKINGTON AND CO.; J. BELL;
AND SHERWOOD, NEELY, AND JONES.

PREFACE.

THE prospects with which the year 1814 terminated were those of durable peace to this country, and of a general settlement of the affairs of the Continent, which, if not altogether framed upon those principles of consent and independence which alone can satisfy the feelings of a friend to national rights, seemed upon the whole to promise much practical improvement in the system of Europe. There were, indeed, appearances which a boding mind might regard as presaging an interruption of the calm succeeding a tempest so dreadfully and widely extended; but that a single event should produce an immediate change in the state of things which would again set in motion all the armed force of Europe, and re-commit its destinies to the chance of war, was scarcely within the compass of the imagination. Such an apprehension could only be suggested by an intimate knowledge of the character and disposition of the French nation, and especially of that army, which, though no longer in activity, still held the fate of France in its hands; and the result bas afforded an awful example of the danger attending the

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