believe he was a confident, only to engage him in the list of the
ministerial writers of that reign_.

_The falsehood of this will readily appear upon perusal of the work.
This shows he knew the most secret springs of every movement in the
whole complicated machine. That he states facts, too well known to be
contested, in elegant simplicity, and reasons upon them with the talents
of the greatest historian. And thus makes an History, composed rather of
negotiations than actions, most entertaining, affecting, and
interesting, instead of being, as might be expected, heavy, dull, and
disagreeable_.

_It is now fit to apologize for some errors, which the judicious must
discover upon a perusal of this work. It is for this, among other
reasons, much to be lamented, that this History was not published under
the author's own inspection. It is next to impossible to copy or print
any work without faults, and most so where the author's eye is wanting_.

_It is not to be imagined, that even our author, however accurate,
however great, was yet strictly and perfectly correct in his writings.
Yet, where some seeming inaccuracies in style or expression have been
discovered, the deference due to the author made any alteration too
presumptuous a task for the editor. These are, therefore, left to the
amending hand of every sensible and polite reader; while the editor
hopes it will suffice, that he should point out some of those errors,
which are to be ascribed either to transcribers or the press, and which
may be rectified in the manner following, in reading the work._[4]

[Footnote 4: Here follows list of _errata_. (These errors have been
corrected in the present edition.)]