labour which was not a light one, and that the few short extracts which
space has permitted me to throw into the notes may serve to bring the
reader nearer to events. At some future time I hope to publish a selection
from the most important documents of this period. It is strange that our
learned Societies, so appreciative of every distant and trivial chronicle
of the Middle Ages, should ignore the records of a time of such surpassing
interest, and one in which England played so great a part. No just
conception can be formed of the difference between English statesmanship
and that of the Continental Courts in integrity, truthfulness, and public
spirit, until the mass of diplomatic correspondence preserved at London has
been studied; nor, until this has been done, can anything like an adequate
biography of Pitt be written.

The second and less important group of authorities with which I have busied
myself during the work of revision comprises the works of Hueffer, Vivenot,
Beer, Helfert, and others, based on Austrian documents, along with the
Austrian documents and letters that have been published by Vivenot. The
last-named writer is himself a partizan, but the material which he has
given to the world is most valuable. The mystery in which the Austrian
Government until lately enveloped all its actions caused some of these to
be described as worse than they really were; and I believe that in the
First Edition I under-estimated the bias of Prussian and North-German
writers. Where I have seen reasons to alter any statements, I have done so
without reserve, as it appears to me childish for any one who attempts to
write history to cling to an opinion after the balance of evidence seems to
be against it. The publication of the second volume of this work has been
delayed by the revision of the first; but I hope that it will appear before
many months more. I must express my obligations to Mr. Oscar Browning, a
fellow-labourer in the same field, who not only furnished me with various
corrections, but placed his own lectures at my disposal; and to Mr. Alfred