To the Right Honth William Sitt! CHANCELLOR OF HIS MAJESTY'S EXCHEQUER, To whom this Plate is humbly Inscribed by his most Obedient Humble Ser Published as the Act directs, Sept. 1 1788, by J. Walter, at the Logographic Prels, Frinting House Square s Walter AN HISTORICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL DEDUCTION OF THE ORIGIN OF COMMERCE, FROM THE EARLIEST ACCOUNTS. [04916 CONTAINING AN HISTORY OF THE GREAT COMMERCIAL INTERESTS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, AN INTRODUCTION, EXHIBITING A VIEW OF THE ANTIENT AND MODERN STATE OF EUROPE, AND OF THE FOREIGN AND COLONIAL COMMERCE, SHIPPING, MANUFACTURES, FISHERIES, &c. OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE LANDED INTEREST. BY ADAM ANDERSON. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, TWO APPENDIXES: THE ONE CONTAINING THE MODERN POLITICO-COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEVERAL COUNTRIES OF EUROPE; AND THE OTHER, AN ACCOUNT OF SOME NEW MANUFACTURES, USEFUL INVENTIONS, CAREFULLY REVISED, CORRECTED, AND CONTINUED TO THE PRESEnt time. VOLUME I. LONDON: W. J. AND J. RICHARDSON, PRINTED FOR J. WHITE, FLEET-STREET; J. PAYNE, MEWS-GATE; J. SEWELL, AND AND THE Hiftory of Commerce, by Mr. Anderson, being out of print, it was proposed to give a corrected edition of that excellent work, and to render it complete by a continuation to the prefent period. The proposal met with the most flattering encouragement, and by the exertion of great labour, and the application of great expence, we have at length brought it to a conclufion, as we trust, to the honour of the LOGOGRAPHIC PRESS*. MR. WALTER cannot here omit fuggesting to the Public a few obfervations on his improved mode of printing LOGOGRAPHICALLY. In all projects for the general benefit, the individual, who conceives that the trade in which he is engaged diminishes in its emoluments from any improvement which another may produce in it, is too much difpofed to become its enemy; and, perhaps, the interest of individuals never exerted itself with more inveteracy than has been experienced by Mr. WALTER from many concerned in the trade into which he had entered. The invention which he brought forward, promised to be of effential fervice to the Públic, by expediting the process and leffening the expence of printing: Dr. FRANKLIN fanctioned it with his approbation, and Sir JOSEPH BANKS encouraged him with the moft decided and animated opinion of the great advantages which would arife to Literature from the LOGOGRAPHIC PRESS: never theless, Mr. WALTER was left to ftruggle with the intereft of fome, and the prejudice of others, and though he was honoured by the protection of several perfons of high rank, it happened in his predicament, as it generally happens in predicaments of a fimilar nature, that his foes were more active than his friends, and he ftill continued to ftruggle with every difficulty that could arife from a very determined oppofition to, and the moft illiberal mifreprefentations of the LoCOGRAPHIC IMPROVEMENT: Mr. WALTER, however, has at length triumphed over the falfehood and malignity of his opponents; LOGOGRAPHIC PRINTING, after having produced fuch a Work as this, which he now prefents to the Public, with many excellent publications that he has already printed, can no longer be confidered as an idle fpeculation: on the contrary, it is proved to be a practical improvement, that promifes, under a due encouragement, to produce a great national benefit. To advance it to the perfection of which it is capable, Mr. WALTER engages to employ his utmost exertions, and he takes the liberty of expreffing his confidence, that he shall not be difappointed in the enjoyment of that public favour which now promises to reward his labours. The form of the Work was already before us;-the first edition of it had been fo much approved, that it would have argued no small degree of prefumption if we had deviated from it: on the contrary, we have adhered closely to the apparent intention of the original Author, and, except in the article of expreffion, to which he seems to have paid too little regard, we have endeavoured to adopt and arrange our materials as he himself would have done, had he lived to have brought his history down to the time in which we conclude it. The period which has been the object of our labours, is among the most interesting and important that can be found in the annals of the British Empire; and large as the volume is which we have filled in the relation, it will, we fear, be condemned rather for the compreffion than the fuperabundance of its contents. To have brought every commercial arrangement into detail, every commercial event into narration, and every commercial fubject into difcuffion, would have been to write a library instead of a volume. The excellent treatises on commerce which have been written by Mr. CHALMERS, as well as others that manifeft in what manner the leisure hours of Lord SHEFFIELD are employed, evidently prove, that distinct commercial fubjects, when treated at large, will occupy confiderable volumes. Some articles, however, we have ventured to amplify, while others receive nothing more than a bare statement, and many are compreffed into partial relation. In making such an arrangement, we have acted to the best of our own judgment, aided by the opinions of those who were well qualified to decide upon our doubts, and in conformity to the engagements we had made with the Public. The |