BOOK I.
I PROPOSE to give the publick an account, of the most important affairs at home, during the last session of parliament; as well as of our negotiations of peace abroad, not only during that period, but some time before and since. I shall relate the chief matters transacted by both houses in that session; and discover the designs carried on, by the heads of a discontented party, not only against the ministry, but in some manner, against the crown itself: I likewise shall state the debts of the nation; show by what mismanagement, and to serve what purposes, they were at first contracted; by what negligence or corruption, they have so prodigiously grown; and what methods have since been taken, to provide not only for their payment, but to prevent the like mischief for the time to come. Although, in an age like ours, I can expect very few impartial readers, yet I shall strictly follow truth; or what reasonably ap-
