ANNUAL REGISTER, OR GENERAL REPOSITORY OF HISTORY, POLITICS, AND LITERATURE, TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, The HISTORY of KNOWLEDGE, LEARNING, and TASTE, LONDON: Printed by S. HAMILTON, Falcon-Court, Fleet-Street; M DCCXCIX. PREFACE OUR readers will find in the prefent volume, what they will doubtlefs confider as a novelty in this publication, a retrospect of European politics for the year 1797.-The reafons for this arrangement will be fuf ficiently obvious. It is our duty, and our earnest defire, to furnish our readers with the moft full and accurate information on every topic which regards the history of the prefent times; but the materials for fuch information as this are not to be collected from the public prints, nor from any common fources; they are to be fought in the cabinets of statesmen, and the port-folios of minifters. It is not always in our power to command the neceffary documents in time to gratify the curiofity of our readers, nor within that period which we do not wish to exceed in bringing our annual volume before the public. This was precifely the cafe last year, and yet we were unwilling wholly to disappoint the public. We, therefore, produced fuch a sketch of the latter tranfactions of the |