Excerpt from History of the American Revolution: With a Preliminary View of the Character and Principles of the Colonists, and Their Controversies With Great Britain

Tan first intention of the writer of this book was to prepare an abstract of some one of the larger histories of the American Revolution, in a more compact form than any which he had met with in his own reading. The object was to present a convenient volume, which should embrace all the principal occurrences, civil, military, and political, in America and Europe, having a direct influence on the principles and progress of the revolutionary contest, ' at the same time that it should avoid all minor details not positively necessary to the continuity or integrity of the narrative. The military events were to be made less pro minent than is usual; and all circumstantial accounts of battles and mance es in the field, beyond leading incidents important for the understanding of the issue, were to be avoided. After examining several of the principal authorities, the design of following any particular author was abandoned, and the present plan adopted, of te-writing and re-arranging the Whole, without regard to the order or language of previous histories. These are the claims of the work to originality. Its merits are submitted to the judgment of the public. The writer has diligently compared the received authorities, and exercised his judgment freely in selecting and arranging the essential facts; and he thinks he has brought within the compass of a volume convenient for popular use, a connected narrative of the revolution, em bracing all the principal events - foreign and domestic. Those portions which relate to the foreign negotiations, are more full in proportion, than the other divisions of the sub ject. They will be found, it is behaved, correct and valuable.

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