A COLLECTION OF STATE PAPERS, RELATIVE TO THE WAR against FRANCE Now carrying on by GREAT BRITAIN and the Printed for J. DEBRETT, opposite Burlington House, - 1796. INTRODUCTION, IN N laying before the Public the Fourth Volume of this collec tion, the Editor cannot refrain from expressing his grateful sense of the encouragement with which the former volumes have been honoured---a fimilar degree of encouragement he hopes the present volume will be found to merit. He has drawn his materials from the best sources, and collected the papers, of which the volume is composed, from the most authentic records. He has endeavoured to combine accuracy of detail with clearness of arrangement, and has attempted to execute his tranflations with that fidelity which is fo peculiarly necessary in a work that aspires to the character of being official. Several of the papers have never appeared in any other publication in this country---of others, mutilated copies only have been published, which have of course led to very material errors; and these the Editor has diligently laboured to restore to their original meaning. It was his intention to have brought the prefent volume to the close of the last year only---but yielding to the suggestions of several gentlemen, who represented to him, that it would be more acceptable to the public to poftpone it till there was a fufficient quantity of materials to form a volume, he was induced to include the Parliamentary Papers to the dissolution in May last, and the other documents, to the present time. VOL. III.-PART ii. The |