ADVERTISEMENT.

THE Author of the Introduction offers as an apology for defects in its style and its inadequacy to its very important subject, the extreme haste in which it has been composed, through an apprehension that the great question discussed in it, is on the point of decision by his majesty's ministers. The speech of Mr. Randolph arrived from America on the 30th of last month, and this morning, the page of the Introduction has gone to press.

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May 2, 1806.

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INTRODUCTION.

SIX months had elapsed since the pamphlet called "War in Disguise" was first given to the public, without any opponent having entered the lists, to dispute before British judges, either the justice, or the policy, of its views.

The Editor of the Parisian Argus indeed, who degrades the English language by prostituting it to the service of a tyrant, had favoured that work with an early and honorable censure; but at home, it had been noticed with uniform assent to the truth and importance of those practical conclusions to which the Author had reasoned'; and in neutral countries it had been encountered only by such vague clamours, as scarcely admitted of, much less deserved, a reply.

I therefore had no inducement to invoke again the attention of the public on the great subject of our maritime rights.

Much, very much, of new argument was offered to me by the awful changes in the state of the war, which the treaty of Presburg had occasioned;

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but I had reason to believe that enough had been said to satisfy Englishmen at least; and I hoped that if other nations had objections to offer, they would not be admitted by our government so precipitately, as to preclude a volunteer in the cause of his country from sustaining against them the arguments he had advanced.

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On a sudden, some of these circumstances are unexpectedly reversed.

Within a few days, a pamphlet has been put into my hands, which under a more comprehensive title, discusses the subject of our present dispute with America; and which without professing to be an answer to the work called " War in Disguise," controverts its most important conclusions.

Before I had found time to give this antagonist deliberate attention, another has taken up the gauntlet under the formidable armour of a reviewer; and at the same moment, a third, who has not yet issued from the press, menaces me with declared hostility in the form of legitimate war*.

But alas at this moment a rumour has reached my ears, far more alarming than the united attacks of the ablest controversial opponents.

It is said that his Majesty's ministers are on the point of giving way to the injurious claims

* The second antagonist alluded to is a writer in the just published Edinburgh Review. The third is an American, whose work is announced for republication in this country