iv PREFACE. 



Mr. Anderfon appears to have beflowed many years of his long 

 life in colleding materials for his work. He confulted a great nmii- 

 ber of books and pamphlets on commercial and politico-commercial 

 fubjeds : and from them, making fome (though perhaps not fuf- 

 ficient) allowance for the partiality of controverfial writers, he 

 chiefly drew his materials for the hiftory of the fixteenth and feven- 

 teenth centuries. But for at leaft half a century preceding the com- 

 mencement of the prefent reign he is an original author, relating, 

 from his own knowlege and obfervation, the commercial tranfac- 

 tions of the Britifh empire, with which he had every opportunity 

 of being well acquainted, and in which he was in fome degree 

 engaged, having been in the fervice of the South-fea company, I be- 

 lieve, above forty years. Hence we find, he is quite at home in the 

 affairs of that company, and particularly in the very extraordinary 

 tranfa(5tions of the year 1720, his account of which will ever be 

 confidered as the flandard hiftory of that noted sera of frantic ava- 

 rice and blind infatuation. 



If he had been equally accurate in the early part of his work, the 

 tafk of a fucceeding writer would have been little more than merely 

 to continue the narrative froni his conclufion. But unfortunately 

 he trufted to tranflators and other modern writers, and thefe fome- 

 times not very properly chofen. His negledl of the antient hif- 

 torians of Greece and Rome, and of the valuable hiftorians of the 

 middle ages (whom the fupercilious ignorance of grammarians calls 

 barbarous), and the want of fome public records not attainable in his 

 time, have betrayed him into innumerable errors and omiffions. 

 Hence it is neceflary to compofe the hiftory of the early ages en- 

 tirely anew : and I have ventured to take upon myfelf the arduous 

 talk of giving an axxthentic chronological narrative of the progrefs of 

 commerce, manufactures, fiflieries, and navigation, from the earjieft 

 accounts to the difcovery of America in the year 1492. 



