The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

To the Publisher of the New-Hampshire GAZETTE.

SIR.

There has lately been Published a new History of England, in Twenty Two Volumes 12mo. by William Rider, Dedicated to the King. This Dedication is so singular and extraordinary, and the History in very few Hands in these Parts, I believe the perusal of it will be agreeable to most of your Readers.

To his Sacred Majesty GEORGE III. By the Grace of GOD, King of Great-Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. May it please your Majesty,

THE Author of the following Work has presumed to inscribe it to your Majesty, as the greatest Mark he can give of his Affection and Loyalty. - The History of Kings is peculiarly intended for the Perusal of Monarchs, and he that would be looked on as a Friend to his Country, should endeavour to give the best Hints to its Sovereign: and what greater Incentive can be given to a King, than by setting before him the Faults and Virtues of his Ancestors? The former may incline him to pursue contrary Courses, and the latter stimulate him to a generous Rivalry.

As these Volumes will Display to your Majesty those Steps by which this Kingdom has Ascended to its present State of Greatness and Opulence: so they will shew you the ill Consequences which have ensued from the corrupt Measures of designing Ministers, the Fury of deluded Multitudes, and the Weakness or Tyranny of inconsiderate Kings. They will likewise Serve to remind you of this Truth, that the only Path to Fame, is that which tends to the Good of a State, and that no Monarch, after his Death, has met with Praise from Posterity, who did not consult the Interest of Posterity, during his Life: they will serve to remind you, that it is not in the Power of Adulation to guide the Faults of Monarchs, with an eternal Varnish; but that Time, like the Spear of Ithuriel, has the Power of detecting Falsehood however obscured, and of making Facts appear in their proper Forms.

If this be true, O King, consider the Time will come when all your Actions will be weighed in the Balance, and represented in History with all their Defects. This is not indeed, the Language of Dedicators, but it is the Voice of Affection; it is the Voice of Truth; it is the Voice of one, who wishes that you may avoid all the Vices, and practice all the Virtues of all the Kings who have swayed the Sceptre of these Realms: it is the Voice of one, who dreads Flattery more than Death, and is ready, even at the Hazard of Life, to approve himself.

Your Majesty's most Loyal, and Affectionate Subject,

W. RIDER.

The Observations contain'd in this Honest Address, are founded on Fact and Experience. A little Acquaintance with the History of our own Nation (to go no farther) will furnish us with Store of Examples, of Princes and Ministers, the Objects of something like Adoration in their own Time, who not long after, have been justly Reputed the Enemies of their Country, and Remembered with Detestation, their Conduct has been viewed in a very different light from that in which many of their Contemporaries have plac'd it—Such as Demonstrated they were Tyrants at Heart, had nothing less there than the public Good, and might well be denominated the Scourges and Plague of the People they Govern'd.—

Those who living have been tyled the Lord's Anointed, have since been called an Accursed Race— not from the fickle Temper of their People, but the Knowledge of Facts, which Adulation and Artifice, for a while, kept out of Sight. Time which weakens the Natural Sight, purges the visual Rays of Politics, destroys false Mirrors, shakes off Masks and Disguises, and reduces the most complex Matters to the original Principles and Motives which produced them. For when Men have nothing to hope or to fear, from them to whom they once made their Court, they'll speak as they think, tell what they once carefully conceal'd, and hand down to those who come after them, many Anecdotes which were unknown to them I have in the Season of their Birth. Hence it is