T O T H E

KING.

8 I R,

T H E advancement of arts, trades, and ma-nufactures, and the extension of commerce,are now become the more immediate objects ofYour Royal care ; as being the most certain meansof attaining Your darling wishes, the renderingYour people powerful and happy, and perpetuatingthe blessings of peace. I have therefore pre-sumed, with all humility, to offer to YourMajesty’s protection, a work designed to improveand enlarge many of the arts of peace, and to pro-mote that kind of knowledge on which they de-pend. The importance of the subject, and thehonour, the never to be forgotten honour, which

Your

i