TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have beenplaced at the end of each chapter.

Contractions of “it” such as “t’ is” or “t’ was” are displayed witha space, if that space is in the original text.

Contractions of “ed” such as obligd’ or receivd’ or receiv’d aredisplayed as they are in the original text. Almost all have theapostrophe after the d.

Other contractions are denoted by an arc over two characters in theoriginal text. These will display on this device, using Unicodecombining diacritical U+0361, as Com͡erce or protec͡on, for example.

A blank space (for a date to be inserted) has been replaced by anunderline ‘________’ (three occurrences).

Dates are given for the O.S. (Old Style or Julian) calendar, unlessnoted as N.S. indicating the New Style or Gregorian calendar. A fewdates are shown as O.S. over N.S. in the original text, displayed inthis etext with /, for example, Feb. 24/March 6. A few dates areshown as O.S.-N.S. for example June 20-30, 1676.

Obvious punctuation errors have been corrected after carefulcomparison with other occurrences within the text and consultationof external sources. All misspellings in the text, and inconsistentor archaic usage, have been left unchanged.

The cover image was created by the transcriberand is placed in the public domain.