* * * * *
By ROBERT HOLLOWAY, Gent.
Of GRAY'S-INN.
* * * * *
LONDON:
Printed for S. BLADON, in Pater-noster Row.
M DCC LXXI.
* * * * *
TO THE
PUBLIC.
A DEDICATION seems as necessary to a publication as legitimacy to a
child; but as I have no blown-up fool to flatter, no private end to
answer, no itch to become an author, thirst for praise, nor dread of
censure, I shall therefore commit the annexed sheets to your protection;
in the course of which the reader will find my pen a most faithful
amanuensis to truth. And if so weak a monitor contributes but a mite to
general utility, the end is fulfilled; if no, the intention is equally
laudable. I have sowed the seeds of reformation; it is you must manure
the land, and give the increase. The task is undertook at infinite
peril; an accumulation of enemies enemies is the certain consequence,
whilst a creation of friends amounts not to a glimmering hope. To raise
a party or private emolument, I have quitted the turnpike-road, and
omitted every thing necessary for the purpose; viz. libelling the most
respectable characters in the nation, and giving scurrility and falshood
a preference to truth.
It may be said with more envy than justice, that the subject matter is
but the consequence of a private quarrel between the author and ONE of
the parties alluded to. Such squibs of malice, and other obstacles of
the like nature, I am well aware of, and am provided with proper
artillery to combat all such opposition. It is therefore necessary to
declare, that I took chambers in Gray's-Inn with a settled purpose of
detecting the numerous and enormous abuses and cruelties contained in the
following treatise.
How I came to fail in the undertaking, my Letter to the Citizens of
London fully explains.
The seizing my furniture, books, papers, and every thing I was possessed
of, under PRETENCE of debt, and the more flagrant PRETENCE of EXECUTION,
together with the dispossessing me of my habitation, will neither serve
to prevent the subscribing myself of Gray's-Inn, or continuing there, if
a GRAIN of JUSTICE or EQUITY is to be found in a TON of LAW.