ANNUAL REGISTER, OR A VIEW OF THE 1 HISTORY, POLITICS, AND LITERATURE, For the YEAR 1781. LONDON: Printed for J. DODSLEY, in Pall-mall, 1782. T HE year of which we treat was so abundant in military event, that if all other memorials of the same nature were lost, it might afford no very imperfect transcript of the art of modern war in all its forms, whether by fea or by land. Though we are not aftonished by the appearance of such immense armies as have so often desolated the old world, nor by those actions which have in a day decided the fate of nations and empires, we fee as vast, though less concentrated, operations of war, conducted upon its most scientific principles. When taken in a general view, the combination of its detached parts forms a great whole, whether confidered with respect to action or confequence: We see the war rage, nearly at the farme time, in the countries on both fides of the North River, on the Chesapeak, in South Carolina; the Floridas, North Carolina, Virginia, the West Indies, the American and West Indian feas. Through this arrangement, in part fortuitous and in part the effect of design, we are presented with a number of the best-conducted and severest actions recorded in history. We behold, in an unhappy contention between Englishmen, the greatest exertions of military skill, a valour which can never be exceeded, and all the |