THE Editors desire to express their deep sense of the great obligations they are under to John Hales Calcraft, Esq. M.P., for his kindness in enabling them to publish a series of letters addressed to his grandfather, by the Earl of Chatham, and by the Right Honourable William Gerard Hamilton.
The intimate friendship which, for many years, subsisted between the Earl of Chatham and Mr. Calcraft, and which continued uninterrupted until the death of that gentleman, in 1772, gives an increased interest to their correspondence; and the letters of Mr. Gerard Hamilton being, in some measure, records of proceedings in Parliament, during a period when all reporting was strictly prohibited, it is believed that the celebrity of the writer, and the substance of the letters, will render them valuable additions to the political history of a period which the Editors most anxiously desire to illustrate.