It will soon become obvious to readers of this book that the debates with which it deals are being described by a participant. I should say therefore that, while I am most grateful to those of my colleagues with whom I have discussed these issues, the views expressed are my personal ones: they are not an authorised statement of the tenets of any school or group. Partly these reflections arise out of self-criticism, in an attempt to improve on some early work on the politics of 1714–60, and to atone for its deficiencies. Partly they are an attempt to give order to a series of confused historical arguments, and so to suggest ways in which those arguments might develop in the future. To encapsulate the views of one's colleagues in a few lines may sometimes be a legitimate aim, but it is intensely difficult to accomplish. At all times my intention is to provide not a substitute for the originals, but an inducement which will provoke the reader to consult for himself the works of those historians whom I discuss. Much can be learned even (or perhaps especially) from those books with which we most disagree: it is only fair that I should record a general indebtedness to those authors who so figure here.