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134] ANNUAL REGISTER
the sole charge of Countess of Huntingdon, who was present. After psalm-singing, a sermon was preached by the Rev. Mr. Piercy, chaplain to the countess, suitable to the occasion, the aforesaid seven gentlemen being to sail as missionaries to America.
At a meeting held this day at the India-House, the following gentlemen were nominated as proper persons to be supervisors of the company's affairs in India, viz. the Hon. Lieut. General Monckton, George Cuming, Esq; William Devayhnes, Esq; Peter Lascelles, Esq; Daniel Wier, Esq; and Edward Wheeler, Esq;
28th. This day the sessions ended at the Old-Bailey. At this sessions, fifteen prisoners were capitally convicted, 38 to be transported for seven years, and two branded.
Among those capitally convicted, was Evan Maurice, fo forging a promissory note for 103l. 10s. This was most artfully contrived: Maurice, who was a lodger, paid the prosecutrix some money for rent, but by taking two pieces of paper, lapping them over each other, and making them just stick together with a little gum water, he so ordered it, that the body of the receipt should fall on the uppermost piece, and the name on the lowermost, so that when the paper came to be separated, the body of the receipt, which was taken off, left room for the body of the note to be written in its stead, and the name at the bottom appeared in its true place.
29th. This day the sheriffs made their report of the scrutiny lately held at Guildhall, declaring that Messrs. Wilkes and Townsend had the majority, and accordingly returned them as duly elected, to the court of aldermen, who fixed upon Alderman Townsend to serve the office of lord-mayor.
By a letter from Capt. James Wilder, of the Diligence brig, sitted out by the subscription in Virginia, with a view to the discovery of the long-sought-for N.W. passage, it appears, by the course of the tides, there is a passage, but that it is seldom or never open, and he believes impassable. He failed as high as 69 degrees, 11 min. and discovered a large bay before unknown.
Hamburgh, Oct. 16. A stranger was taken up here yesterday and put in prison, who served as a captain of the Confederates; during which time he insinuated himself so much into the friendship of some of the chiefs, that he found means to discover from them, where they had hid their principal effects, and then stole the jewels belonging to a lady of one of the Confederate chiefs, valued at 70,000 rixdollars; he set off immediately for Vienna, where he lived in a very splendid manner; from thence he went to Berlin, and after that came here, where, after living four months, his theft was found out and he was arrested in consequence of it.
In Monmouthshire, one 30th.
of the greatest floods ever known in that country, did incredible damage, by bearing down bridges, carrying away cattle, destroying mills, sweeping away houses with their inhabitants. A most providential escape is related which deserves to be remembered: a woman, the wife of a tinman at Carleon, crossing Caerleon bridge
when
For the YEAR 1772. [135
when it fell, happened to lay hold of a beam, upon which she floated through Newport bridge, and three miles below that town was taken up by a small boat. As soon as she was put on shore, she procured a horse and rode home, and was the first person who carried the news to her husband of the accident that happened to her.
This evening, as Thomas Osling and his wife were returning from Doncaster-market to their house at Edington, in Yorkshire, they were stopped by two footpads, who demanded their money, which Mr. Osling refused to deliver, one of them shot him dead upon the spot.
William Gill was likewise robbed and murdered, as he was returning from Appletreewick fair to his house at Linton, in Craven, Yorkshire.
During the month past, a pestilential fever raged in the Lewis Islands; but all accounts agree that its violence abated.
The wife of one Collins, a labouring man, at Sutton-Colefield, in Warwickshire, was delivered of four children, two boys and two girls, who are all alive.
The wife of a chairman in Petty-France, Westminster, of two boys and a girl.
Married lately, Capt. Shenton, of Deptford, aged 79, to Mrs. Whitehead, of Peckham, aged 72, whose grand-children were at the wedding.
Died, Walter Mallet, Esq; aged 98, formerly member in two parliaments for Cambridge.
John Brooks, Esq; aged 96, at Chelsea, a captain under George I.
Peter M'Cloud, Esq; in North Audley-street, aged 105.
In the 109th year of his age, Mr. Shepherd, gardner to King George I.
At Edinburgh, Peter M'Donald, a fisherman, in the 109th year of his age, whose father lived to the age of 116, and grandfather to 107.
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NOVEMBER.
Extract of a letter from the Sieur Seignette, Secretary to the Academy at Rochelle.
"The discovery of Mr. Walsh, member of the English Parliament, and of the Royal Society of London, was mentioned in the gazetted for the month of August last. The experiment, of which I am now to give account, was tried before the academy of this city. A live torpedo was placed upon a table upon a wet napkin. Round another table stood five of the members of the society singly, not one touching the other. Two brass wires, thirteen feet long each, were suspended to the cieling, by silken cords. One of these wires was supported at one end by the napkin on which lay the fish, the other end was immersed in a bowl full of water that stood upon the table on which there were placed four other bowls, all equally filled with water. The first person who stood round the second table, put the fore-finger of one hand in the bowl in which the end of the brass wire was immersed, and the fore-finger of his other hand in the second bowl that stood next to it. The second person in like manner, put the fore-finger of one hand in the second bowl, and the fore-finger of his other hand in the third bowl,
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