Viewing page 25 of 32

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

458 HISTORICAL CHRONICLE

advise him not to enter into the matrimonial state again. These two circumstances induce us to credit the above reports as fact; but time alone can confirm it. His Majesty is expected at Potzdam on the 5th of next month, on his return from Silesia."

July 25.
At one o'clock in the afternoon, a magazine of powder, which the King of Sardinia keeps at Chamberry, for the use of the public, took fire; and though it contained but six barrels, the explosion was so great, that part of the city walls, and several neighbouring houses, at fifty yards difference, were thrown down. Many others were shaken : eighteen persons perished in the ruins; and numbers were very much wounded.

July 29.
At half after eight in the evening, the air serene and calm, and the moon very brilliant, approaching the North West, a meteor appeared at Crespi, in France, in the form of a globe, to which was affixed a tail, placed vertically: the light reflected by it was so considerable as to obscure that of the moon for some short space; after which the meteor began to decrease in splendor, and tended towards the earth; and about seven minutes after a noise was heard equal to the sound of the largest cannon, and caused such a commotion as to shake the glasses and other moveable bodies in all the houses. The same meteor was seen about the same time at Paris, but they heard nothing of the explosion. 

Aug. 17.
Six persons convicted of promoting dissensions at Cape Francois, in St. Domingo, and concerned in the late riots, (two of them considerable merchants) were privately executed in the Bastile the 14th infant. 

Aug. 18.
They had one of the most violent thunder-storms in the Province of Bretagne, in France, that ever was known there. It continued raining in torrents the whole day, but at midnight the element seemed in one continued blaze, with thunder without intermission. Several bridges are broken down, causeways demolished, and houses, mills, and other buildings washed away. The bodies of fifty-three persons were taken up, which had been brought down by the torrent; and the numbers of cattle lost are innumerable. 

Aug. 22.
Sentence was pronounced on the Regicides at Warsaw: two are condemned to lose their heads; the person who brought the King back, to be banished the country for ever; the others are condemned to perpetual imprisonment. Pulawski, the promoter and instigator of the horrid attack, is condemned to be hanged in effigy, his coat of arms to be broken, himself declared infamous, and the name of the family to be changed. His Majesty's gracious intercession in their favour is supposed to have produced this mitigation of the punishment decreed by the law for attempts against the King's life.
His Majesty has ordered a monument to be erected to immortalize the memory of H. Butzau, the Hussar, who lost his life in defending his Majesty against the Regicides. The monument is to be of fine marble, on its head the effigy of the deceased, with an inscription in the Polish language to the following purport: "Here rests the body of H. Butzau, who died in defence of King Stanislaus Augustus. The cursed arrows which were thrown by the infamous and wretched Regicides on the 3rd of November, 1771, to pierce the heart of the King, he with pleasure received in his own breast; of the fame wounds he died a most glorious death! for the welfare of his native country and for the life of his Prince. His King laments in his death the loss of so loyal and so faithful a subject; and, to immortalize this noble deed, has erected this monument, as an instance of heroic virtue that ought to be remembered, to the honour of the deceased, by latest posterity.

Aug. 23.
Two figures, one representing Captain Nankeen, the other Miss Callico, were carried through the streets of Dublin attended by a most riotous and insolent mob, in order to be hanged at the common gallows. The military were called out to keep the peace, and, the Lord-Mayor at their head, met the rioters in Francis-street. Nothing could prevail upon them to disperse; and at last some of them (for great numbers were armed with pistols and cutlasses) fired upon the soldiers. The word was then given, and the soldiers fired, and shot seven of the mob dead upon the spot, and wounded twelve others, who are not expected to live. The mob afterwards broke the windows of the Sheriff of Dublin; and a guard of Highlanders was posted at the Mayor's house, to prevent the like outrage there. In consequence of these outrages the Lord-Mayor published the following address:
" In compassion for the headstrong folly of a deluded multitude, whose inconsiderate rashness is likely to occasion the loss of many lives, and prove destructive to the manufactures of this country, I am induced to caution you against the continuance of those riots and disorders, which have occasioned such disagreeable consequences. Your impetuosity has, I fear, prevented your allowing yourselves time to reflect on what must inevitably be the result of your proceedings.
"You imagine that by terrifying a few timid females, you will be able to prevent the wear of foreign manufactures; you will be disappointed; your interposition can possibly have but a temporary effect, even supposing you were permitted to proceed in your disorders.
"Demean yourselves, then, like regular and industrious citizens; spend your time, for the future, in the forwarding and improving your manufactures, and not in riot and disorder: By so doing, I have no doubt you will bring them to such a state of perfection, as not only to induce the inhabitants of this kingdom to prefer them to all others, but even foreigners to seek for them with eagerness. Industry and application can effect the greatest things. You are blessed with as good natural abilities as any people upon earth.
"If you give, therefore, your attention to the improvement of your manufactures, there is no reason to imagine, but that, in a little time, they will arrive to as great a degree of perfection as those of any nation whatever. They are already in great forwardness, and a little further perseverance and emulation will shortly effect that which violence never can; besides, by a regular and orderly behaviour, you may perhaps indulge the Legislature to interpose in your behalf.
"If you continue incorrigible, you will certainly prepossess them against you.
"Receive this advice as from a friend and fellow-citizen, sincerely desirous of promoting your welfare; but if you persist in your disorderly proceedings, as Chief Magistrate, I must and will act with vigour and effect, and you must abide the consequences. R. FRENCH."

Mansion-boufe, Aug. 24.
The Magistrates likewise published a caution forbidding all persons whatever from assembling in numbers, or forming crowds, or parading through the streets of this city or liberties; they also cuation all good citizens, and friends to peace and order, to quit the streets, and betake themselves to their houses, when any such tumultuous or riotous assembly shall appear, lest the necessary interposition of force may be attended with fatality, or danger to the life of any innocent individual; and they have promised a considerable reward, to be paid to any person who shall, within the space of three months, apprehend the first person who shall be guilty of taking away by force, cutting, or otherwise destroying, any fort of merchandize or wearing-apparel, flour or other provisions.
John Challoner was executed at Stafford, for the murder of his own father. The circumstances were; The father and son, who were both labourers, were at work in a wood near Stone, in Staffordshire; and upon some words arising between them, the son threw a small iron pot at his father's head, and one of the feet entering his skull gave the mortal wound, of which he languished but a few days, and then expired. The above criminal, in a quarrel he had with his wife some time ago, killed a young child she had in her arms, by unfortunately receiving a blow he aimed at his wife.
The three following convicts were executed at Horsham, in Sussex, viz. Ambrose Cannon, for being present, aiding, and abetting Thomas Green in the wilful murder of Thomas Cole, Richard Bridger, for breaking open the house of Samuel Ayling, of Chichester, and stealing 100l. a watch, &c. and William Kemp, for a highway robbery. The crime for which Cannon suffered was committed near sixteen years ago, during his apprenticeship to the above Green, under whose immediate direction he acted. They both went abroad; but Cannon, after being absent thirteen years, ventured to return about three years since, when he settled at Hastings by another name, married, and has three children, whom, with his wife, he has constantly maintained in credit by his industry.

Aug. 30
As the workmen were sinking a vault in Diss church, Norfolk, for Mr. Taylor, they discovered a stone coffin, in which were the bones of a person quite intire, and near the head was a pewter chalice, by which it is supposed it was a Priest; he probably had been buried 4 or 500 years, as the metal was almost destroyed: about six feet south of this coffin, and at the depth of about five feet, they found two large urns, or pots of red earth, one holding fifteen pints, the other fourteen; there was nothing in them but black fetid earth. Blomfield mentions a stone coffin being found when Mr. Burton was buried in the North Ayle of the Chancel (or, as he calls it, the chapel of the Guild of Corpus Christi) in 1705, in which was a silver chalice, and which they buried again.

Tuesday, Aug. 31.
Three men and three women went to the Bell-Inn in Edgbaston-street, Birmingham, and made the following singular entry in the toll-book which is kept there: 'August 31, 1773. Samuel Whitehouse, of the paril of Willenhill, in the country of Stafford, this day sold his wife, Mary Whitehouse, in open market, to Thomas Griffiths, of Birmingham, value one shilling. To take her with all faults.
'Signed, Samuel Whitehouse, and Mary Whitehouse.
'Voucher, Tho. Buckley, of Birmingham.
The