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GRAND ENGLISH BALLOON.
  To the Nobility, Gentry, and Public in general.
A LARGE and curious BALLOON IS NOW CONSTRUCTING AT THE LYCEUM NEAR Exeter-Change, Strand, on a plan entirely novel, and which has originated in this Metropolis, from the ingenuity of a Gentleman, who is to ascend with 
it.
  The construction is partly finished at the above place, and when the Globe (the materials of which are oiled Silk of different colours) is completed, it will be filled with Inflammable Air, and launched from Chelsea Hospital Gardens, having obtained permission for that purpose.
  The object of the Gentleman's aerial Tour is to make some interesting experiments, by which it is presumed this nation will discover its real utility.
  The Gallery, Oars, and Wings are now completed,
Subscriptions are received at the Office adjoining to the Lyceum, where Tickets may be had.
  One Guinea Ticket will admit a person four different times, to see the construction, and likewise into the Garden, intitled to have a Chair near the Globe to see it launched off.
  A Half Guinea Ticket will admit a person to see the construction twice, and likewise into the garden, intitled to have a proper bench to sit down on, next to the above Subscribers
  Five Shillings Tickets will admit a person once to see the construction, and likewise into the garden to have a proper bench to sit down on.
  The above Room is now open from ten o'clock till eight o'clock, for the admission of Subscribers, where the Construction, Gallery, Oars, and Wings, together with other BALLOONS may be seen.
  Admittance for Non-subscribers Two Shilling and Six-pence each.  ^[[July 21 - 1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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  A grand air balloon has just been completed at the chateau of the Duc de Orleans; it is 160 feet in diameter, and constructed with wings and sails, by which the direction of it is to be regulated. Strange as the undertaking may appear, a party of gentlemen have it in contemplation to cross the sea in it, near Brighthelmstone!   ^[[June 23 - 1784 -handwritten in ink]]
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  An air-balloon, which was sent up from the bowling-green in this city on Friday last, was found the next morning at Didley. As its descent was not observed, in what number of minutes it went about seven miles, is not known.  
^[[Hereford. Aug. 26. 1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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^[[??]] 2d. 1784 - handwritten in ink]]
AIR BALLOONS, on a new Construction,
  Three Shillings and Two and Sixpence each.
THESE Balloons have been very much admired for their Simplicity and easy Manner of filling with rarefied Air only, without any ill Smell. - These Balloons are made on such a Construction as to be equally visible either by Day or Night, but more particularly at Night, when they exhibit a most beautiful Appearance in the Atmosphere. They have been known to travel Eight Miles from the Place where they were let off in the Space of Ten Minutes. They also may be used in any Room in a House, without Danger or any ill Smell. The Size of a Balloon, of the small Value of Three Shillings, is Nine Feet in Circumference. They will afford the Spectators as much real Pleasure and Diversion as one of an Hundred Feet in Circumference. they are made very light and portable, and may be carried in a Sheet of Paper. They also may be made to any Size larger.
Made and Sold by
ARNOLD FINCHETT.
At his Tin-Ware Manufactory, (No. 188) between Chancery-Lane and St. Dunstan's Church, Fleet-Street.
  Proper Directions are given with each Balloon, how to fill and use them. Good Allowance to Country Traders, or for Exportation. 
  N.B. Beware of Counterfeits, as there are a Sort selling about Town, which do not answer the Purpose.
  *** No Letters will be answered but t [[?]] Post-paid.
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  Extract of a letter from Perth, Sept. 3. 
^[[1784 -handwritten in ink]]
  "On Monday evening was exhibited here, at nine o'clock, a fine balloon fancifully painted, of 22 feet in circumference; it rose to a considerable height, and continued in sight for twenty minutes; it was then eclipsed behind the clouds, having taken its course over the parks of Duplin; was afterwards seen passing over the village of Methven, five miles from this; the wind, taking a contrary course, drove it back to Black Ruthven, where it alighted, to the no small amazement of the inhabitants."
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^[[Sept. 7. 1784 - handwritten in ink]]
  On Tuesday evening ^ a very serious accident took place at the Rev. Henry Bate's, in Essex: That gentleman had procured an air [[underlined]]balloon[[/underlined]] for the entertainment of the country people, and gave orders that a cannon should be fired for the purpose of giving notice. In preparing the charge for the cannon, a spark from a match fell upon two pounds weight of gunpowder, which blew up, and burned the face of the coachman and a boy in a most miserable manner.
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for 1784.   Sept. 9-11.

  Yesterday a complaint was laid before the Lord Mayor, relative to the danger that may ensue from the Air-balloons which are every night sent up in different parts of this City, and his Lordship promised that he would lay the matter before the Court of Common Council next Tuesday, for that Court to consider of the proper steps to be taken in order to put a total stop to them.
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  Extract of a Letter from Deal, Sept 6. ^[[1784 - handwritten in ink]]
  "Put back the Generous Friends, Hall, for Boston, and remain with the Scout sloop, the Diligence, Piper; Priscilla, Wilson, for Dublin; and Ann, Barnard, for Oporto. Wind at South."
  On Friday last [[underlined]]three air balloons[[/underlined]] were sent up in different parts of this metropolis, when one of them fell in a barn near Camberwell-grove, full of corn, and with the greatest difficulty the barn as well as corn was preserved from being destroyed.
  Last night at nine o'clock, the extensive premises of Messrs. Browning and Eykyn, Smithfield-bars, were near being burnt down by an air [[underlined]]balloon,[[/underlined]] which took fire and fell in their yard, but being immediately discovered, was put out without any material injury.
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  It is pity that an ingenious invention should be turned to the detriment of the publick, as is at present the case with those small balloons, purchased for three or four shillings, which are every night seen floating in the air, with lights burning in them. Three fires have already happened in consequence of these dangerous machines. Even porter-houses now collect company by giving notice of their intention to launch a balloon at a certain hour, by which several of them are said to have made it well answer their purpose, so balloon-mad are the people in this metropolis!
  Last Tuesday night, between eight and nine o'clock, a gentleman, walking from Whitechapel church to the 'Change, counted no less than seven balloons, with lights in them, floating in the air, one of which fell in Whitechapel.  
^[[Sept. 16. 1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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AIR BALLOON.
The Public are requested to take notice, that a clear and entertaining description of that wonderful invention, is given at large in ^[[Aug. 1784 - handwritten in ink]]
BRESLAW's LAST LEGACY; or, The Magical Companion: (published this day, price only 1s. 6d.) Containing all that is curious, pleasing, entertaining, and comical, selected from the most celebrated masters of deception; as well with slight of hand as with mathematical inventions; including all the various exhibitions of those wonderful artists, Breslaw, Sieur Comus, Jonas, &c. The interpretation of dreams, signification of moles, &c. with a selection of all the favourite new songs sung this season at Vauxhall, &c. riddles, and bon mots: the whole forming a book of real knowledge in the art of conjuration. In which is displayed the way to make the Air Balloon and Inflammable Air.
  Printed for T. Moore, No. 33, Paternoster-row; and may be had of all other Booksellers in town and country.
  [[image: pointing hand]] In this ingenious performance is more particularly described than in any other publication of a similar nature, how to make the Air Balloon, so that the curious may amuse themselves and friends by displaying them either in public or private.
---------------------------
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Air Balloon, or
The Magical Companion.

[[Image: Balloon attached to gondola with one man in the center of it. The Balloon is floating above a crowd of nine people that includes one woman and a child]]
Breslaws Last Legacy.
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  A gentleman in the box lobby on Saturday night, after the performance of the new farce, called Aerostation, expressed his astonishment that the minister should suffer the prologue (which contains several-severe strokes on the late taxes) to be spoken! "for, continues he, that distinguished politician has already deprived us of the sense of seeing, and by a parity of conduct I think he may take from us another sense, hearing, and, perhaps, will at length leave the people of England nothing but feeling, to remember him."  ^[[Nov.[[?]].1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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  Yesterday morning, about one o'clock, a fire broke out at a Chandler's shop in a Court near Wapping Church, which consumed the said house, with the furniture and stock in trade. The mistress of the house and three children are missing, and it is feared they perished in the flames; three other houses were likewise consumed, and four greatly damaged. It was said to have been occasioned by the carelessness of a fellow, who has for some time fabricated the cheap balloons advertised for sale.  ^[[Nov. 22. 1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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  Thursday Mr. Blanchard's balloon, with all the apparatus for filling it, was sent to Dover Castle, whither he goes himself in a day or two, to wait a favourable wind to waft him to his native shore.  ^[[Dec. 18. 1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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  During the [[underlined]]air balloon rage[[/underlined]], which continued to operate in various splendid extravagancies in Paris for some time, its most diverting effects were after exhibited among select parties of pleasure. An ingenious gentleman contrived to have a flock of large swans basking on the bank of a rivulet which ran through his gardens, who on the approach of a company invited to walk in them for the evening, instantly ascended, and an elegant pleasure barge followed them at a distance. But the most remarkable instance was the situation of an Englishman, who having been out a hunting, and coming into a friend's house exceedingly hungry, was presented with a plate full of boiled eggs, which he had himself ordered; but the moment the napkin was lifted up, they bounced against the ceiling of the room, and left him to gaze and gape at the accident with an empty stomach.  
^[[Dec. 1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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  General V-- has agreed to pay three hundred pounds to the proprietor of the balloon, with whom he has engaged to make an ascent, for the expence of filling it, &c. which agreement is to hold good whether the general connues inclined to make his aerial excursion or not.
  It is said that the above Gentleman has been induced to take this enterprising flight, by a great personage having expressed a wish to know from some person, on whom he could depend, whether it was probable balloons would ever be sufficiently under the power of guidance to be rendered of any utility, or whether they ought to be considered, merely as adventurous projects, without the prospect of being of the least advantage whatever.  ^[[Dec. 1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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  The Parisians are now changing the form of their aerostatic machines from perpendicular to horizontal shapes.
They find that the immense globe obstructs their navigation in the atmosphere, and a Chevalier de la Motte has contrived
one which presents a much smaller surface to the 
wind, and which promises therefore to more under controul. 
^[[1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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The Duke of Bedford has declared, that he will be at the expence of a balloon, for any philosopher that will rise in it; and if he goes as high as Monsieur Charles, will reward him handsomely besides. ^[[1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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^[[1784 - handwritten in ink]]
BALLOON INTELLIGENCE EXTRAORDINARY
At a place of worship, in the vicinity of Lambeth, on Sunday last, a virgin, whose frontispiece indicated a revolution of fifty years, in conformity with modern adornment, was decorated à la Balloon.[[/italic]] The preacher reading that
part of the Liturgy which expresses. "from all false doctrine," &c. the garnished piece of antiquity, reclining her head uttered, "Good Lord deliver us!" when, on a sudden, off went the Balloon, together with the hairy gallery, and its contents; the congregation was somewhat 
disconcerted, until the Balloon, with its appendages, became reinflated on the infertile locality!
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Thompson, the poet, once said, that he did not despair to live to see the time, when a man would call for his wings, as he calls for his boots or horse. But he live not to come
so near this phœnomenon as we have done.
The general conversation turns so much on the ambition of ballooning it, that, but for the expence, there hardly be an earthly-minded man in London. But we may, with some little alteration, apply the advice of the greatest of men, "Let him that flyeth, take heed lest he fall." 
^[[1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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M. Thysbeart, a Professor in the University of Louvain, has discovered a method of producing inflammable air from pit-coal; a circumstance which may be of great advantage to this country. He found from various experiments, that fifteen ounces of powdered pit-coal yielded, in about three quarters of an hour, no fewer than one hundred quarts of air, of so pure a quality, that on trial it was proved to raise a balloon as rapidly, and as high, as if it had been filled with the usual inflammable air. The operation is 
soon to be repeated on a larger scale, and iron retorts of a great dimension are now making at Louvain by order of the Emperor, for the above purpose. ^[[1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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A letter from Paris gives an instance of the danger there is in sending up lighted balloons. One of this description fell some days ago on a building of the fair St. Laurent, where wild beasts are kept for show, such as lions, tigers,
&c. providentiaily, however, the exertions of the firemen, and the place being tiled over, prevented the dreadful consequences, which otherwise must unavoidably have taken place. ^[[1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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AIR BALLOONS.
^[[1784 - handwritten in ink]]
"Only the other night," writes Horace Walpole, "I diverted
myself with a sort of meditation on future Airgonation, supposing that it will not only be perfected, but will depose navigation. I did not finish it, because I am not skilled like the gentleman who used to write political ship news, in that style in which I wanted to perfect my essay; but, in the prelude, I observed how ignorant the ancients were in supposing that Icarus melted the wax of his wings by
his too near access to the sun, whereas he would have been frozen to death before he made the first post on the road. Next, I discovered an alliance between Bishop Wilkins's Art of Flying, and his art of Universal Language, the latter of which he no doubt calculated, to prevent the want of an interpreter when he should arrive at the moon.
"But I chiefly amused myself with ideas of the change that would be made in the world by the substitution of balloons for ships. I supposed our seaports to become deserted villages, and Salisbury Plain, Newmarket Heath (another canvas for the alteration of ideas), and all downs (but the Downs), arising into dockyards for aerial vessels. Such a field would be ample in furnishing new speculations: - but to come to my ship news.
"The good balloon Dædalus, Capt. Wingate, will fly in a few
days for China; he will stop at the top of the Monument to take in passengers.
"Arrived, on Brand Sands, the Vulture, Capt. Nabob; the
Tortoise, Snow, from Lapland: the Pet-en-l'Air, from Versailles; the Dreadnought from Mount Ætna, Sir W. Hamilton, commander; the Tympany, Mongolfier, from the Cape of Good Hope. Foundered in a hurricane, the Bird of Paradise, from Mount Ararat. The Bubble, Sheldon, took fire and was burnt to her gallery; and the Phœnix is to be cut down to a second rate.
"In those days Old Sarum will again be a town, and have houses in it. There will be flights in the air with windiguns, and bows and arrows; and there will be a prodigious increase of land for tillage, especially in France, by breaking up all public roads as useless."
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The rewards which the King of France has given to all the inventors and improvers of the air baloon, shews what a disposition there is in that Court to encourage and bring merit forward. We have naturalists, philosophers, and experimentalists in England, who by the assiduous labor and undeviating attention of a life united with the genius and penetration that make real discoveries, yet who never received the least reward, notice, or encouragement from those who distribute, or rather who divide the public money.
 There is hardly a country town in England at present that has not had its air balloons let off, by which exhibitions as much money will be uselessly spent as would try a thousand important experiments. 
^[[1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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There is actually at this time in London a gentleman from Lancashire of very great knowledge in nature, who has spent a considerable part of his life in making experiments on air &c. &c. and has brought up an application of the [[underlined]]air balloon [[/underlined]]to a purpose truly national, yet of such a nature that it may be kept a profound secret from other nations. He has waited some time to be admitted to ministers, in order to explain his project, without being able to get a moment with them, so fully are they employed in the arduous work of preserving their own places, and neglecting all kinds of public business.
^[[1784 - handwritten in ink]]
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