another inundation as they had ten years before. Happily, there was time to remove, into the upper part of the city, fuch effects as were moft worthy of being preferved; and to drive the cattle into the higher grounds. The vice legate, the first day of the inundation, difpatched couriers to the neighbouring cities, in order to bring meal and bread, which were diftributed to perfons in want. By the 14th the rivers were almost entirely withdrawn, leaving the streets covered with mud. But the adjacent country ftill remained under water Moft of the towns fituated near these rivers shared the same fae, though in a lefs degree. 4th. In a violent storm, which raged all along the east coaft of Great Britain, a great number of fishing boats were overfet, and many of the fishermen perished. The morning was fine when the boats went out, but the ftorm came on with fuch violence and rapidity, that no affiftance could be given them; and numbers perished in the fight, and even within the hearing of their families and friends, whofe cries and lamentations on the occafion are not to be described. Spital alone, near Berwick, loft 24 fishermen, who have left as many widows and fifty children; the lofs has been proportionably in every place along the north coaft; many ships were likewife wrecked, particularly at Holy Iland, Bulmer, South Shields, and Sunderland. On the 12th, the weft coaft was vifited in the fame manner. 7th. At about three o'clock in the morning, a moft dreadful fire broke out at the houfe of Mr. Rutland, a peruke-maker, in Bishopsgate-ftreet, next door to the corner house of that street, and Cornhill; and, the wind being high, and affiftance flow, foon fpread to faid corner house, from thence to the corner house of Bishopfgate-ftreet and Leadenhallftreet, the corner houfe of Gracechurch fireet and Cornhill, and the corner house of Gracechurchftreet and Leadenhall-ftreet, so that all the four corner houses were burning at one time. The corner houfe of Gracechurch-street and Cornhill was greatly damaged, and the three other corner houses deftroyed,as likewife all the houses from the corner of Cornhill and Bishopfgate-ftreet, to the church of St. Martin's Outwich, the corner of Threadneedle-ftreet, and Bishopfgate-ftreet, except the parfonagehoufe. The church likewife took fire, and part of the fteeple was foon burnt down, whereby the great bell in it fell with a prodigious noife; the infide of the church was next confumed, and the flames spread to the back of Threadneedle-ftreet, where several houses were entirely burnt to the ground; particularly, every house in Whitelion court, among them the Whitelion tavern, which was bought but the evening before,at nine o'clock, for between 2 and 3000l. The back part of Merchant-Taylorshall received fome damage. About feven the wind fhifted to the west, and drove the flames back, by which five houses on the Exchange fide of Cornhill, and upwards of twenty in Leadenhall-ftreet, were confumed. On the whole, it is computed that this fire destroyed upwards of one hundred houses, and did more damage than the memorable fire, which broke out oppofite oppofite the Royal Exchange on the 25th of March 1748, the lofs being reckoned at 100,000l. of which a confiderable part was unfortunately uninfured. At nine, parties of guards arrived from the Tower, and foon after the lord mayor, who gave orders for lodging what goods could be faved in the Royal Exchange. The caufe of this misfortune is variously related. Some pretend that the workshop of Mr. Marjoram, a tinman, being under the houfe of Mr. Rutland, the peruke maker, and the men having fome work in hand that required great expedition, they fat up very late on the preceding night, in order to complete it: and that the boy, going to a jar for a fresh fupply of oil for their lamps, let a fnuff of candle drop into it. Others fay, that Mr. Rutland's boy, who lay in the fhop, fitting up late to let in a lodger, and falling asleep, the candle caught fome of the wigboxes. A gentleman who attended at this fire, thinking that many perfons might be still alive under the rubbish, ventured amongst them the next day, before the fire was quite extinguished, and, waving his hat from the top of a pile of ruins to engage the attention of the fpectators, declared that he was fure many were actually fo under the fpot upon which he ftood. Upon this, the firemen, with their pick-axes, came to their affiftance, and dug out alive, two men, three women, a child about fix years old, a dog and two cats. The next day, as fome workmen were clearing out the cellar of a tobacconist, whofe house had been burnt, a flack of chimnies fell \་ fuddenly, by which eight per fons lott their lives, and feveral had their limbs crushed in a most fhocking manner. Subfcriptions were immediately fet on foot for the relief of the uninsured fufferers by this fire, and foon produced 3000l. of which his majefty was pleased to contribute 1000l. the grocers and ironmongers company rool. each, and the lord mayor gol. a handfome part of which was diftributed amongst the unfortunate widows and children of the men who were killed by the falling of the stack of chimnies: It is furprifing, that frequent as fires are in this metropolis, there fhould always be a complaint of the want of water. We find that, on this occafion, the flames raged for feveral hours, before any water could be got, and confequently the engines and firemen that came there in good time, could be of no fervice to the diftreffed families for want of it. Yet no city is better furnished with water on any other occafion. But, as fire and water are jarring elements, one would imagine they comunicated their spirit of enmity to the water companies and the infurance companies. We fee the parade of F. P. in almost every ftreet, lane, and alley; but what purpofe is anfwered by pointing out the fire-plug, if there is no water in the pipes? It would be much to the intereft of the infurance offices to have inspectors over the turncocks, and fee that they conftantly performed their duty; or even be at the expence of building a refervoir for their own ufe, in fome convenient elevated place near the town, which might might fupply the pipes, when they could not be fupplied in the ufual way. Mr. Yeoman, having obferved this deficiency of water, which many attribute entirely to the great increase of buildings in the neighbourhood of London, has pointed out a very easy supply, by improving the river Lee in fuch a manner, that a fiftieth part of the water now used fhould fuffice for the purpofe of navigation, and that of working the mills upon it, fo as to afford a large quantity for other purposes. This feems to be a hint worthy of parliamentary confideration; and of confequence the hinter of it is intitled to parliamentary reward. In the mean time, as there are always more engines ready to affift at every fire, than can find water on the fpot to throw upon it, fhould not thofe, that cannot be fo employed, be made to fupply with water those who are, by being difpofed in a line to fome place, where water is to be had in plenty? In this manner, though there were no water pipes, fires might be much more readily ftopt than they generally are; and that, too, in places at a confiderable diftance from the river. 8th. The judgment obtained by Mr. Dryden Leach in the Court of Common Pleas, in confequence of his verdict found at Guildhall, in December 1763, against meffrs. Money, Watfon, and Blackmore, three of his majef ty's metlengers, (who entered his house and arrested and imprifoned him, as the printer of the original North Briton, No 45.) under a general warrant iilued by the right bonourable the earl of Halifax, VOL. VIII. late one of his majefty's principal fecretaries of ftate, was affirmed by the unanimous opinion of the court of King's Bench, upon the writ of error and bill of exceptions brought by the defendants. By this important decifion Mr. Leach recovers his 400l. damages, with all cofts of fuit. This is the first final determination of the numer ous actions, which have been commenced against the fecretaries of ftate and meffengers, &c. George Nelfon,efq; the lord 9th. mayor elect, accompanied only by Sir William Stephenson, the late lord mayor, the aldermen, and recorder, went in a private manner to Weftminster-hall to be fworn ; and, after the ufual ceremonies there, returned in the fame private manner, in confequence of a letter from the lord chamberlain, requesting that their ceremony might be conducted with as little fhow as poffible on account of the death of his royal highness the duke of Cumberland. Between three and four in, 11th. the morning, the heavens, at Hochft, about two leagues from Francfort on the Maine, emitted fo bright a torrent of fire, that the fmallett characters could be read by it. This torrent, in about five minutes, affumed a ferpentine form, then a globular one, and divided into a number of little ftars, which gradually disappeared. 12th. The reigning count of Buckebourgh was espoused to Maria Eleonora, of Lippe-Sternberg, countefs of the holy Roman empire. Two bricklayers were fin 13th. ed, one in a hundred, the' other in fifty pounds, for fuffering rubbish to remain a long time be[2] fore fore fome buildings carrying on by them near Red-lion-fquare. A new fpécies of forgery has been lately practifed at Newcastle, by Mary Cockburne, who, it is faid, can neither read nor write. Under various pretences fhe got fome perfons to draw up notes, and drafts, and then, by folding down the writing, contrived to make others fet their names to them. Thefe fhe negotiated, and raised large fums of money upon them. The right hon. the lord 27th. Camden gave his opinion upon the granting of general warrants by fecretaries of ftate, which fome days before had been learnedly argued before him. After en larging upon, and explaining numbers of cafes, which lafted two hours and twenty minutes, his lordship declared it, as the unanimous opinion of the court, that fuch warrants (except in cafes of high treason) were illegal, oppreffive, and unwarrantable. A violent fhock, like that of an earthquake,happened at Long Benton,within four miles of Newcastle. All the houses in that town, which are built of ftone, upon a free-ftone rock, being disjointed by it, the inhabitants fled into the ftreet; but the ftreet opened and clofed again from end to end. They then betook themselves to the fields; where a gentleman's garden funk above two feet, and likewife many parts of the great Killingworth moor, to the extent of two miles fquare. But, providentially, no lives were loft. It is a cuftom in working collieries, to leave as much coal as they dig away; but that of the Long Benton colliery, being a coal of great character in London, the owners had the coal pillats dug away, and wooden ones fixed in the room of them, which not being able to fupport a rock feventy-five fathoms thick, being the depth of the coal pit, the whole funk down together. At a general meeting of the royal fociety, their pre- 29th. fident, the earl of Morton, prefented their prize medal to Mr. Canton, of Spital-fquare, for his experiments to prove the compreffibility of water. There are actually several nefts of young rooks, in the 30th. rookery belonging to Mr. Nathaniel Knot, in the parish of Merkland Avery, Sherborne, Dorsetsh. likewife ftrawberries ripe, and in full bloffom, in the garden of St. Barbe Sydenham, at Exeter; and, on the 19th, a large quantity of rofes, in as full perfection as in the month of June, likewife honeyfuckles and jeffamine trees in full blow, were to be feen in the garden of Dr. Moffet, at Shefford, in Bedfordshire. Edmund Welch, gardener to colonel Richard Morris, of Tralee, in Ireland, on the 28th of April laft, planted a fmall melon plant in a basket 16 inches diameter, in a ftove of 25 feet by 8; which plant, after extending and fpreading itfelf the entire length and breadth of the ftove, and covering very closely an area of 200 fquare feet, to promote its luxuriancy, he nailed the fhoots and vines to the back part of the flove for want of room, when it extended back where it was firft planted, and produced 18 brace of melons, from 12 to 14lb. each, befides abundance of young fruit, full fet and very promiting. The weight of the large melons alone amounted to 468lb. At. At Ludlington in Lincolnshire, of one of her eyes, about an inch Mr. Wedd having made a feizure and a half long. for rent on Mr. Howard, a schoolmafter, and expoftulating with him on his way of life, was anfwered by the application of a loaded gun to his breaft, which Howard inftantly discharged. Some lucky circumftances, however, having prevented the mischief intended, Howard retired to his clofet, and cut his own throat in fuch a manner as to divide the windpipe; notwithstanding which he wrote, the fame night, a large ikin of parchment, full of directions to his fons for their conduct in life. He died the next day, or the day following, and the coroner's inqueft brought in their verdict fela de fe. A foldier at Plymouth, fervant to an officer of marines, being lately detected of theft, hanged himself, having first wrote to his mafter, that his propenfity to thievery was fuch, that he could not refrain it, and therefore chofe that method of putting a period to his life rather than the more public one of dying on a gallows. Mark Fisher, the mafter of the workhouse at Bluntisham, in Huntingdonshire, and feveral of the poor under his care, being troubled with the itch, he mixed a quantity of arfenic, Roman vitriol, glafs, and foap, into an ointment, and anointed himself and five women with it. But this infernal medicine proved fo violent, that himself, and two of the women, foon died of it, leaving the other three in a very deplorable condition. A few weeks ago, a child at Portifhan, near Weymouth, not two years old, difcharged a worm, out To prevent the many accidents that happen in cleanfing foul wells through the badness of the vapour lodged at the bottom of them, the following method has been dif. covered and recommended by Mr. Millington, of the city of Worcefter. Let down an iron pot, with a few ounces of gunpowder in it, to the furface of the water; then tofs a fhovel full of live coals into the well, fome of which will probably fall in the pot, and fet tho powder on fire, the explofion of which will effectually difpel the noxious damps, and thereby render it fafe for workmen to go down into it. Some weeks ago, one Walter Willey, a brewer's fervant, devoured, at a public houfe in Aldersgate-street, a roasted goofe, that weighed fix pounds, and a quartern loaf, and drank three quarts of porter, in an hour and eighteen minutes, for a wager of two guineas. He had an hour and a half allowed him to do it in. A few days ago a mare started from the fox and hounds in Tottenham-court road, to draw a fingle horfe chaife, with a perfon in it, to Lincoln, in twenty hours, but performed the journey with ease, in nineteen hours and a quarter. The diftance is upwards of 130 miles. A new thread manufactory has been attempted in Scotland, and has already fucceeded fo well as to produce fome fine enough to fell for 40s. an ounce. Great encouragement, and worthy of being imitated, is offered for the cftablishment of a new co[L] 2 · lony |