quantity of pitch and tar, were burnt. As this room was too hot for company, the following toasts were drank in the room above, while the fire below was burning in its utmost fury, viz. the king, queen and royal family, peace and unanimity, &c. Several other fires were made in different parts of the floors, stair-cases, &c. which were all left to burn out; yet no damage happened to any parts of the building, but where the fires were actually laid. The inhabitants of Somerset-house received written notices, to quit their apartments by Michaelmas-day next, signed by the solicitor for the affairs of his Majesty's treasury. This day a cause came The long contested dispute between the post-master general and the East-India company, was at length amicably settled. All letters from India directed to private persons, are for the future to be sent to the Post-office, and regu larly delivered from thence as other foreign ship letters are; so that all persons, who have relations or friends in India, may be sure of receiving their letters from them regularly, without applying so many times at the India-house as they were formerly obliged to do. The two prizes annually given by the Chancellor of the Univer sity of Oxford, for two compositions prose and verse, were respectively adjudged to Mr. Grattan, fellow of New College, and Mr. Warton, scholar of Trinity. in 28th. Yesterday and this day came on to be argued in the court of Chancery, a plea put in by the Duchess of Kingston, to a bill filed by Lady Meadows, the sister and heir at law of the late Duke of Kingston. Her Grace pleaded a sentence of the Ecclesiastical Court, by which she was de-. the late Duke married her, and also the probate of the late Duke's will, when, after a long and solemn debate of the matter, the Lord Chancellor was pleased to allow her Grace's plea. 26th. on in the court of Common Pleas, Guildhall, between a gentleman, plaintiff, and a lottery-clared to be a single woman before. office-keeper in the city, defendant; the cause of this action was as follows: the gentleman, passing by the lottery-office, observed a Woman and boy crying, on which he asked the reason of their tears; they informed him, that they had insured. a number in the Lottery the night before, and, upon enquiry at another office, found it to have been drawn five days before, and therefore wanted their money again; the gentleman, taking their part, was assaulted and beat by the office keeper. The jury gave a verdict in favour of the gentleman, with five pounds damage. Was tried before the Barons of the Exchequer, a cause wherein the Rev. Mr. Bateman, vicar of Whaplode, in Lincolnshire, was plaintiff, and his parishioners defendants. This gentleman, in 1770, filed a bill for the accustomed tythe of sheep, of barren and unprofita ble cattle, and for the tthe of lands before held untytheable, as formerly belonging to the abbey of [/] 3 Crowland; Crowland; and, on that ground, he gained a decree in his favour, April 4, 1774. But, to prevent the effect of this decree, the parishioners filed a cross-bill in November last, in the court of Exchequer, on the ground of establishing moduses, and obtained an injunction to stop proceedings against them in the spiritual court. To dissolve this injunction the present trial commenced, and the court has dissolved the same accordingly. Was held at the Old Bailey trusses; one beat into the length of 3-4ths of a yard, placed under the cloak-bag; the other beat equally close into two balls, and hung like kettle-drums before the rider. This saddle was made by Mr. Gibson, Saddler, in Great Windmill-street, St. James's; and the merit of it had been previously ascertained, by actual experiment, before General Harvey, who ordered a handsome reward to the men employed for that purpose. The king has been pleased to order letters patent to be passed under the great seal of Ireland, for constituting one body politic and corporate, by the name of the Hibernian Marine Society in Dublin, for maintaining, educating, and apprenticing the orphans and children of decayed seamen in his ma 29th. a high court of admiralty for The same day, General Harvey The silver medals annually given by the historical society in the university of Dublin for the best English compositions, were this year obtained by the Rev. Mr. Scott, for prose; for verse, by Messiears Ball, Charles Henry Coote, and Edward Synge. His Imperial majesty ar30th. rived at Luxembourg, from a tour of some weeks he had been making, incognito, through Italy. Four vessels containing about seven hundred emigrants, have sailed for America from Port Glasgow and Greenock, in the course of the present month, most of them from the north High'ands. Whilst the Diet of Poland was granting new liberties to the Dissidents, the Jews, whose numbers and credit were very great in Poland, have been treated very ri gorously. They are forbidden from carrying on any public trade in the streets; streets; and, as this is depriving them of all the usual means of subsistence, they are leaving Warsaw. They were offered warehouses for their goods, which they refused. Prince Poninski, willing to engage them to settle on his estate at Wola, about half a league from Warsaw, promised them his protection, as did likewise Prince Sulkowski, if they would establish themselves there. Count Alexis Orlow, before he left Leghorn, published a manifesto, the substance of which was, "That the Empress of Russia, his sovereign, pardoned the republic of Ragusa the hostilities committed against her, on condition that that republic would, for the future, observe the most scrupulous neutrality, and allow the Russian consul the same prerogatives that the other consuls enjoyed; particularly that of having a chapel in his house, for the exercise of the Russo-Greek religion. The same princess, at the solicitation of the inhabitants of the new acquired province of WhiteRussia, to have their taxes put upon the same footing on which they were before it came into her hands, instead of barely granting them their request, was graciously pleased to reduce their taxes still lower, by taking off one half of what they were rated at. Moreover, to encourage trade in the Black Sea, lately opened to her by the treaty with the Porte, where she will not meet with those hindrances which nature has placed in the Baltic, the climate of which puts a stop to trade the greatest part of the year, and the dangerous coasts cause numberless shipwrecks during the remainder; her con imperial majesty had been pleased Accounts from Constantinople mention positively, that the Grand Signor, having received complaints from his subjects of the grievances they suffer from the governors of the different provinces of his empire, thought himself obliged, not only to issue several firmans to most. of his pachas and other officers, with regulations for the establishment of good order throughout the Ottoman empire, and very favourable to the Christians and Jews; but likewise to make examples of some of the governors. Accordingly, one was strangled and beheaded by his highness's orders, and his he exposed at the door of the seraglio; and more than seventeen others, of three tails, were deposed, and sent into exile, among whom was Achmet Effendi, first favourite of the emperor. Among the above firmans was one particularly addressed to the pacha of Salonica, enjoining him to reform his houshold, which for the [1] 4 futuro future is only to consist of 150 persous, instead of 400 or 500, which was a great expence to the people under his government. And this order, it is thought, will be made universal with regard to all the pacha. BIRTHS. On the 25th instant, the wife of Mr. Ladenberg, winemerchant, in Castle-street, Leicester-fields, in the 54th year of her age, was brought to bed of twins. Mrs. Ladenburg, though married upwards of 30 years, never had a child before, 2d. JULY. also break out, as it was in vast Two men, concerned in trepan ning a tradesman's daughter, about 18 years of age, from the house of her father, a tradesman in this city, on board a ship in the river, and sending her abroad, were exa mined before the lord-mayor; the hearing lasted three hours; counsel being employed; after which the prisoners were remanded back to the Poultry-compter for a further examination; and, after such examination on the 10th, were recommitted to the same prison, with time till next January, to return the girl to her parents, on pain of being tried for the offence at the following sessions. And, in the mean time, a prosecution was or dered to be commenced against the master of the ship for receiving her A grand Spanish Armada, which had been preparing for some months past, and which many persons affected to think too strong to be intended against any part of the world but Great Britain, arrived before Algiers; and, on the 7th, miscarried in an attack upon that on board. place. The burning mountain, called Pacayita, in the province of Guatimala, in New Spain, after New Spain, after threatening an eruption, for some time, by subterraneous noises, and earthquakes, actually broke out, after a most violent report; when a lava of nitrous and sulphureous matter poured down the side of the mountain, whilst it threw up clouds of cinders and smoke, which consumed near 40 leagues of the district of St. Antonio Cuchutepeque The town of St. Christoral Amaticlan was entirely deserted; from nine cavities in this mountain the flaming lava continued to run till the first of August following, to the outh sea; and it was then feared that the Pecaya Grande would 7th. Lord Chief-Justice De Grey, Lord Chief-Baron Smythe, Mr. Justice Aston, and Mr. Justice Ashurst, the commissioners appointed to review the proceedings on an information of dis franchisement filed against Mr. Alderman Plumbe, met, according to adjournment, at Guildhall, and delivered their judgment, which was, That they were unanimously of opinion, that the information was erroneous in many particulars, which they severally specified; and that Mr. Alderman Plumbe, by neglecting to summon the livery of the Goldsmiths company, of which he was prime warden, to attend Alderman Beckford, when lordmayor, at a common hall, had not been guilty of any offence against his oath and duty as a freeman; consequently the judgment of disfranchisement pronounced against him in the mayor's court by the recorder was by them reversed. The Russian squadron 8th. under the command of Ad-, miral Bassballe, sailed from Portsmouth for Russia. The royal regiment of 10th. artillery, quartered at Wool wich, were reviewed by his Majesty on Blackheath. Part of the exercise consisted in an attack by some of them, on a kind of fort garrisoned by the rest, on the opposite side of a temporary bridge. About a quarter before eleven the fight began, and lasted an hour, in which the engineers, &c. acquitted themselves with satisfaction to his majesty, and a prodigious number of spectators. The Duke of Gloucester was present. Two caravals, bound from Tetuan, with a reinforcement of Turks, for Algiers, happening to fall in with two Maltese frigates, there ensued a very long and fierce engagement, in which 800 Turks were killed. The caravals were likewise taken and conveyed to Malta. 11th. The sessions ended at the Old-Bailey, when sentence of death was passed on four convicts; two, for house-breaking; and two, for robbing on the highway; and of transportation, on sixteen; seven were ordered to be privately whipped; two, branded in the hand; one of whom was John Walsh, for bigamy, who is also to be imprisoned six months in Newgate; thirty-nine were discharged by pro clamation; and, on the sixteenth following, the two house-breakers, and one of the highwaymen, were executed at Tyburn, This morning a fire broke out at the soap-boiler's; in the Lower-street, Dorchester, nearly opposite the gaol, which raged with great fury for several hours, taking very irregular directions, making great havock among the thatched houses, and passing those which were roofed with tiles or slates; water was so scarce for some time, that one of the engines, in a narrow lane, was obliged to be abandoned by the men who worked it, and by means of the falling thatch caught fire, and was totally destroyed; the whole town must have been burnt down, had it not been for a detachment of dragoons belonging to Sir John Cope's regiment, who happened to be quartered there. Both officers and com mon men were indefatigable in extinguishing the flames, which, after consuming 35 or 40 dwelling houses, chiefly the habitations of poor people, were at length got under. |