1749, Jan -10. When the young Pretender arrived at Pont-Beauvoisin, he seemed to be taken very dangerously ill, and every body imagined he was so in reality; but after he was in bed, one of his attendants assumed his place, and in the morning early he slipped away, dressed like a merchant, with one servant only, and made the best of his way on foot to Avignon, where he arrived soon after, incognito.

Jan. 16. This morning, a little after one o'clock, a terrible fire broke out at his Majesty's victualling office, at Deptford, occasioned by some sacks being hung up before a fire to dry, a spark of which flew on one of them, which soon conveyed its flames to the rest, and by that means, in less than half an hour, the whole building was in flames, as were likewise a great number of staves that were piled up by the side; and the wind blew so strong at W. S. W. that two lighters that lay off the wharf, laden with dry stores, such as biscuits, pease, &c. were set on fire, and one of them entirely consumed, by the flakes of fire which flew that way in prodigious quantities.

Jan. 17. A copy of the preliminary articles of peace was laid before the House of Commons..

Feb. 2. At ten o'clock the officers of arms assembled at St. James's gate properly apparelled, on horseback, when proclamation of his Majesty's declaration of peace was made, with the usual solemnity.

Feb. 8. A petition was presented to the honourable House of Commons, signed by a great number of merchants, for con structing an harbour near the Downs, to receive ships detained by contrary winds, &c.

Feb. 14. At Leadhills in Scotland, between eight and nine in the morning, was felt the shock of an earthquake, accompanied with a noise like the falling of an old house, and the motion was so sensibly felt, that the people ran out of their houses, believing they were going to fall. The workmen at the shaft or pithead, in the neighbouring mines, thought, from the noise, that the shafts were run together. Those under ground heard it as if all the works had fallen down, one above another; and the walls of the drifts were sensibly felt to move so much, that in many of the works the workmen ran out for fear; at a cut-head in one of the earl of Hopton's works, the windlass turned about, and continued running till the rope hanked. One of the Earl's grieves was standing on a little mount of earth near one of the en

gines, and to him the noise was so great, that he did not doubt but something had broke about the engine, and the shock he could compare to nothing so much as that received from the common experiment to shew the force of electricity. The engines at Wanlockhead, which were then standing, were visibly seen to move; for the bobs of the machine, and the mount on which they were placed, seemed all of them to quiver. It was not only felt there, but in most of the adjacent country; at PenPunt particularly, where one of the workmen's wives was at the time it happened, the motion was so great that the ground seemed as if going to sink, and the people left their houses. A man passing the bridge on Sear-water, near that place, felt the bridge move under him. It lasted about a minute and a half.-Such another shock was felt at that place about the time that the earthquake happened at Lima.

Feb. 15. The address of the Lord Mayor and the rest of the commissioners of lieutenancy for the city of London, was presented to his Majesty by the Lord Mayor, attended by a great number of the said commissioners: congratulating his Majesty on the present peace, and his safe and happy return to his British dominions.

Feb. 16. His Majesty went to the House of Peers, and gave the royal assent to an act for granting an aid to his Majesty of 4s. in the pound, by a land-tax, for 1749; an act declaring the authority of the commissioners appointed by his Majesty, under the great seal of Great Britain, for receiving, hearing, and determining appeals in causes of prizes; to one road bill, and five private bills.

At Paris the general peace was proclaimed with the usual ceremonies. Next day Te Deum was sung in the metropolitan church there, and in the evening the fine fireworks erected at the Greve, were played off. The whole city was illuminated, and the fountains were kept running with wines, and bread and a variety of provisions distributed to the populace for three days together. But what added much to the general joy, was an edict published the same day, for abolishing the taxes on copper, hair powder, wax, tallow, paper, and pasteboard. This joy had however some alloy, for no less than ten persons were killed in the crowd; three more were killed by the fall of one of the great lamp-posts, a wo man was delivered in the crowd, and both herself and child trod to death, and upwards of forty were dangerously wounded and carried to the hospital.

The much expected drama of the bottleconjuror of the New Theatre in the HayMarket, ended in the tragi-comical manner following. Curiosity had drawn together prodigious numbers. About seven the theatre being lighted up, but without so much as a single fiddle to keep the audience in good humour, many grew impatient. Immediately followed a chorus of catcalls, heightened by loud vociferations, and beating with sticks; when a fellow came from behind the curtain, and bowing, said, that if the performer did not appear, the money should be returned. At the same time a wag crying from the pit, that if the ladies and gentlemen would give double prices, the conjuror would get into a pint bottle, presently a young gentleman in one of the boxes seized a lighted candle, and threw it on the stage. This served as the charge for sounding to battle. Upon this, the greatest part of the audience made the best of their way out of the theatre; some losing a cloak, others a hat, others a wig, and others hat, wig, and swords also. One party however staid in the house, in order to demolish the inside, when the mob breaking in, they tore up the benches, broke to pieces the scenes, pulled down the boxes, in short dismantled the theatre entirely, carrying away the particulars above mentioned into the street, where they made a bonfire; the curtain being hoisted on a pole, by way of a flag. A large party of guards were sent for, but came time enough only to warm themselves round the fire. No other disaster happened than a young nobleman's chin being hurt, occasioned by his fall into the pit, with part of one of the boxes which he had forced out with his foot. The conjuror vanished away with the bank. Many enemies to a late celebrated book, concerning the ceasing of miracles were greatly disappointed by the conjurer's non-appearance in the bottle; they imagining, that his jumping into it would have been the most convincing proof possible, that miracles had not yet ceased.

The evacuations in Italy were all completed about the same time with the last of those in the Austrian Netherlands; and Don Philip, now called duke of Parma, having embarked at Antibes, landed at Finale, and passed through the Genoese and Piedmontese territories; on the 5th arrived at Placentia, and on the 7th at Parma. And from Genoa we were advised, that the capitals which their bank had at Vienna and Milan were not only restored, but that they had begun to pay the interest from the day of the ratification of the definitive treaty of peace.

March 8. About a quarter after nine in the morning, the princess of Wales was safely delivered of a princess at Leicesterhouse; on which occasion the Park and Tower guns were fired, and in the evening there were bonfires, illuminations, and other demonstrations of joy in London and Westminster.

A proclamation was published, appointing Tuesday the 25th of April, to be soleninized as a public thanksgiving for the conclusion of the peace.

March 21. The Lord Mayor, aldermen, and common council of the city of London, waited on his Majesty with a loyal and dutiful address on the conclusion of the peace, to which his Majesty returned a most gracious answer.

March 22. His Majesty went to the House of Peers, and gave the royal assent to the mutiny and desertion bill, with se-. veral amendments, and to several road bills, and private and naturalization bills.

April 1. The young princess, daughter of their royal highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, was christened at Leicester-house, by the name of Louisa Anne; the prince of Hesse, the princess of Orange, and the queen of Denmark being sponsors.

The Lord Mayor, aldermen, and common-council-men of the city of London, waited on their royal highnesses the prince and princess of Wales, at Leicester-house, to congratulate them on the birth of a princess.

April 2. A great number of disbanded soldiers, discharged sailors, poor artificers, labourers, &c. who had accepted of land granted by his Majesty in Nova Scotia, attended on the lords of trade and plantations, at their office in Whitehall, and received orders for their being admitted, with their families and effects, into the transports to proceed in a few days to that settlement.

His Majesty gave a grant to the city and liberty of Westminster, for all the ground about the old bridge at Westminster, commonly called the King's bridge, for the more conveniently erecting a fish-market.

April 25. The general thanksgiving for the peace was observed on this day, according to the royal proclamation.

April 27. This night the grand fireworks were played off in St. James's park. Between nine and ten the pavilion on the right side of the machine took fire, and was burnt quite down; but by the great care of the people employed, it was prevented spreading to the centre part of the edifice.

The fireworks were numerous and bril

liant, and no accident of material consequence occured to damp the joy of the spectators.

The persons whohad entered themselves for Nova Scotia went on board the transports in order to sail for that settlement. The number of families who had entered themselves were about 3750.

May 26. The royal assent was given by commission to the following bills:

An act for the better securing the duties upon coal, culm, and cinders, exported. An act to prevent mischiefs, from keeping or carrying too great quantities of gunpowder.

An act to charge the sinking-fund with the payment of certain annuities, in discharge of navy, victualling, and transport bills, &c.

An act for remedying inconveniencies relating to the statutes of Hue and Cry.

An act for encouraging the people called unitas fratrum, or united brethren, to settle in the American colonies.

The act for more effectually preventing the importation and wear of foreign embroidery, brocade, &c.

The act for more effectually preventing frauds and abuses in the manufacture of hats, as also in the woollen, linen, fustian, cotton, iron, leather, fur, hemp, flax, mohair, and silk manufactures, &c.

An act for amending, explaining, and reducing into one act, the laws relating to the navy.

The act for a fund to provide for the widows and children of the ministers of the church of Scotland, &c.

The act relating to the letting of horses or furniture to persons riding post.

And to several road and private bills. June 3. A dreadful fire happened at Glasgow in Scotland, which burnt with such fury, and spread itself in so terrible a manner, that about 200 families were entirely burnt out, and reduced to the utmost distress.

June 13. His Majesty went to the House of Peers, and prorogued the Parliament to August 3, after having made a most gracious speech to both Houses and passed the following bills:

An act for granting to his Majesty one million out of the sinking-fund for the year 1749, and for enabling his Majesty to raise a further sum of one million for the uses and purposes therein mentioned, &c.

An act for rectifying mistakes in the names of several of the commissioners of the land-tax.

An act to enable such officers, mariners,

and soldiers, as have been in his Majesty's service since his accession, to exercise trades.

An act to establish the method of proceeding to and upon outlawries for hightreason and misprison of high-treason, in Scotland.

An act for continuing, explaining, and amending several laws.

An act for the further encouragement and enlargement of the whale fishery, and for the naturalization of such foreign protestants, as shall serve for the time therein mentioned, on board such ships as shall be fitted out for the said fishery.

And to several road and private bills. June 22. His Majesty held a chapter of the most noble Order of the Garter, in his palace at Kensington;

His royal highness Prince George, eldest son of the prince of Wales;

His serene highness the Margrave of
Anspach ;

The duke of Leeds;
The duke of Bedford;

The earl of Albemarle ; and
The earl of Grenville,

Were duly elected Knights of the most noble order of the Garter.

June 24. Daniel Collyer, esq. citizen and vintner, and Thomas Green, esq. citizen and fletcher, were chosen sheriffs of London and Middlesex for the year ensuing.

Sir Peter Warren, Sir Edward Hawke, Sir Charles Molly, Sir Charles Howard, Sir Charles Amand Poulet, Sir John Mordaunt, and Sir John Savile, were installed Knights of the Bath.

July 1. Two sailors thinking themselves ill used at a disreputable house, the sign of the Crown, in the Strand, went out denouncing vengeance, and in a little time returned with a great number of armed sailors, who entirely demolished all the goods, cut all the feather beds to pieces, and strewed the feathers in thes reet; demolished all the wearing apparel, and turned the women they found in the house naked into the street; they then broke all the windows, and considerably damaged another house adjoining. A guard of soldiers was sent from the Tilt-yard; but they came too late to prevent the destruction of every thing in the house. The next night the rioters returned, and treated two more houses in the Strand much in the same manner. A guard of officers and sixty soldiers were ordered to do duty near Temple-Bar, and at night a party of them did duty in the Old Bailey, to prevent any more riotous proceedings. Nine persons con

cerned in these riots were committed to Newgate by justice Fielding.

July 5. This day the duke of Newcastle was installed Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, with the customary ceremonies.

July 14. Mr. Couchman, lieutenant of the Chesterfield, and Mr. Morgan, lieutenant of marines, were shot, pursuant to their sentence, on board the Chesterfield man of war at Portsmouth.

July 20. His excellency the marquis of Mirepoix, ambassador extraordinary from the most Christian king, had his first private audience of his Majesty.

The right honourable the lord chancellor, chosen high steward of the University of Cambridge, in the room of his grace the duke of Newcastle, now chancellor of that university.

The city of Bristol, and the places adjacent, were alarmed with great multitudes of country people, who rose and appeared for several days in a formidable manner, destroying almost all the turnpikes, with their houses, thereabouts, and committing many other outrages, to the great terror of the inhabitants and persons passing that way. Several of them were taken up, and imprisoned in the Newgate at Bristol. August 1. This day about noon, when there was a great thunder storm, as Joseph Barton, who kept the Half Moon and Falcon, at Holloway, was standing at his foredoor, a very uncommon flash of lightning fell just by him, the explosion of which struck him flat on his back in the entry. On his rising, he beheld one part of his house in a cloud of smoke, which smelt like the firing of gunpowder. Going into the kitchen he found his man, crying out that his leg was broken, and at the same time swooned away, and remained blind and speechless for several hours, and his leg very much burnt. Proceeding further he found, that a chimney and the walls were rent two stories downwards, and great part of the tiling, laths, &c. carried entirely off. Part of the garret floor was raised up, and the door driven off the hinges, and an oaken frame, on which stood an old trunk, was shivered to pieces. In the chamber under the garret was a great beam of oak, which was split; a shutter was driven from the hinges, part of the wall moved from its place, and a sconce broken. The lightning also forced its way in four or five different parts of the front of the house. In some places it penetrated the walls like a musket ball, and in others shivered the oaken frames of the windows, shattered the glass, and melted

the lead, It also burst through the kitchen into the bar, the door of which it tore off, beat the plaistering about, broke some wood-work, and struck off the handle of a large jar, but never displaced any of the drinking glasses or decanters. The mistress of the house and maid, being in a back kitchen narrowly escaped, some part of the chimney falling upon them; as did a gentlewoman, who was there for her health, and her sister, by being in the parlour, (where they had bolted themselves in) at the first approach of the thunder and lightning.

August 3. The Parliament, which stood prorogued to this day, was further prorogued to Sept. 14.

August 12. This night, about ten o'clock a fire broke out in a building next the dyehouse of Mr. Spence, near Battle-Bridge, Southwark, which consumed the same, with the brewhouse of Messrs, Cox and Chichley, four wharfs, Mr. Walter's cooperage, and about eighty houses, with almost all the goods and furniture contained in them; besides many houses greatly da maged. In this calamity three men and one woman lost their lives, and one man had his leg broke; and a man was killed by the fall of a stack of chimnies. Upwards of 2000 quarters of malt, besides a large quantity of hops, and 800 butts of beer, were lost by this accident, the damage of which was said to be about 50,000l.

August 23. This evening a gallery in Mr. Phillips's booth in Bartholomew fair fell down, with a great number of people in it, by which accident Mr. Stringfellow, a goldsmith in Aldersgate-street, and Thomas Hodges, a journeyman plaisterer in Golden-lane, were killed; several others were dangerously wounded, two of whom, who had their limbs broke, were carried to St. Bartholomew's hospital.

August 27. This morning, about half an hour after three, a fire broke out at Mr. Harwood's in Grocer's-Alley, in the Poultry, which burnt that house, and Mr. Medley's adjoining, and three other houses, and very much damaged the Poultry-Compter, a loft adjoining to Grocer's-hall, and several other houses. There were above fifty persons in the Compter for debt, &c. who were all set at liberty for fear of being burnt; above forty of them afterwards returned. The felons, nine in number, escaped at the same time, and only one was retaken.

The eruption of the mountain of St. John, in Cumberland, was matter of great speculation to all the virtuosi. It happened in the night between the 22d and 23d in

stant, in the midst of the most terrible lightning and thunder that ever was seen or heard by the oldest man living ; a large rock near the top of the mountain was entirely rent asunder; out of which came so great a deluge of water, and that with such violence and rapidity, as carried all before it, solid stones of incredible weight, houses, barns, mills, &c. and even erased their very foundations, so that you could not tell where they stood; the mill stones were carried some hundred yards from the mill, and tossed upon the rubbish and sand, the quantity of which was so great, that it laid waste a large tract of arable and meadow land, for the future spoiled, being as deep in some places as the tops of trees.

It surpasses all credit to give every particular circumstance of this surprising cataract, which continued to discharge a large quantity of water of such a strange nature as to tincture all the river Derwent, quite down to the sea, which was near twenty

miles.

August 29. An order was made out to the Exchequer for remitting to Scotland the money certified by the lords of sessions, due to the nobility and gentry, &c. on account of the heritable jurisdictions in that kingdom, abolished by act of Parliament.

Sept. 3. A terrible fire broke out at Newport in Shropshire, which in about two hours consumed near twenty houses.

Sept. 7. The Parliament which stood prorogued to Sept. 14, was ordered to be further prorogued to Nov. 16.

Sept. 29. Sir Samuel Pennant, knt. alderman of Bishopsgate ward, was unanimously elected Lord Mayor of London for the year ensuing.

An eminent factor in the woollen manufacture, near the Royal Exchange, was taken into custody by one of his Majesty's messengers, for being a principal in the clandestine sending of artificers and utensils for the woollen manufacture to Spain, contrary to act of Parliament made in the third year of queen Elizabeth.

Sept. 9. Colonel Hobson, late governor of Cape Breton, arrived in town, and waited on his Majesty, who gave him a most gracious reception. Great civilities passed between the new French governor and him at leaving the place. He arrived in twenty-eight days from Nova Scotia, where he had staid near a month to assist the infant colony.

Sept. 15. The persons taken into custody on account of the woollen manufacture, were examined, and two persons who had been articled, but refused to go, were examined against them; upon which the

matter being fully proved, they were ordered into closer confinement.

A pardon passed the great seal, granted to George Mackenzie, esq. late earl of Cromartie, of the high treason whereof he stood convicted, and all other treasons by him committed, on or before the 25th of August, 1749, by reason of his being concerned in the late rebellion; with proviso, that if the said George Mackenzie should not be, and remain in such place as his Majesty, his heirs, &c. shall from time to time, by his or their sign manual direct, the said pardon to be void. His Majesty also was pleased to grant him the sum of 5007. per annum, out of his forfeited estates in Scotland, for the maintenance of his family; and to settle the rest of the money arising from the sale of his said estates upon his children.

A pension of 5001. per annum was also granted to the master of Lovat, son of the late lord Lovat, out of the estate belonging to the late Lord.

Oct. 20. Several persons concerned in transporting the woollen manufactures to Spain were re-examined, when two of them were admitted to bail, but the principal persons were ordered to be continued in close custody.

The distemper among the horned cattle again appeared near London.

Oct. 30. The Lord Mayor's day falling on a Sunday, Sir Samuel Pennant, knight, the new Lord Mayor, was this day, being Monday, sworn in at Westminster with the usual solemnity. This being also his Majesty's birth day, it was celebrated with the accustomed rejoicings; his Majesty then entering into the 67th year of his age.

A grant passed the great seal, wherein his Majesty was pleased to re-incorporate singular, all the freemen of the art of butchers of the city of London, and all others who then used or exercised, or should hereafter use and exercise the art within the said city, the liberties and suburbs thereof, or in any place within two miles from the said city; by the name of the master, wardens, and commonalty of the art or mystery of butchers of the city of London.

Bills were exhibited in the court of King's-bench against some of the persons concerned in transporting the woollen manufacturers; and the same day a great many of the most eminent Blackwell-hall factors of London waited on the secretaries of state at the Cockpit, Whitehall, with representations relating to that clandestine affair.