years ago; and we certainly very much resemble the Romans in the decline of the republic, when, they wished for nothing preter panem et circences. But happily this act is of eafy evafion; and I mean, by your favour, to inform my fair countrywomen, whom I wish to fee all well married, that whenever they are inclined to make the dear youths happy, they have nothing ro fear either to themselves or their iffue from the invalidity of marriages made in Scotland. There were indeed in Scotland certain laws, which required certain forms to be obferv ed in marriage, but thefe laws are now obfolete; and none of them ever affected the validity of the marriage, and only one of them the legal fettlements, and that was refcinded anno 1699. By the law of Scotland now, nothing more is required to make a marriage than the confent of the parties, declared in fuch a manner as that it can be proved. No joining of hands, no clergyman, no confummation is neceffary. If the parties agree before two witneffes to live together as man and wife, that of itfelf is fufficient. I could prove this by every Scotch law author who has wrote on the fubject. But I fhall only trouble you with a quotation from a late inftitute, by John Erkkine, Efq; Scotch law profeffor in the univerfity of Edinburgh; a book defervedly of the greateft authority in all their law courts. He fays, "Marriage is fully perfe&ted by confent, which, without confammation, founds all the conjugal rites and duties. It is not neceflary that marriage fhould be celebrated by a clergyman. The confent of parties may be declared before any

magiftrate, or fimply before witneffes. The father's confent was, by the Roman law, effential to the marriage of children in family; but by our law children may validly enter into marriage, without the knowledge, or even against the remonftrances of a father." So that parties have now nothing to fear on that head.

Indulge me but a minute longer to add, that though, by the English law, children born before marriage are not legitimated by the fublequent marriage, the cafe is otherwife in Scotland; fo that people who have children begot in fornication, and who would gladly marry if the legitimation of these children might be the confequence, have only to go to Scotland, where their marriage will certainly have that efeffect. The above author fays, "Baitards may be legitimated, or made lawful, by the fubfequent marriage of the mother of the child with the father; and this entitles the child, by our prefent practice, to all the rights of lawful children."

I hope this information may be of ufe next month; and, in the midst of national jealoufies, we fhould remember that the above are fome of the little advantages we derive from our vicinity to Scotland.

W. ALFRED.

Tranflation of an address to the Englifh nation, by the celebrated Monfeur De La Condamine, during his late refidence in London.

R De La Condamine, knight

of St. Lazare, one of the forty of the French academy of Sciences

at

at Paris, and of almost all the academies in Europe, particularly for above fifteen years fellow of the royal fociety of London, lately arrived in London, took a lodging in Suffolk-ftreet, at a milliner's, at the fign of the Golden Angel. He had lived in this houfe for about eight days, when, on Friday the 26th paft, returning home at nine o'clock in the evening, he perceived he was followed by two men very fhabbily dreffed, one of whom was armed with a flick. They both entered into his chamber, and feifed him, at the fame time prefenting him with a paper, and threatening him by word and gefture, making a fign for him to follow them.

Let any one put himself in the place of a stranger, who has the honeur to be perfonally known to many of the firft nobility, and perfons of diftinction in London, and who was that very day to have been prefented to his Britannic majefty: let him judge at the furprise a man muft feel who thought himfelf fafe under the feal of public faith, and yet found himself feifed in his own lodgings at nine o'clock at night by brutal officers, whofe language he did not understand, and threatend by them to be draged to prifon.

Happily indeed reflection came to his affiftance. He judged that in England, as in France, judiciary decrees are not executed in the night, and that all thefe preparations were defigned only to intimidate him, and force him to give up his lodgings. He difcovered befides that the landlady only wanted a pretence to put another perfon, to whom he had let it, into poffeffion of his apartment, and that the was

acting this farce. M. De La Condamine declared that he would not quit it, and that he would write immediately to the minifter charged with the affairs of France, fince the departure of the ambaffador: but they would not permit him to tranfcribe in his letter the ftrange warrant by virtue of which they pretended to take him up. At length, the worthy bearer of this warrant making a fign with his fingers which feemed to be very familiar to him, gave him to underftand that if he was paid, he would carry the letter himself; and the moment he got two fhillings he and his comrades, who perhaps had no other defign, difappeared with the letter, which was never delivered according to the direction.

The perfon to whom this adventure has happened, has travelled to Algiers, to Tunis, to Tripoli, in in Barbary, in Egypt, in Paleftine, in Syria, in Carmenia; to Conftantinople, upon the banks of the Black fea: he traversed above a thoufand leagues in America through countries uninhabited but byfavages, without having ever experienced fuch ill treatment as he has met with at London.

He has taken the advice of counfel in what manner he must act, who are all agreed that he can hope for no juftice or fatisfaction, and that the bett thing he can do, is to be filent; nevertheless he is tempted to addrefs him felf immediately to the English, who pique themselves upon knowing and practifing the rights of humanity. He confults them by the means of the public papers, to know if it is agreeable to the laws, in which they glory, that a ftranger who believes himself to be

[M] 4

[The puerility of the foregoing address is fo glaring, that we do not think there can be any neceffity for inferting the answers to it. But we cannot help remarking with one of thefe anfwers, that thirty thousand of M. De La Condamine's countrymen are gone home to refute the charge of barbarifm against us. We are more in pain for what the character of M. De La Condamine himfelf may fuffer from fo filly a performance, as we think that no other apology can be made for it, than that old adage of, Nemo mortalium omnibus horis fapit.]

Ringe, then about 19, and from

that time fhe behaved with lefs kindness to her husband, and they were frequently difpleased with each other, though they do not appear to have lived together upon what the world calls "ill terms."

But at whatever time Mrs. Beddingfield firft conceived an inclination for Ringe, she did not discover it till he had lived in the family fix months, and from this time they feem to have taken little pains to conceal it from others; both the maid fervants had feen him kifs her, and found her fitting in his lap, knew that they were often alone together, and fometimes in her chamber; fuch, indeed, was Mrs. Beddingfield's unaccountable indifcretion, that the frequently fet one of the maids to give notice of her master's coming when the and Richard were alone in his abfence:

Bedding field.

JOHN Beddingfied was a farmer Sternfield in the county of

Suffolk. He was a young man, fcarce 24 years old. When he was about 20, he married a young woman fcarce 17: About Michaelmas 1761, fomewhat more than a year and a half ago, they hired two fervants, Richard Ringe, and Elizabeth Cleobold, a nurfc-maid, they having then two children living, one of which was not more than three months old. There aifo lived with them at that time Elizabeth Riches, William Materfon a lad about 14, and John Nunn a boy of ten years old.

Till this time the young couple had lived very happily together, but it happened, unfortunately, that Mrs. Biddingfied took a liking to

in the fame houfe, and fent them by the maids. Their criminal in

timacy, however, had not been carried to the laft excess, if Ringe's dying declaration is to be believed, but Mrs. Beddingfield's mind being more and more alienated from her hufband, fhe became impatient to get him out of the way, that the great obftacle to her connection with Ringe might be removed. She at length went fo far as to tell Ringe, that he could not be eafy till her husband was dead, that she might marry him. To this he faid he paid little regard for fome time, but it being often repeated to him, he at last liftened with too much attention, and it was agreed between them that Beddingfield fhould be murdered.

After this refolution had been taken, Mrs. Beddingfield was weak

enough

enough to throw out intimations that fomebody in the house would die; that it would happen foon, and that fhe thought it would be her hufband; and one day being putting on her cap in her chamber, and Cleobold the nurse-maid coming in, fhe defired her to put in her ear-rings, faying, It would not be long before she fhould want black ones. In the mean time Ringe was taking measures to accomplish these predictions, but was under the fame infatuation with his mistrefs: As he was one night fitting up for his mafter with Elizabeth Riches, his miftrefs being gone to bed, he took the strange refolution of telling her, that he had procured fome poifon to poifon his master, and urged her to adminifter it, by putting it into the rum and milk that he drank for breakfast. The girl refufed; but he continued his follicitations, faying,He would be a friend to her as long as he lived, and that nobody would know it.' The girl honestly and fenfibly replied, That if it was hidden in this world, it would not be hidden in the world to come; and refused to concur in his horrid propofal fo firmly and warmly, that he urged it no more. The girl, however, not fenfible of the guilt he would incur by concealing a defign to commit a murder from the perfon against whom it was formed, nor ftruck with a fenfe of the expediency of fo doing, to prevent the murder from being actually committed, took no notice of what had passed.

Ringe, finding that he could not get Riches to adminifter the poison, refolv'd to take fome opportunity af administering it himself; while he was watching for fuch opportunity it happened that his master

being flightly out of order took a vomit, and the water with which he was to work it off being made too hot, Ringe was fent to the pond to get fome cold water to mix with it; into this water, as he was bringing it from the pond, he put fome arfenic, which he had bought of an apothecary at Aldeburgh, and being mixed with the hot water fome of it was given to his master; but his mafter obferving fomewhat at the bottom of the cup, refused to drink it, though without the leaft fufpicion that it was poifon, and fo for that time escaped the danger.

From this time the murderers feem to have given over all thoughts of effecting their defign by poifon, and to have formed the project of strangling Beddingfield in his bed.

The house feems to have had two rooms on the ground floor, besides what was called a back-house; one of thefe rooms was a kitchen, the other a parlour, over thefe there were two chambers, the first from the landing place was called the kitchen chamber, being over the kitchen, and out of this was a door that went into the other chamber, which being over the parlour was called the parlour chamber, and could only be entered through this door; on the other fide of the landing place was a chamber, called the back-house chamber, becaufe it was over the back-house, and joining to that, but divided from it by a partition of lath and plaifter, was another chamber, which was alfo over the back-houfe, and to which fome back-ftairs led from below, it having no communication above flairs with the rest of the houfe. Beddingfield and his wife

ufcally

ufually lay in the parlour chamber; the kitchen chamber feems to have been a fpare room. Cleobold and Riches, the two maids, lay in the back-houfe chamber, and Ringe and the two lads, Mafterfon and Nunn, in the chamber joining to it, the lads in one bed, and Ringe in the other.

In order to give Ringe an opportunity of killing his mafter in the night, when he fhould think circumstances molt favoured his defign, Mrs. Beddingfield found fome pretence for lying alone in the kitchen chamber, and he lay in the parlour chamber.

On the 27th of July laft, Beddingfield had been bufy in the harvest field, and had pitched a load of wheat; he had alfo fold a beaft to one Scarlet a butcher, whom he brought home with him early in the evening; with Scarlet he drank part of two bowls of punch, freely, but not to be fuddled. Mrs. Beddingfield left him over his liquor about ten o'clock, and went to bed in the kitchen chamber, but as he had given fome intimation that he would not lie alone that night, and as she was, notwithstanding, determined he should not lie with her, the ordered Cleobold to come to bed to her, which he did; Riches, the other maid, was left to fit up till her mafter went to bed. In about half an hour Scarlet went away, and Riches lighted her mafter up ftairs; when he came into the kitchen chamber, and perceived that Cleobold was in bed with his wife in that room, and as he could not go to bed to her there, as he intended, he defired her to go into bed in the parlour chamber with him; this the refufed, and he went into the parleur chamber

and got his cap; then he came back again, and endeavoured to perfuade his wife to come to him, which the ftill refufing they parted, and though with fome difcontent on his part, yet without anger, for they wished one another a good night. When Beddingfield went into the parlour chamber to bed, Riches retired to her own room, the back-houfe chamber; Ringe and the boys had been in bed an hour, and every thing was filent in a fhort time.

But Ringe, though he had retired about ten o'clock, and pretended to go to bed, had taken off only his coat, waistcoat, and fhoes, and lay down with his breeches and ftockings on.

He had obferved that his master drank freely in the evening with Scarlet, and thinking he would go to bed fuddled, fuppofed he should attack him with advantage, and therefore determined to make his attempt that night as foon as he fhould be fallen into his first fleep.

Having this in his mind, he lay awake, watching to hear his master come to bed; he did accordingly hear him come up, and go into the chamber, and having waited half an hour after that, and finding the houfe in a profound filence, he concluded that he was fallen afleep, and determined that he should wake no more.

He had given no intimation to his miftrefs of his having determined to commit the murder that night, nor did he know but that, as his mafter lay alone in the parlour chamber, the lay alone in the kitchen chamber: However, he got out of bed, and without putting on his coat or waistcoat, he