walls more or less: Villa Franca, however, is reduced to a heap of rubbish, and St. Ubes and fome other country places have fuffered feverely. There are feveral rents or chafms in the earth, through which confiderable quantities of fand and fhells have been thrown. If it had not been for the wife precautions taken by the king, the terror of the pepole was fo great, that this metropolis had probably been abandoned. The fea and the rivers gave visible marks of an uncommon agitation for ten days. After the earthquake, the king sent to defire the bishops to prevent their clergy from alarming the fuperftition of the people, by declaiming on the procuring caufe of earthquakes, and reprefenting them, though merely natural phænomena, as extraordinary teftimonies of heaven's wrath: for the fame reafon, no days of humiliation were appointed, nor proceffions, or public prayers, permitted here on this occafion. During the confufion occafioned by the fhocks, the prifoners in the feveral gaols here gained their li berty, to the number of 300 men and upwards; but, an embargo being immediately laid on all the fhips in the harbour, and guards placed at the feveral avenues into the town, they are fecured again, all but fourteen. They apprehend this city not to have been the centre of it; and that it has been more fatal to the northward. There have been three or four fmall fhocks fince the first, but none of any other confequence, than that they keep us in alarms; and the fears of the people feem rather to increafe than diminifh. Extract of a letter from a merchant at Theffalonica, the capital of Macedonia, to his friend in London. "Confiderable havock has been made by the plague here, though it is now pretty well over; but what with the earthquake of laft year, the rumbling noises ftill heard, and feveral fevere fhocks which happen almost every day, the country is become defolate, and the beft part of this magnificent city laid in ruins. It is a moft difmal fight to behold ftately palaces, and noble buildings, levelled with the ground, befides numbers of perfons of various quality that are buried in the ruins, and the ftench of whofe carcafes occafioned the additional misfortune of the above-mentioned plague; the latter, however, being, thank God, now abated, numbers of perfons are employed in removing the rubbish, in order to recover their jewels and other valuable effects. The bafhaw and principal inhabitants are likewife doing all they can to reftoré things to their former order. Yesterday we were terribly alarmed by a prodigious ball of fire, which rofe from the earth in the fouth-eaft,part of the city, and directed its courfe horizontally towards the weft, where entering a dark black cloud, it burft with a prodigious loud noife, attended with thunder and flashes of fire; fo that it feemed as if heaven and earth had been coming together. This was followed by fo violent a fhower of rain, that it threatned a fecond deluge. God preferve us, my dear friend, amidst this complication of troubles!" We alfo learn by fome fishermen, that that were upon the water coming in at that time, that the courfe of this earthquake was nearly from the S. W. to the N. E. and that they perceived the noife, as of a distant rifing wind, fome confiderable time before the shaking came on. Extract of a letter from a gentleman of Santa Cruz, South Barbary, dated April 17, 1761. "I am forry to tell you we have had two fhocks of an earthquake, the first was the 31st of March, at twelve at noon, which was very flight, and did no damage; the fecond was the 9th inst. at half past seven in the evening, and a most dreadful one it was; it did not laft above a quarter of a minute; had it lafted half a minute longer, the town had been infallibly laid in ruins ; it has split the walls of molt of the houses; and ours, though one of the ftrongeft, has fuffered greatly. We were writing when the duft and small ftones began to rattle about us; we immediately ran up on the top of the house, and the dreadful terror we paft that night in, fearing a return, can only be known by thofe that felt it. We are very far from being recovered from the confternation it put us in, The least noise alarms us; and we frequently think the ground fhakes when there is no fuch thing. God preferve us, and send us fafe out of this dreadful country." Barbadoes, April 5. On the 31ft of March, at four o'clock in the afternoon, fluxes and refluxes of the fea here, which abont eight feemed to abate, but at ten confiderably increased, and continued till fix o' clock next morning. It is obferved that the fame agitation of the waters was perceived here, at the time the earthquake happened at Lisbon in 1755. An earthquake was likewife felt on the fame day, the 31st of March, at the Madeiras. But the fland of Terceira, one of the Azores, feems to have been the centre of all thefe violent fhocks, as they ended there in dreadful eruptions, an account of which the reader will find in our article of Natural History for this year, page 98. An earthquake was felt at Roufillon in France, on the fame day these eruptions happened. APRIL. The fociety for the encouragement of arts, manufactures, and commerce, gave a premium to Mr. William White, master of the ftone pot-house at Fulham, for his inventing the art of making crucibles of British materials, which not only equal, but excel those imported from abroad, Ended at Guildhall the Sir Robert Ladbroke, Knt. 4306 3193 And on the 4th, Sir Robert Ladbrook, Sir Richard Glyn, William Beckford, Efq; and the hon, Thomas Harley, were declared by the theriffs, duly elected, to reprefent this city in parliament. On Monday laft were buried in one grave, William Davis and his wife. This couple had formerly lived in credit in Claremarket; but coming to decav. their funeral funeral was only fuch as parishes generally give; which coming to the knowledge of their old friends in their former neighbourhood, they made a collection, had them taken up out of their grave, and re-interred in a manner fuitable to the ftation they had formerly lived in. Ended the feffions at the 3d. Old Bailey, at which three received fentence of death, viz. Theodore Gardelle for murder (fee our Characters) one for forgery, who has been fince executed, and a woman for fhop-lifting, who has been pardoned: twenty to be tranfported for feven years; one to be whipped, and two were branded.Darwell, one of the thief-takers, mentioned the 25th ult. was found guilty of manslaughter, and the other acquitted. 66 t Geneva, March 11, We are told by perfons who vifit Mr. Vol. taire, that having fome moneymatters to settle at Paris, he made application to the king for leave to go there for fifteen days only. His majesty wrote in anfwer, with his own hand: "I give Voltaire leave "for fifteen days, for fifteen months, or fifteen years." Having received this anfwer, Voltaire is to go immediately to Paris. He left his feat, which is within pistol fhot of this city, a fortnight ago: and he will probably not return to it. He is gone to his handfome caftle of Fernay, in the province of Gaix, which is about a league and a half from this city. As to the reft, Voltaire is not beloved in this neighbourhood. He feems to ftudy to make himself enemies. They write from Rome of the 7th paft, that the pope had or dered a proof to be made of the gold and filver ores lately dug out of the mountain Polino, and medals of them to be ftruck upon trial: it is affured the pope hath refolved to fend for fome miners from Germany to work these mines. Count Konigsegg, great 6th. dean of the chapter of Cologne, was unanimously chofen elector of Cologne. This is the firft inftance, where a native has attained the honour of being chofen for its elector. A proclamation was iffued by the lords juftices and council of Ireland, declaring his majefty's pleafure for fummoning a parliament to meet at Dublin, May 19, the writs to bear tefte April 7. The court at Hicks's-hall lately committed Anne Martin, alias Chapney, to Newgate, where the is to be imprifoned for two years, pursuant to her fentence; the is accused of putting out the eyes of children, with whom he went a begging about the country; fhe has been feveral times whipped at the cart's tail. Extract of a letter from a gentleman at Rome, dated March 12, 1761. "It is with pleasure I can contradict what I have feen in your English news-papers, which mention, that there had been an earthquake at Naples. Tho' it had all the appearance of one, an English gentleman who was there, gave me the following account of it, which I fuppofe you have not yet had the particulars of. The eruption iffued from nine mouths; the principal one, in a few hours, by the great quantity of flones, cinders, &c. &c. which it threw up, raifed à hill 200 yards high; the lava, or melted matter which it difcharged, was a mile broad; the length I do not remember: it afterwards becomes ftone (with which they pave the Neapolitan ftreets.) In its courfe, which was flow, it detroyed vineyards, and fet on fire large trees. It is remarkable, it had always encircled the tree more than half an hour before it took fire, and then at, first it was all a blue fulphury flame; the matter is always red, like melted glass; but tho' it be a liquid, it is impoffible to make the leaft impreffion on it. The principal mouth fome times abated its violence for five or fix minutes, and threw out nothing but fome cinders and smoke; but then returned with fo great a force, that tho' Naples is 12 miles diftant from it, the fhock forced open the windows and doors, which gave rise to the report of the earth quake. The ftones which it threw up appeared as large as both hands clinched; and one might count flowly five hundred, from the time of their rising till the time they returned to the ground. The damage it has done is only a fourth of what is mentioned in the English papers, and does not exceed 15,000 1." Conftantinople, Feb. 18. A floop is arrived with fome Magnotes, who, either from obftinacy or inability, refused to pay the annual tribute to the Grand Signior. Thefe Magnotes, or Mainotes, are defcended from the ancient Lacedæ monians, and inhabit the Maina in the Morea, defending themfelves as well as they can against the tyranny of the Turk. They are fituated between two chains VOL. IV. Since the taking of the French frigates in October laft, the fquadron have brought in here, or des ftroyed, about eight of the enemy's privateers. The most remarkable of thefe little affairs were the two laft, brought, in here the other day, and taken by the boats of the Trent and Boreas, commanded by the first lieutenants of their refpective fhips, Meffrs. Miller and Stuart, in Cumberland harbour, there not being water to carry any of the fhips up to them, viz. The Vainqueur of 10 guns, 16 fwivels, and 90 Men; and Mackau, a small veffel of fix fwivels, and 15 men. The officers and men in the boats, behaved with great intrepidity, and boarded and carried the Vainqueur, under the ftrongest premeditated difficulties the enemy could lay. The Trent had three men killed, one milling, and one wounded. The Boreas had one killed, five wounded, and her barge funk in boarding. So foon as they had taken thele two veffels, they pushed on after the Guelpe, of eight guns and 85 men, which lay farther up in the Lagoon; but on their approach the French fet fire to her, and he was deftroyed. The lofs of the enemy is uncertain, for about forty of them jumped overboard when the boats boarded [H] the the Vainqueur, and ten men were 'found wounded on board. The Mackau made no resistance. 9th. Died the rev. Mr. William Law, author of many religious tracts, aged 75. A fire broke out at a bif11th. cuit baker's near Brown's wharf, Eaft Smithfield, which burnt down 28 houses, and greatly damaged 12 others. The king's brewhouse was preserved. Capt. Money, of the Nor13th. folk militia, and aid de camp to general Townshend, ftanding on a horfe's back, without a faddle, in full fpeed leapt over a five barr'd gate, and performed feveral other amazing feats of horsemanship in Hyde-Park, before their royal highneffes the duke of York, prince William Henry, and other perfons of distinction. A very ingenious piece of mechanism has been lately exhibited in the Thames at Richmond in Surry, by way of experiment; the offices of which (which are very easily conceived) compared with its fimple construction, are really wonderful. The defign of this machine, we learn, is for the cafy capture of fea-fifh, in the moft tempestuous weather, with out hazarding lives at fea, which certainly is a very great thing: and we are told, and clearly perceive it to be fo, that this machine is capable of fending into the fea, at proper places, fome thousands of hooks, baited; and of working the fame back, by the fole ufe thereof with the affiftance of two perfons only on fhore to work the machine, bait the hooks, and take off the fifh when brought to the fhore there. by. Thus far a machine in miniature has performed here; it has wrought out line near 100 yards from the land, and back again, with a proportionable quantity of hooks, baited; and notwithstanding the fcarceness of fresh water fish that bite at bait at this feafon of the year, particularly at this place, it has most furprizingly catched a number of fish, and that with no more ftrength to work the fame, than that of an infant, indeed even but pleafing amufement for fuch ftrength. This, now little, though great meaning affair, is moft certainly highly worthy of the countenance of the great, and the obfervation of the judicious and curious. It is therefore to be hoped, that a matter of fo promifing utility, by préferving the lives of fo many, caufing a plenty of fish, and giving employment to many of his majefty's fubjects, &c. &c. will be put in real execution. The young prince ftadtholder was feized with a fudden and violent fever laft Thursday evennight in the evening, and lay delirious all the next day, infomuch that his life was feared to be in great danger. The malady proceeding from an indigestion, fpeedy and proper remedies were applied, which had fo good an effect, that his ferene highness foon began to mend, and when the laft letters left Holland he was judged entirely out of danger. His moft chriftian majefty having been obliged to fufpend for three years the falaries of the parliament, and other courts of juftice, fuperior and inferior, has infifled upon the payment of the capita |