here I can't find that any perfon felt any fuch thing. As to what happened here, it was about fix o'clock in the evening; near dead lowwater the tide rofe fuddenly in our Strand, about two feet higher than it was, and went out again in the fpace of four minutes with great force, which repeated feveral times, but the first was the greatest."

Extract of a letter from Amfterdam, April 15.. "We have an account from Paris, that a little before the departure of the poft for this country, an exprefs arrived there, in feven days, from Madrid, with advice, that a violent fhock of an earthquake had been felt there, and along the coaft of Spain, on the 31st of March. This news is confirmed by letters from Bayonne, which add, that a pretty fmart fhock, which lafted three minutes, was felt there the fame day. And from Bourdeaux they write, that a fhock of an earthquake was felt there on the 1ft of April, about one in the after

noon.

Thefe accounts have made us recollect the vibrations which we 'thought we obferved here [at Amfterdam] on the 31st of March, between half an hour after one and two in the afternoon, particularly in the fynagogue, where the branches feemed to move; and in the great church at Maefland Slys, the branches moved about a foot from the perpendicular;, and the veffels in the harbour were agitated."

A letter front on board his majefty's fhip Gofport, in the Downs, dated April 16, fays, "On the 31ft ult. in our paffage here from Lifbon, being then in the latitude of 44. 8. N. long. 5. 10. off the rock

of Lisbon, Cape Finifterre, bearing. E. S. E. about 80 leagues, at three quarters pait eleven in the forenoon,. the weather quite calm, we were alarmed with two violent fhocks of an earthquake, which was felt by all the merchantmen under our convoy, fome of whom the violence of the fhocks caufed to make water: The first continued near a minute and a half; the fecond not fo long The fhaking of the fhip was not unlike that occafioned by letting go an anchor, and the cable running faft round the bits, or by a fhip's ftriking on a funken rock, which many aboard thought to be the cafe, till they recollected the fhocks felt by fhips at fea, during the great earthquake at Lisbon the Ift of November, 1755, and which the fhocks they now felt perfectly refembled.

Extract of a letter from Corunna, March 31. "We had this day at noon a most violent fhock of an earthquake, which lafted fome minutes: no houses fell down at this place, but many removed fome feet from where they ftood before. The conful's house, which may be numbered amongst the ftrongeft houfes in all Europe, has been moved at least four feet forward to the fea, and its fronts towards the water fide have altered their afpect (in sea phrase} better than two points of the compass."

Lisbon, April 15. We had an earthquake here the 31ft ultimo, which lafted longer, and to the apprehenfions of the inhabitants was much brifker than that which overturned the city but paffing in a direct line, did no other mischief than splitting most of the

:

walls

walls more or lefs: 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 people was fo great, that this metropolis had probably been abandoned. The fea and the rivers gave vifible marks of an uncommon agitation for ten days. After the earthquake, the king fent 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 liberty, 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 finall thorks 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 diminith.

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 last year, the rumbling noises still heard, and feveral fevere fhocks which happen almoft 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 bashaw and principal inhabitants are likewife doing all they can to reftore things to their former order.

"Yefterday 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 welt, 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 carth had

been coming together. This was followed by fo violent a fhower of rain, that it threatened a fecond deluge. God preferve us, my dear friend, amidst this complication of troubles!"

We alfo learn by fome fihermen,

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 diffant rifing wind, fome confiderable time before the fhaking came on. Extract of a letter from a gentleman of Santa Cruz, South-Barbary, dated April 17, 1751. "I am forry to tell you we have had two fhocks of an earthquake, the firft was the 31ft of March, at twelve at noon, which was very flight, and did no damage; the fecond was the 9th inft. at half paft feven in the evening, and a moft 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 moft of the houfes; 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 houfe, 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 leaft noife alarms us; and we frequently think the ground fhakes when there is no fuch thing. God preferve us, and fend us fale out of this dreadful country."

Barbadoes, April 5. On the 31ft of March, at four o'clock in the afternoon, flexes and refluxes of the fea here, which about eight feemed to abate, but at ten confiderably increafed,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 31ft of March, at the Madeiras. But the island 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 thefe eruptions happened.`

APRIL.

The fociety for the encourage; ft. ment of arts, manufactures, and commerce, gave a premium to Mr. William White, mafter of the ftone pot-houfe 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 poll 2d. for members for the city of London, when the numbers were for

Sir Robart Ladbroke, Knt. 4306 Sir Richard Glyn, Bart. 3285 William Beckford, Efq; 3663 Hon. Thomas Harley, Efq; 3993 Sir Samuel Fludyer, Bart. 3193

And on the 4th, Sir Robert Ladbroke, Sir Richard Glyn, William Beckford, Efq; and the hon. Thomas Harley, were declared by the fheriffs, 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 decay their

funeral

funeral was only fuch as parifhes 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 seven years; one to be whipped, and two were branded. Darwell, one of the thief-takers, mentioned the 25th ult. was found guilty of manflaughter; and the other acquitted.

Geneva, March 11. We are told by persons who vifit Mr. Voltaire, that having fome moneymatters to settle at Paris, he made application to the king for leave to go there for fifteen days only. His majefty 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 piftol fhot of this city, a fortnight ago; and he will probably not to 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 thefe mines.

6th.

Count Konigsegg, great dean of the chapter of Cologne, was unanimoufly chofen elector of Cologne. This is the first inftance, where a native has attained the honour of being chofen for its elector.

A proclamation was issued by the lords juftices and council of Ireland, declaring his majefty's plea. fure for fummoning a parliament ta 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 imprisoned for two years. purfuant to her fentence; the is accufed of putting out the eyes of children, with whom fhe went a begging about the country; the 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 pleafure I can con tradict what I have feen in your English news-papers, which men, tion, that there had been an earthquake at Naples. Tho' it had all the appearance of one, an Englith 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 ftones, cinders,

&c.

&c. which it threw up, raised a 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 streets.) In its courfe, which was flow, it deftroyed 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 firft it was all a blue fulphury flame; the matter is always red, like melted glafs; but though it be a liquid, it is impoffible to make the leaft impreffion on it. The principal mouth fometimes abated its violence for five or fix minutes, and threw out nothing but fome cinders and fmoke; but then returned with fo great a force, that though Naples is 12 miles diftant from it, the fhock forced open the windows and doors, which gave rife to the report of the earthquake. 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 rifing 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 15,0001"

Conftantinople, Feb. 18. A floop is arrived with fome Magnotes, who, either from obftinacy or inability, refused to pay the annual tributes to the grand Signior. Thefe Magnotes, or Mainotes, are defcended from the ancient Lacedæmonians, and inhabit the Maina in the Morea, defending themselves as well as they can against the tyranny of the Turks. They are fituated between two chains of VOL. IV.

mountains which advance into the fea, are a courageous people, and amount to above 40,000 men. Their government is a kind of republic; they are always at war with the Ottoman Porte. Extract of a letter from rear-admiral Holmes, commander in chief of his majefty's fhips at Jamaica, to Mr. Cleveland, dated at Port Royal Harbour in Jamaica, Dec. 31, 1760.

Since the taking of the French frigates, in October laft, the fquadron have brought in here, or deftroyed, 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 fmall 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 ftrongeft premeditated difficulties the enemy could lay. The Trent had three men killed, one miffing, and one wounded. The Boreas had one killed, five wounded, and her barge funk in boarding. So foon as they had taken these two veffels, they pushed on after the Guefpe, 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