he was about to dispose of to government, to be used as a barrack, a measure which the lawless state of the surrounding district most urgently call ed for, when he fell by the assassin's hand. He was an active zealous supporter of the public peace, and he has fallen the victim of his public zeal, and of his opposition to the savage turbulence which has convulsed so long the country in his vicinity.

12th.-DRESDEN.-The explosion which happened here on the 27th of June, was one of the most tremendous recorded in history; it has crowned the calamities which have so long afflicted our unfortunate city.

During the armistice of 1813, the French erected before the Black-gate of the New Town a considerable têtede-pont, which they called the Emperor's entrenchment. In this entrench ment they constructed a large fort of wood, and a spacious vault, where they established a vast powder magazine, which was surrendered by the capitulation. This magazine contained upwards of 100,000 quintals of gunpowder, partly in barrels, partly in cartridges, grenades, &c. It was guarded by Russian soldiers.

On the 27th of June some Saxon artillerymen were to fetch a quantity of powder from this magazine, and a number of peasants had been ordered to remove it. Some detachments of Russian troops were exercising near the place. About half-past eight o' clock, part of the wooden fort blew up with such a tremendous explosion, that the ground was shaken to a great distance. All the men and animals within the distance of a thousand paces from the fort fell victims to this accident. Several persons were killed by the beams, the palisades, and other things belonging to the fort; and others suffered severely from the pressure of the air. The arms and legs of these unfortunate people were carried

to an immense distance. The buildings of the New Town, situated near the entrenchment, and among others the church, were so violently shaken, that not a single pane of glass in them was left whole, and the altar and organ were much damaged. The academy of the cadets has also suffered exceedingly. The barracks, in which 2800 Russians were quartered, are entirely ruined, and those troops had great difficulty to escape from them into the New Town.

The consternation occasioned by this misfortune was heightened, when it was known that the fire had communicated to that part of the wooden fort which contained the principal store of powder, cartridges, and grenades. The most prompt assistance was requisite to prevent an explosion still more dreadful than the first. An aulic counsellor had the courage to seize and pull away a beam that was on fire, and that alone would have been sufficient to annihilate us. The cellars where the powder was deposited were covered with earth and dung, and Heaven interposed in our favour. It began to rain about eight o'clock, and the rain lasted the whole day.

Even in the Old Town upwards of 1000 houses were much damaged by the shock. Beams were thrown to the opposite side of the Elbe, which proves the extreme violence of the explosion. It was felt as far as Pirna, which is four leagues from Dresden, and the windows were broken there in almost all the houses of Castle-street. The number of persons who perished by this catastrophe is not correctly ascer tained.

WATERFORD. About five o'clock in the evening two ruffians, armed, one with a blunder buss, the other with a carbine, apparently strangers, and their faces slightly blackened, entered the dwelling-house of Charles Crowley, woodranger, at Woodhouse, in this

county Crowley was absent, but the intruders made his son Francis accompany one of them into an inner room in search of arms, while the other was stationed at the door. Shortly after they had entered the room, a shot was fired by the man on the outside, which almost instantly killed Crowley's daughter, a young woman about 20 years of age. The search was imme diately abandoned: the villains ran off, and have hitherto escaped detection.

15th. Mr Sadler and his son this day ascended in a balloon from the court-yard of Burlington house, at halfpast three in the afternoon. As the balloon proceeded, the travellers were distinctly observed, each waving a flag which he held in his hand. In about eight minutes it disappeared. Mr Sadler has since published the following account of his voyage:

"After the balloon had cleared the east wing of Burlington house, our ascent was slow, and only evidenced by the apparent receding of objects; for it was not we who seemed to rise, but every thing beneath us to retire. In a few minutes we were perpendicular with Leicester square, and our pros pect was at once grand and awful; the whole of London and its magnificent buildings lay below us, with its sur rounding fields, canals, and parks; the beautiful serpentine form of the river, with its rich shippin, docks and bridges. We enjoyed this scenery for about 15 minutes, and at a quarter before four o'clock entered a dense cloud, which completely shut us out from all sight of the earth: at this time we could sensibly perceive the balloon to be rising. When we had soared through this cloud, my son observed to me, that, from the variegated colours reflected and refracted from the multitudinous congregation of vapours around us, and the effulgence of differ ent lights, he could scarcely see to any

VOL. VII. PART II.

great distance, or make any distinct observations on the numberless forms around us; although, from the shadow of the balloon on the more opaque clouds, could easily discover that we had altered our course towards the south-east. From the intense cold, and a most violent pain in my ears, which I never experienced before, our height could not be less, in my calculation, than five miles. The late Right Hon. Mr Windham, about thirty years ago, indeed experienced a similar attack in his ears, though we had not then ascended above two miles and a half; but from my best observations, calculated upon former experience, we must have been about that height. My son soon after found the same effect, though in a much slighter degree.

66 By the various currents of air, and the renewed motion of the machine, I judged we were approaching the sea; and requesting my son to open the valve, we perceived ourselves rapidly descending. The clouds were so near the earth, that, after lowering for the space of a quarter of an hour, though we distinctly heard the lowing of the cattle, we could not discover terra firma; but shortly after the clouds opened themselves beneath us, and displayed the variegated fields and the river Thames, and informed us that we had again altered our direction, and were returning from the south-east to the north-west; and, sailing over the Lower Hope and East Tilbury, we had a distinct view of the mouth of the river, Sheerness, Margate, Ramsgate, &c. with their coasts and shipping; but the clouds collecting and rolling over each other, again enclosed us in visible invisibility. After again descending below the clouds, we saw an inviting hay-field at a considerable distance, and opening the valve again, a sufficient quantity of gas escaped for us to reach the proposed spot; and, after

g

throwing out the grappling-iron, which immediately took effect, we came to the ground without any unpleasant convulsion. We remained quietly in the car till all the gas had evaporated, by which time a number of spectators reached the place, but not before every thing had been properly secured. Our descent was at Great Warley Franks, near Ockenden, Essex, where we were hospitably entertained and accommodated by Mr S. Francis, the occupier of the land. A chaise being prepared from Brentwood, on which the whole of the apparatus was placed, we returned to Burlington-house again about 11 o'clock."

A dreadful riot, attended with very melancholy consequences, took place at the race course of Downpatrick.

It appears that a very great and unusual assembling of country people, all armed with sticks, and some with pistols, was observed on the race course on Friday, and it was understood that a preconcerted disturbance was to be the consequence, as, for several days before, it was said without hesitation, that "the Orangemen had their day on the 12th of July, and they (the Threshers) should have theirs on the Friday of the races. About four o'clock on that day, a quarrel (many present say a sham fight) took place between two men, which in an instant attracted a great crowd, apparently on the watch, and a disturbance ensued, and continued for a considerable time, till it became so alarming that the magistrates found it necessary to send to Down for a detachment of the Middlesex militia, quartered there.

When the military were drawn up, the rage of the assembled crowd was directed almost wholly against them, and they were assailed with vollies of stones from behind the tents, and many opprobrious names. The militia all this time kept their ground with the

greatest coolness. The great mass, some thousands, it is said,) emboldened by the quiet manner in which the soldiers acted, advanced so near as to bid them defiance, pelting them with stones, by which some of them were injured and knocked down. The soldiers were then ordered to fire with blank cartridge; but this only made the mob more riotous. They were then ordered to fire with ball: two men instantly fell, and a great many were wounded; four or five are in the infirmary. A number of the rioters were taken prisoners and lodged in jail; one of them had four pistols in his possession, another had two.

Louis XVIII. has issued a long ordonnance regulating the naval service, and limiting the officers to 10 vice-admirals, 20 rear-admirals, 100 captaines de vaisseau, (40 of the first class, and 60 of the second class) 100 captaines de frégate, 400 lieutenants, and 500 ensigns. The annual pay of each rank is, vice admirals, 12,000 francs; rear-admiral, 8000; capitaine de vaisseau, 1st class, 4000; second class, 3600; capitaine de frégate, 2300; lieutenant, 1600; ensign, 1200.

16th. This day a great concourse of people assembled in Covent Garden, to witness the election of a representative for Westminster in parliament, in the room of Lord Cochrane expelled. Sir Francis Burdett concluded an animated speech by proposing the re-election of Lord Cochrane, which was seconded by Mr Sturch. Mr Wishart and Mr Alderman Wood severally addressed the meeting, and the motion was carried unanimously. After the election the Westminster committee, accompanied by Sir Francis and Mr Jones Burdett, repaired to the King's Bench prison, to congratulate Lord Cochrane upon the result, and to deliver the following address :-

Committee-room, King-street, Covent

garden. July 16, 1814.

My lord, I am directed by the committee of electors of Westminster, appointed at the general meeting held in New Palace yard on Monday the 11th instant, to acquaint your lord. ship, that you were this morning nominated as a fit and proper person to fill the vacancy in the representation of the city of Westminster in parliament, occasioned by your lordship's expulsion; and that you were immediately reelected, without opposition, and with the most lively expressions of universal approbation. The committee further direct me to convey to your lordship their sincere congratulations on an event so happily demonstrative of the sense which your constituents entertain of the accusation which has been brought against you, and of the very extraordinary proceedings by which it has been followed up; and to assure your lordship, that it affords them the highest gratification to find that you are able to oppose, to the envenomed shafts of malice and party spirit, the impenetrable shield of conscious innocence. They rejoice to see that the prejudices, occasioned by gross and shameless misrepresentations, are fast wearing away from the public mind: and they trust that the time is near when your lordship's character will appear as fair and unblemished in the view of every individual in the British empire, as it now does in the eyes of the electors of Westminster.

SAMUEL BROOKS, chairman.

To Lord Cochrane.

To which this was the reply of Lord Cochrane :

King's Bench, July 18, 1814. Sir,-Amongst all the occurrences of my life, I can call to my memory no one which has produced so great a degree of exultation in my breast as

this, which, through a channel I so highly esteem, has been communicated to me, that, after all the machinations of corruption (bringing into play her choicest agents) have been able to effect against me, the citizens of Westminster have, with unanimous voice, pronounced me worthy of continuing to be one of their representatives in parliament. Merely to be a member of the House of Commons (as now made up) is something too meagre to be a gratification to me. But when I reflect on that love of country, that devotion to freedom, that soundness of judgment, that unshaken adherence to truth and justice, which have invariably marked the proceedings of the citizens of Westminster; and when I further reflect, that it is of Sir Francis Burdett whom they have now, for the third time, made me the colleague, how am I to express, on the one hand, my gratitude towards them, and, on the other, the contempt which I feel for all the distinctions of birth, and for all the wealth and all the decorations which ministers and kings have it, under the present system, in their power to bestow!-With regard to the case, the agitation of which has been the cause of this to me most gratifying result, I am in no apprehension as to the opinions and feelings of the world, and especially of the people of England; who, though they may be occasionally misled, are never deliberately cruel or unjust. Only let it be said of meThe Stock Exchange have accused ;Lord Ellenborough has charged for guilty the special jury have found that guilt ;-the court have sentenced to the pillory; the House of Commons have expelled ;-and the citizens of Westminster have re-elected. Only let this be the record placed against my name, and I shall be proud to stand in the calendar of criminals all the days of my life. In requesting

At Candar Mill, near Stonehouse, a very wonderful circumstance took place on Monday. As a boy, three years of age, was playing near the mill, he fell into the lead, and was carried by the current below the wa ter-wheel, whose circumference moves within two inches of the rock. It happened that one of the paddles was broken; into the interstice so formed, the boy was providentially borne by the water, and thence he was carried round below the wheel, and thrown out upon the shore, apparently lifeless; but he was happily recovered by the exertions of his friends, and is now, with the exception of a slight bruise upon his arm, in good health.

20th.-Louis Buonaparte has published in the Gazette of Arau, a letter of the 18th ult. in which he formally renounces, for himself and his family, all right to the property assigned to him by the convention of last April at Fontainbleau, as well as an estate given him in 1810 as an indemnity for the crown of Holland. The former is 200,000 francs a-year (about 80001. sterling).

21st. The Prince Regent gave a superb fete to Field-marshal the Duke of Wellington. On this occasion the temporary erections in the gardens of Carlton-house, which have been so long in preparation, were used for the first time; and the whole of the entertainment exhibited a splendour and magnificence which have probably never been exceeded in this country.

The Duke of Wellington appeared

in regimentals, wearing the brilliant insignia of the various orders with which he has been invested, and of course was the great attraction of the night, One of the temporary rooms, also, was wholly devoted to the display of military trophies, among which were the colours of his grace's regiment, the standard of England, and other military decorations. Nor was the navy, the bulwark and glory of Britain, neglected, an opposite room being fitted up with naval trophies and appropriate devices.

Besides the principal branches of the royal family, there were present the foreign ambassadors, the ministers, the great officers of state, a great number of foreigners of rank, and a numerous assemblage of the nobility and persons of distinction. From the number of officers who were present, many of whom had served in the pe ninsula, the entertainment assumed the appearance of a military fete; and they might in all amount to between 1800 and 2000. There were 2500 persons invited.

The weather proving favourable, the gardens were brilliantly illuminated, and afforded an agreeable promenade, About three o'clock in the morning a shower of rain fell, but it was too slight to prevent their being frequent. ed. The façade of Carlton-house, and the court-yard, were also illuminated. The company began to arrive at nine o'clock; but they had not all arrived till near one. They were received at the grand entrance by the prince's equerries in waiting, who con, ducted them to the suit of temporary rooms in the garden. The first of these was a tent, decorated with plate. glass, and white and rose-coloured draperies. This tent led to the large new polygon-room, which measured 120 feet in diameter. Each side of this spacious room was groined and