against her had been brought before a magistrate, she refusing to confess, had been ordered to be tortured. 2. That governor Picton, who condemned her to this torture, did not proceed from any motives of malice, but from a conviction that the right of torture was sanctioned by the laws of Trinidad; and that he was rooted in this opinion, by a reference to the legal written autho. rities in that island.

3. That whatever his conduct might be, it was certainly neither personal malice, nor disposition to tyranny, but resulted, if it should prove to be wrong, from a misap. prehension of the laws of Trinidad.

4. That one of the principal witnesses in this trial, M. Vargas, had brought forward a book, entitled Recopilacion des Leys de los Indes, expressly compiled for the Spanish colonies, which did not authorize torture. The defendant had no opportunity of ever seeing that book, but it had been purchased by the British institution, at the sale of the marquis of Lansdowne's library, subsequent to his trial; and having consulted it, it appeared that where that code was silent upon some cri. minal cases, recourse was always to be had to the laws of Old Spain, and these laws, of course, sanctioned the infliction of torture.

The court, after some consideration, granted the rule to shew cause for a new trial.

MAY.

2d. A circunstance took place at the house of a gentleman of fortune in the neighbourhood of Chelsea, which for a while caused consideraVOL. XLVIII.

ble uneasiness in the family. An elderly woman, of shabby appearance, knocked at the door of the house in question, and requested to have an interview with the lady of the house on an affair of considerable importance. She was refused admittance by the servant, when she insisted on her right of access to the house, being nearly related to the family by marriage. The gentleman was not at home, and the intruder was shewn into a back room, where she had an interview with one of the daughters. She represented herself as being the wife of her father, to whom she had been united in wedlock, as long since as 1772. This assertion caused great uneasiness in the family, as the intruder mentioned the place where the gentleman of the house resided, and with hearty tears she insisted on protection under the roof. She was suffered to remain in the house until the return of the alledged husband, whom she seized with apparent anguish and fondness. He, however, knew nothing of her, and her subsequent conduct was such as to require her detention. Her name, it appears, is King.

The abuses committed in the West Indies, are said to exceed every thing that was ever stated in romance. The commissioners are stated to have discovered that forged bills and receipts, for articles never purchased, and bills drawn on government indorsed under forged and fictitious names, were common and notorious. They found a most base collusion between the officers of government, and the merchants and contractors, by which the latter were allowed to charge stores at a much higher rate than they might have been obtained Dd

for

for in the market. In one instance it was discovered, that to conceal this iniquity, a bribe of 87,0001. had been given; in another a bribe of 35,0001. Vessels, houses, stores, &c. were usually hired at most extravagant rates, in consequence of fraudulent contracts, where others might have been obtained much cheaper. But worse than either of these iniquities was the diabolical fraud of suffering the merchants and contractors to furnish his majesty's troops with inferior and bad rum, and other articles, at an extravagant rate, by which the lives of the troops were endangered, as well as the country defrauded. And, for the purpose of committing these practices, all free competition for the supply of articles was prevented; and every obstacle was put in the way, even of the purchase of bills on the treasury. They were dated in one island and negociated in another; and they were sold at a much more advantageous exchange than that at which the officers debited themselves in

their accounts.

The following instance of coldblooded economy, in Bonaparte, is mentioned as a faéì:

When the English force, under sir J. B. Warren, had put into St. Jago, after the capture of the Marengo and Belle Poule, admiral Linois reque⚫ed of sir John permission to assemble the French officers, for the purpose of reading to them an imperial edict, which he had by. him for some time, and which materially affected his and their interests. The English admiral having accordingly assented to this demand, with all that urbanity and politeness which distinguish him, the French officers were got together, to the amount of nearly 70, when the

instrument in question was read to them by admiral Linois. It began by reciting, that his imperial majesty, Bonaparte, having had serious cause of chagrin and displeasure, at the repeated checks and disasters his naval force had hitherto experienced in the contest with England, was determined that it should undergo a thorough reform. Then, after many regulations for the better ordering and conducting his navy in time of hostility with other powers, and for the excitement of his sailors to he roic deeds, it concluded by stating, that in future all officers of his navy, who were captured by the enemy, should be from that moment reduced to one-fourth of their actual pay:

66 And you, gentlemen, therefore," continued Linois, “with myself, are hereby so reduced, and we must shift, as well as we can, with the little that remains!"

SHOCKING MASSACRE Account of the Massacre of the Officers and Crew of the Ship Atahualpa, communicated by Capt. Isaacs of the Montezuma.— "Theship, Atahualpa, had been lying at anchor in Sturgis cove, up Millbank Sound, three days. The natives had, during that time, been remarkably civil. On the 12th of June, 1805, they came of in several canoes, and desired captain Porter to purchase their skins; and about ten o'clock, Calete, the chief of one of their tribes, desired captain Porter to look over the side, and see the number of skins in his canoe. Capt. P. was complying, but was obliged to bend over the rail, when the chief threw his coat over his head, stabbed him twice between his shoulders, threw him overboard, and gave the signal for a general attack.

"Mr. John Hill, the chief mate, was shot through the body, but ran

below

below, got his musket, returned on deck, shot the chief, and gave him his mortal wound.

"John Goodwin, the second mate, shot dead.

"John G. Rackstraw was daggerel, and died immediately.

"Lyman Plummer was daggered, and lived until the ship was got out, when he requested the surviving crew to take care of the ship, and find captain Brown.

"Isaac Summers, cooper, Luther and Samuel Lapham, Peter Spooner, seamen, and John Williams, cook, were all killed. The cook defended himself bravely, as long as his hot water lasted, but that being expended, they cut him down with an axe. Three seamen, one Sandwich islander, and a Kodiac Indian, were dangerously wounded. Five more of the crew were slightly wounded; and three men and a Sandwich islander were all that escaped unhurt.

"These four at length bravely rushed through the crowd of Indians, got below, and finding a few muskets loaded, fired them through the loopholes, in the break of the forecastle, which terrified the natives, and many jumped overboard. The four men then regained the deck, and after fighting some time with a few Indians, who seemed determined to hold their prize, killed or drove all overboard. One canoe was now scen under the bows, endeavouring to cut the cable; but a swivel was brought from the after part of the ship, and discharged at them; ten were killed by the swivel, and one by a musket-shot, so only one was left alive in the canoe.

"The crew lost their jacket Enives, by plunging them into the sculls of the Indians, from whence

they were unable to draw them out. After the decks were cleared, the topsails were loosed, when the ship swung her head off shore, the cable was cut, and after some time beating, was able to get out of the Sound. Two days after were off Newatta; the wind coming a-head, shaped a course northward.

On the 13th of June, deposited the bodies of our murdered shipmates in the deep."

10th. This evening, at nine o'clock, a dreadful fire broke out at the dwelling-house of Mr. Steptoe, butcher, in Bear- alley, Flect-market, which consumed nearly the whole of his house, and a part of the adjoining one: very little of the property was saved. Mr. and Mrs. Steptoe were both at their shop in the market when the accident happened, and three fine children, who were in bed, perished in the flames.

As a young girl, named Anderson, of Deeping St. James, Lincolnshire, was returning from school, she was struck by a fire-ball, which caused her instant death.

Christopher Simpson, lately executed at Lancaster for highway robbery, confessed he had broken open above eighty houses, stolen thirty horses, and committed more highway robberies than he could remember!

The Gazette of this night contained his majesty's proclamation for a new copper coinage, of 150 tons of penny-pieces, 427 tons and a half of half-penny pieces, and 22 and a half tons of farthings. The penny-pieces are in the proportion of 24 to the pound avoirdupois of copper, and so on with the others.

The Vigilant, of 74 guns, in ordinary at Portsmouth, which sunk in January, is raised. It appears

that her sinking was not occasioned by any leak; but it is supposed the water, at various times, came in at the scuppers, and from the inattention of some persons on board her, she was neglected to be occasionally pumped.

A few days ago, at a sale of old furniture at Wolverhampton, a poor woman bought an arm chair for a few shillings; and shortly afterwards, on attempting to repair it, she found, in the stuffing of the back and bottom, gold and silver coins of George I. to the amount of 1001. The broker, on hearing of the circumstance, applied for legal aid to recover the property, but without effect.

It does not appear to be yet determined how far the plan of drill. ing and dibbling wheat answers the purposes of the farmer; but the following experiment, by Mr. Charles Miller, of Cambridge, shows to what an astonishing extent the increase of wheat may be carried with

care:

On the 8th of August, he took up a plant of wheat, which had been sown in the beginning of June, and divided it into 18 parts, each of which was transplanted separately; about the latter end of September, they were again removed, and divided into 67 roots; in the end of March following, and beginning of April, they were separated into 500 plants, which yielded 21,109 ears; and the single grain thus yielded 570,000 fold! the produce measuring three pecks and three quarters, and weighing 471b.

12th. The college committee met at the India-house; after which Charles Grant, esq. the late chairman; the honourable William F. Elphinstone, the present chairman;

Mr. Parry, the deputy; the secretary; Mr. Wilkins, the librarian, and the rest of the members of the committee, proceeded from the house in two carriages, for Hailybury, near Hertford, in order to assist at the ceremony of laying the first stone of the college, to be erected there for students, intended for the company's civil service in India.

Last week Matthew Mark Wat son, a youth about 16 years of age, was found hanging in a cellar at Huntingdon ; on being taken down, various experiments were tried to bring him to life, but to no purpose.

A spirit of inquiry led this youth to hang himself, in order to ascertain what sensations it would produce!

A short time since, a woodcock's nest was found by some children gathering fuel in Calvin's wood, in the parish of Bucklebury, Berks; the rarity of this excited a great deal of curiosity in the neighbour. hood, and drew numbers to the spot: the bird was daily flushed from the nest by her unwelcome visitors, who had thus repeated proofs that the eggs did not belong to one of any other genus, nor to another of the numerous species of the snipe; they are considerably larger than the partridge's, nearer the size of the Guinea-hen's, and speckled with a darker brown; the nest, placed on the ground, consists of dry leaves and feathers, which the hen apparently has plucked from her body.

Mr. Ekington, the celebrated drainer, got last year from some boggy land which he hired of lord Crew, the amazing produce of 174 bushels of good oats, from 5 bushels and eleven quarters of seed, sown broad-cast. This extraordinary re turn has been made from land which

a few

Earl Nelson, and his heirs, by a message from the crown, since confirmed by parliament, is to have a grant of 50001. per annum, and 120,000l. to purchase a family

estate.

14th. A ball of fire fell on a cottage, at Claverand-green, in the forest of Dean, and forced its way through the roof into the kitchen, where T. Davies, the owner, and his wife and child, were sitting, but happily without doing any damage, although a cask of gun-powder was in the same room, where it was kept for the use of the mine works in the forest.

15th. Owing to the cold of last night, several hundreds of the swal. low tribe, called Martins, had clung to the toll-table, against the turnpike house, at Whalley, in Yorkshire; those again had others covering them, four or five in thickness, all of whom seemed quite in a torpid state; several dozens were stroked off the board, and those taken up appeared completely lifeless, until about seven this morning, when the Sun's warmth caused re animation, and they gradually moved off to the water-side, a distance of about 30 yards; in a short time afterwards they began to skim the surface of the water, and fly with the usual vigour of those birds.

17th. This morning, about one o'clock, a dreadful fire broke out at Hungerford, Berks, and before assistance could be procured, ten houses were completely destroyed.

A singular swan was lately shot by John Kirknp, groom to sir Wilfred Lawson, bart. of Bray

This being the anniversary of Dr. Jenner's birth-day, the friends of the royal Jennerian society held their annual festival at the London tavern, at which were present about 300 persons, including the duke of York, the earls of Westmoreland, and Egremont, prince Castelcicala, doctor Jenner, and many of the most eminent of the medical profession. sion. After a variety of loyal and appropriate toasts, the health of the illustrious chairman, the duke of York, was given; when his royal highness was pleased to say, "Gentlemen, I have, from the first institution of the society, been a warm friend to it, from a conviction that it must be of unspeakable benefit to mankind. I am sorry to learn that some misrepresentations, from interested and sceptical individuals, have thrown a temporary damp upon it, and in some measure retarded its well-intended exertions; but, I have no doubt, it will soon evince to the world, that the advan-` tages resulting from it, are above all opposition, and that its good effects will speedily be extended to every quarter of the globe. No man cau more completely wish its success than I do; I request you will accept my thanks for the very flattering manner in which you have proposed my health, and give me leave to drink your's in return." This short address was received with rapturons applause. *

Dr. Lettsom, in an animated speech, observed, "As the smallDd3

pox