à l'agonie, and it was not imagined he could outlive the day. His majetty, however, lingered till near noon the following day, when he expired, as fincerely lamented by all his fubjects as he had constantly lived beloved and respected by them, during a reign of upwards of 22 years. This melancholy event has plunged all the royal family into the deepest affliction. The prince of Piedmont, his son, who succeeds him, is 45 years of age, being born 1751; and marri ed, 1775, to Marie Adelaide, fifter of Louis XVI. king of France, whose brothers, the count of Provence and the count D'Artois, married his two fisters.

NOVEMBER.

Tuesday last, in Lincoln's4th. inn-hall, the lord chancellor, after hearing the exceptions to it argued, confirmed the master's report in the Downing cause. The master has reported, that the present annual value of the estates devised to the college amounts to 4500l. This preliminary point being at length obtained, after a contest of many years, an application will immediately be made to the crown, to grant a charter for the incorporation of Downing college, in the university of Cambridge.

5th.

When the house of commons was on the point of rising to-day, a man in the front of the gallery held forth a paper to the house, and exclaimed in a loud voice, "treason! treason! I wish to denounce treason to the house, whatever may be the consequences to myself." The speaker immediately ordered the gallery to be clear

ed, and the man, whose name is said to be Matthews, was taken into custody by the messengers; but upon its evidently appearing that he was infane, he was instantly discharged.

An awful and fingular hail-storm occurred in Norwich. Two very vivid flashes of lightning illumined the southern and northern hemis pheres, succeeded by heavy peals of thunder, while the hail, which fell profusely, appeared impregnated with fire.

8th. Boston. Information being given upon oath, to the magistrates at Boston, that preparations were making in some of the neighbouring villages to obstruct, by force, the deputy-lieutenants, in the execution of the militia-laws on the following days, expresses were immediately dispatched to Joshua Scrope, efq. captain commandant of the South Holland squadron of loyal Lincolnshire gentletlemen, and yeomen cavalry, and to Thomas Wilson, esq. captain of the Spalding troop, to request their assistance in repelling any unlawful force, and in maintaining the public peace. Although the commanding officers received this message very late in the evening, and many of the volunteers in their respective troops live at a great distance from each other, yet such was the zeal andalertness displayed in collecting them, that they arrived at Boston on Wednesday morning about 10 o'clock. A few minutes afterwards the rioters entered the town in a large body, blowing horns, and armed with staves, having forced into their company a great number of servants and labourers in husbandry: but, feeing the cavalry drawn up in the market-place in military order, they

time impossible, his majesty, in order to obviate all further delay, has therefore been pleased to direct them to be forwarded in this manner. Allow me to express the great fatisfaction I feel in being made the channel of communicating to your lordthip, fo diftinguished a mark of his majesty's approbation. I have the honour to be, my lord, (or fir),

Your lordship's most obedient humble fervant, "SPENCER." Admiralty, 30th Nov. 1796.

[The admirals to wear the medal fufpended by a ribband round their necks. The captains to wear the medals fufpended to a ribband, but faftened through the third and fourth button hole, on the left fide. The colour of the ribband blue and white.]

In lord Grenville's grounds 30th at Dropmore, Bucks, fome labourers, in digging for a fishpond, have found a great number of oaks buried in the earth, twelve or fourteen feet deep; they are uncommonly large, fome of them fifty feet long, and the greater part perfectly found. They were all laid clofe together, and nearly in one direction. If they have been depofited there by fome great inundation, which is the general conjecture, it is rather fingular; for the place where they have been found is by far the highest spot in Buckinghamshire.

DIED, 17.-Catharine II. emprefs of all the Ruffias. She had been indisposed several days previous to the 16th, but on the morning of that day was very chearful, and took her coffee as usual to breakfast. She afterwards went to the water closet, where the already had been twice in the course of the

morning, and as the stayed an unusual time, her attendants became extremely alarmed. At length one of her pages went to the door to liften, and not hearing the leaft motion, called one of her principal female attendants, who opened the door, and found the empress extended on her back, with her feet towards the door, in an apoplectic fit. Medical affiftance was instantly fent for; but three quarters of an hour elapsed before her chief phyfician, Dr Rogerfon, arrived. She was then bled twice, and appeared to be much relieved, but never spoke afterwards. She remained in this state till the following evening The pulsation of the heart was perceptible till nine o'clock; but a quarter before ten the physicians pronounced her dead. When opened, two ftones were found in the gall-bladder, one of which weighed an ounce, and the other half an ounce, Ruffian weight, which is one third less than the English weight. The empress was daughter of Chriftian Augustus, prince of Anhalt Zerbst, born May 2, 1729, married, Sept. 1, 1745, to Peter III. grandfon of Peter the Great, who being deposed July 9, 1762, she was proclaimed fole empress of all the Ruffias. In 1768, the established a new code of laws through her dominions; and the fame year she submitted to the hazard of inoculation for the benefit of her dominions, where it was unknown; and the experiment, under Baron Dimsdale, succeeded perfectly, and was commemorated by an annual thanksgiving. The first war in which the engaged was with the Turks in 1769, which continued five years; and, July 21, 1774, peace was figned, whereby

the

the Crimea was declared independent of the Porte, a large tract of country between the Bog and the Dnieper, was ceded to Ruffia, befides several iflands reftored, with free navigation in all the Turkish feas, including the paffage of the Dardanelles, privileges granted to the most favoured nations, and stipulations in favour of the inhabitants of Moldavia and Wallachia. In 1782, the concluded a commercial treaty with Portugal, and, in 1783, with the Danes; and, 1782, founded the order of Wladimir. In 1783, she opened a communication with both Indies. In 1784, she granted free trade to the coafts of the Euxine fea, and took a journey to the Crimea. In 1787, the endeavoured to establish an EastIndia trade, ordered the geography of her empire to be explored; established three new universities 1786; and, among other exertions in fayour of the arts, purchased the Houghton collection of pictures 1779, and Mr. Lyde Brown's collection of antique statues. War was again declared with the Porte 1787. She had an interview with the emperor of Germany at Cherson, and with the king of Poland at Kiow, the fame year: the former joined her in the war with the Turks. In 1788, war was declared againft Sweden; and the Ruffian troops entered Poland by force, and demanded quarters and forage. In this war her Imperial majesty poffefsed herself of Oczakow, with the flaughter of only 12,000 men. The war between Ruffia and the Porte still continuing, Great Britain, whose mediation had been rejected by the former, began to arm in 1791, in defence of the latter. Peace was at length figned that year between

the two rival powers, the Porte making large ceffions of territory to the empress; and between Ruffia and Sweden 1791. After the attack of the Thuilleries, and deposition of Louis XVI. on Aug. 1792, the empress recalled her ambassador from France, and ordered the French ambassador to quit her capital in eight days. Whatever be the moral character of this great princess, the always exerted the most surprizing talents and abilities: Ruffia has been exalted to a pitch of grandeur and cultivation which Peter the Great can only be faid to have begun. Her rapid progrefs from weakness and barbarism to civilization and a mighty state, with dominions extended by every effort of political skill and artifice, has been moft aftonishing. Providence, whose ways are beyond the reach of human reafon or conjecture, permitted Catharine II. to make this use of her ufurped dominion, and to anticipate, by the removal of a weak confort, by means unwarranted by every principle of justice and humanity, that most important of all revolutions in the hiftory of human kind, the civilization of so large a portion of the human race, and the cultivation of the wildest and most untrodden desarts. For whom of her fucceffors it may be reserved to annihilate the Ottoman power is not for us to say. Her only fon and fucceffor to the crown, Paul Petrowitz, was born Oct. 1, 1754, married Oct. 1, 1776, to the princess Sophia Dorothea of Wirtemberg Stutgard, who, after her converfion to the Greek religion, took the name of Maria Federowna, and by whom he has three children.

When the empress was taken ill, the present emperor was at Gatchina, a country palace, about 28 English miles from St. Petersburg. He reached the capital about eight in the evening; and,

immediately after his mother's decease, was proclaimed before the palace in the usual form; and the whole court, which was there afsembled in anxious expectation from the morning of the empress's accident to the moment of her death, immediately took the oath of allegiance to the new fovereign, as did also the four regiments of guards; and every thing passed with the greatest order and tranquillity. At the George inn, North20th. ampton, on his journey from Buxton to London, that respectable veteran of the bar, Edward Bearcroft, esq. M. P. for Saltash, chief-justice for Chester, and a king's counsel; whose memory will be long and fincerely respected by all who had the honour of his friendship, or enjoyed the pleasure of his fociety.

Mr. Bearcroft was an example of industry and perfeverance at the bar. Many years he had hardly practice enough to support him with the severest economy, and thought of relinquishing the law in despair; but, in time, his good sense and knowledge of the law excited confidence, and, till his hearing was affected, he was one of the most successful of its profeffors, particularly in cases were legal opinions were requifite.

DECEMBER.

This day the tide in every 3d. part of the Thames was very high. In Tooley-ftreet the inha

bitants were taken out in boats; and a large quantity of foreign wheat, upon the ground floors of the warehouses, was much damaged.

The following mode of raif

5th. ing the loan of 18 millions was proposed and recommended by the bank directors on Wednesday last. One million was fubfcribed by the bank in their corporate ca pacity, and four hundred thousand pounds by the directors individually; and before the close of the books the first day, five millions were subscribed by different merchants and others. At ten o'clock this morning the parlour doors at the bank were opened, before which time the lobby was crowded. Numbers could not get near the books at all; while others, to testify their zeal, called to the perfons at the books then signing, to put down their names for them, as they were fearful of being fhut out. At about twenty minutes past eleven, the subscription was declared to be completely full, and hundreds in the room were reluctantly obliged to go away. By the post innumerable orders came from the country for subscriptions to be put down, scarcely one of which could be executed. And long after the subscription was closed, persons continued coming, and were obliged to depart disappointed. It is a curious fact, and well worth stating, that the fubscription completely filled in fifteen hours and twenty minutes: Two hours on Thursday, fix ditto on Friday, fiæ ditto on Saturday, and one ditto and twenty minutes on Monday-fifteen hours, twenty minutes.

The duke of Bridgewater ac tually