144 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 251. 



GENERAI, WASHINGTON AND BR. GORDON. 



Messrs. W. S. Lincoln & Son, of Blackfriars 

 Hoad, Booksellers, in a Catalofjue just published, 

 announce for sale a cabinet inlaid with ebony, 

 rosewood, and pearl : 



" Confidently said to have been presented by General 

 Washington to Dr. Gordon, while acting as his private 

 secretari/, by whom it was brought from America to 

 England, where he died. His widow for some time 

 resided at St. Peter's, Ipswich; at her death, which 

 occurred about six years back, the cabinet, with other 

 effects, was sold bj' auction." 



The Rev. William Gordon, D.D., author of 

 The History of the American War, 4 vols. 8vo., 

 1788, became pastor of a dissentin<r church at 

 Ipswich in 1754. He removed in 1764 to Old 

 Gravel Lane, London ; and in 1770 to America. 

 After two years, he was installed pastor of the 

 third church in Roxbury. During the war, he 

 took an active part in public measures; and was 

 chosen chaplain to the Provincial Congress of 

 Massachusetts. In 1786 he returned to England; 

 and in 1789 was resettled in the ministry at St. 

 Neots, Huntingdonshire ; but he afterwards re- 

 turned to Ipswich, and died there" Oct. 19, 1807, 

 aged seventy-nine years," as appears by his grave- 

 stone in the burial-ground attached to the Meet- 

 ing House in Tacket Street. On the same stone 

 is inscribed : " Elizabeth Gordon died Nov. 18, 

 1816, aged eighty-seven years." 



Query 1. VVas not this his widow ? 



Query 2. Was Dr. Gordon ever private secre- 

 tary to Washington ? S. W. Rix. 



Beccles. 



Huntingdon Witchcraft Lecture. — In an His- 

 torical Essay concerning Witchcraft, by Dr. Fran- 

 cis Hutchinson (afterwards bishop of Down), 

 London, 17J8, p. 101., it is stated that Sir Samuel 

 Cromwell gave forty pounds to the mayor and 

 aldermen of Huntingdon for a rentcharge of forty 

 shillings yearly, to be paid out of their town lands, 

 for an annual lecture upon the subject of Witch- 

 craft, to be preached at their town every Lady 

 Day, by a Doctor or Bachelor of Divinity of 

 Queen's College, in Cambridge. The above sum 

 was the value of the goods of the witches of War- 

 bois, who were condemned at Huntingdon, April 

 4, 1593, for bewitching various persons, among 

 whom was the Lady Cromwell. Is this rentcharge 

 still paid ? and is the lecture still preached ? These 

 Cromwells were, I presume, of the same family as 

 he Protector Cromwell. Is it so ? E. H. D. D. 



^^ Bihliotheca Hibernicana." — In Shaw Mason's 

 Bihliotheca Hibernicana, or, a Descriptive Cata- 

 logue of a Select Irish Library, collected for the 



Right Hon. Robert Peel, 8vo., Dublin, 1823, the 

 following paragraph occurs, p. 4. : 



" The present attempt, perhaps, would not have been 

 made, had he not been able to avail himself of the assist- 

 ance of a literary friend, who is now engaged in preparing 

 a similar work on a much more extended scale ; being 

 designed to comprehend whatever has been written upon 

 Ireland, so as to form a complete Irish Historical Library. 

 A work of much labour and research, and to the com- 

 pletion of which he is not without hopes that this joreZw- 

 sion may have given a stimulus." 



What has become of this undertaking ? Was 

 it left ready for the press ; or was it relinquished 

 through want of encouragement ? A publication 

 of the kind is much to be desired. Abhba. 



Genealogical. — Can any of your correspondents 

 give me any information with respect to the fol- 

 lowing subjects : 



1. Which of King John's daughters married 

 William, Earl of Pembroke, and the first few 

 generations of their family ? 



2. Any information with respect to a certain 

 Prince Guisch, from whom I have heard that the 

 Wises of Totness and the neighbourhood are de- 

 scended ? 



3. Any information with respect to William de 

 Lodryngton of Great Gunby, of whom there is 

 still existing a monumental brass in the church 

 of the above-mentioned place. Had he any chil- 

 dren, and how many ? 'ApxaiopiXos. 



Capture of the Spanish Treasure-frigates in 

 1804. — In an article in the 40th volume of Black- 

 wood, styled " Recollections of the Siege of Cadiz," 

 an account, marked by the utmost violence of lan- 

 guage, is given of this transaction. Without dis- 

 cussing the merits of the question (on which I 

 believe the world in general has come to a more 

 lenient judgment than this writer, who seems trans- 

 ported beyond the bounds of reason in treating of 

 it), is there any ground for the extraordinary in- 

 sinuation It contains, that the late Sir Graham 

 Moore acted on the occasion without any orders, 

 and entirely on his own responsibility, " knowing 

 that it would gratify his countrymen?" I never 

 heard that the ministry of the day put forth such 

 an excuse, fiercely assailed as they were on this 

 point ; on the contrary, they vindicated it as a just 

 and politic act, although Informal. 



J. S. Warden. 



Registration Act. — The Act for the secular 

 registration of births, marriages, and deaths, directs 

 that If after a child has been registered under a 

 certain " christian " name. It shall be baptized 

 under another different " christian " name, such 

 baptismal name shall be added in the register in a 

 column provided for the purpose. 



Query, Which is the legal name ? 



Such a case having occurred, the Registrar- 

 General " can offer no opinion as to which of the 



