CHRONICLE. 



441 



dor : In the van an elephant ; seve- 

 ral men on horseback, who admi- 

 nistered a constant supply of coffee 

 and hookahs during the march ; 

 some troopers, two of them carry- 

 ing un'ton-jacks ; nine led horses, 

 elegantly caparisoned in the Persian 

 fashion ; 12 rnniiing footmen, two 

 gold sticks, and two silver sticks, 

 mounted ; Mr. Manesty ; the gen- 

 tlemen of his suite ; a led horse be- 

 fore each ; 40 gholams, or Persian 

 guards, dressed in orange-coloured 

 cloaths, and armed with shields, 

 swords, and carbines ; and the sepoy 

 guards. The whole made a most 

 splendid spectacle, and attracted the 

 admiration of all the inhabitants of 

 the villages and towns. 



14th. This day the King of Spain 

 declared war with the usual ceremo- 

 nit^s against tlie King of the United 

 Kingdom of Great Britain and Ire- 

 land.* 



John Prinsep, Esq. citizen and 

 skinner, and M. P. for Queen- 

 borough, was elected alderman of 

 Lime-street ward, in the room of 

 Sir Watkin Lewis, who succeeds to 

 Bridge-street Without, as father of 

 the city, vice Alderman Harley. 



1.5th. Josiah Boydell, citizen and 

 stationer, was this day elected alder- 

 man of Cheap-ward, vice his late 

 uncle, of the same name. 



17th. This day at Woolwich as 

 some men were filling a thirteen inch 

 shell, in ramming the shell it burst, 

 and wounded seven, three mortally. 

 One of the three died an hour after- 

 wards, the others in a few days. 



18(h. This night at 11 o'clock a 

 dreadful fire broke out at a linen- 

 drapers in the market-place at Ply. 

 iHOuth, when seven dwelling and 



warehouses were burntto theground, 

 and several others materially da- 

 maged. 



21st. Pursuant to notice in " the 

 Gazette," a considerable rise took 

 place this day in the fares of hack- 

 ney coaches, on account of the high 

 price of oats. 



29th. There has not been known, 

 since the memory of man, so great 

 a flight of sea-birds to our coast as 

 in the present season. The number 

 of ducks, teal, widgeon, and other 

 birds of that kind, caught this year, 

 is out of all precedent, and they 

 have been proportionably cheap. It. 

 is accounted for by the cxtraortli- 

 nary severity with which the winter 

 has set in, in the northern latitudes, 

 which has obliged those birds to 

 take refuge in our more temperate 

 climate. 



Tliis day two young men were 

 found dead in a West Indiaman, out- 

 ward bound, lying off Woolwich ; it 

 is supposed that they had drank too 

 much spirits, and fell asleep, when 

 they became frost-bitten. 



30th. A lieutenant of the navy, 

 in shooting birds at Fratton, near 

 Portsmouth, as he inadvertently at- 

 tempted to divide the briars with the 

 butt end of the piece, it being on 

 full cock, the trigger caught to a 

 bramble, and the cojitents of thegim 

 were discharged through the officer's 

 heart, who expired immediately. 



An excellent sermon Avas preach- 

 ed at Saint Patrick's chapel, So- 

 ho-square, for the bcneiit of the. 

 school bearing that name, which is 

 composed of the children of the in- 

 digent inhabitants of St. Giles's, 

 when the collection amounted to up- 

 wards of 1001.; a circumstance 



* Vide State Papers of this Vol. 



highly 



