272 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1809. 



to be a check. By this means he 

 was paid for checking what it was 

 his interest not to check. But he 

 had secretly become this supplier ; 

 he had obtained the money he had 

 gained by this abuse of his trust 

 through the help of false vouchers ; 

 which, if they amounted not to a 

 forgery, approached very near to 

 the crime of obtaining money un- 

 der false pretences. The defendant 

 had, the learned judge remarked, 

 paid into the exchequer the sum of 

 ] 8,882/. \3s. Id. as the commission 

 which he had thus obtained upon 

 the goods he himself supplied ; and 

 this was some atonement for his 

 crime ; but it was not the only pu- 

 nishment with which the govern- 

 ment and people, burthened as 

 the latter were by the increase of 

 taxes, could rest satisfied. The Court 

 therefore sentenced him to be impri- 

 soned in his majesty's gaol of New- 

 gate for 21 calendar months. 



This term, added to the defend- 

 ant's imprisonment since his trial, 

 will make the whole two years. 



MAY. 



1. Longevity. — In the retired pa- 

 rish ofLlanbetIr, in the isle of Angle- 

 sea, there is now living a woman of 

 the name of Winifred Rees, who has 

 attained the patriarchal age of 119 

 years, and nearly seven months; she 

 enjoys the undisturbed leaseof a cot- 

 tage, in which she has resided 105 

 years. She is blessed with the per- 

 fect use of all her mental faculties, 

 her eyes being as good as they were 

 when she was in her 50th year, and, 

 strange as it may seem, has scarce- 

 ly a grey hair on her head.— On the 

 27th of March last, she walked the 

 distance of eight miles and back 



again to a relation's cottage, bring- 

 ing home with her a parcel weigh- 

 ing upwards of 22 lbs. 



An experiment exciting much 

 interest was tried at Woolwich this 

 day, the invention of capt. Manby, 

 barrack-master of Yarmouth, for 

 the purpose of getting a communi- 

 cation with vessels stranded on a 

 lee-shore, to save their crews in the 

 darkest night. Three requisites 

 were necessary to effect this import- 

 ant object, first, to discover pre- 

 cisely where thewrecked vessel was, I 

 if it was not in the power of the 

 crew to point out her distressing si- 

 tuation by luminous signals ; se- 

 condlj', to lay the piece of artillery 

 with accuracy for the object ; third- 

 ly, to make the flight of a rope per- 

 fectly discernible to those on shore, 

 and to those for whose safety it was j 

 intended. A small mortar firing a 

 paper ball high into the air, at a 

 certain calculated distanceitwasex- 

 ploded, disengaged ashower of large 

 balls of fire that kept a luminous 

 fall nearly to the horizon, where the 

 vessel was supposed to be seen, and 

 a stand, having two perpendiculars 

 in it, was pointed to the object ; 

 the stand supposing to have ascer- 

 tained the direct position of the 

 wrecked vessel, the mortar was to 

 be placed behind it directed to the 

 line of the two perpendiculars, and 

 the rope regularly laid on the 

 ground in its front ; the mortar 

 being loaded with a shell, having 

 three large fuses or rather rockets 

 in it, which, when fired, carried 

 the rope surrounded by such an 

 immense blaze of light that could 

 scarcely be conceived. All before 

 whom the experiment was made, 

 congratulated the inventor, and ex- 

 pressed their conviction of its uti- 

 lity. 



Our 



