Qua §: No 9., Mar. 1. '56.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES, 
169 
structing forts, &c., to control the disaffected 
Highlanders. 
I will only give a few extracts from this corre- 
spondence. The following is a letter from the 
Duke of Newcastle to the Duke of Montague, 
Master-General of Ordnance. It is dated at 
Whitehall, May 6, 1746: 
“ My Lord, 
“H. R. H. the Duke of Cumberland, having repre- 
sented to His Majesty that it is necessary that new forts 
should be erected at Inverness, and where Fort Augustus 
stood, I am commanded to signify to your Grace H. M. 
pleasure that you should immediately give directions for 
a proper person to repair to Scotland to receive H. R. H. 
directions for erecting such forts accordingly. 
“JT am, my Lord, your Grace’s most obedient 
humble Servant, 
“Hoiiis Newcastie.” 
The next letter is from Charles Bush, Esq., 
Secretary to the Ordnance, addressed to William 
Skinner, Esq. : 
“ Office of Ordnance, Nov. 1, 1746. 
“ ir. 
“H.R. H. the Duke of Cumberland, intending to be at 
Woolwich on Tuesday next, to see the Saxon’s new in- 
vented guns, his Grace, the Master-General, desires you 
will attend the Board there by 9 o’clock in the morning. 
“T am, Sir, yours, &c., 
“ CHARLES Busu.” 
In consequence of this interview William 
Skinner received, on 31st December following, 
his appointment to proceed to Scotland, to carry 
into effect the wishes of the Duke of Cumberland ; 
and having arrived at Edinburgh, he immediately 
writes to the Secretary, Mr. Bush. His letter is 
dated there Jan. 16, 1746-7, and gives an account 
of his journey ; and after describing the vile roads 
in Scotland, he adds: 
“TJ find it (Edinburgh) as dear as London, and if pos- 
sible, more disagreeable than Old Gibraltar, occasioned 
by the intolerable nastiness, our hogs there being kept 
more clean. I wish myself at my journey’s end, where, 
when arrived, I shall acquaint the Board.” 
In another letter, addressed to the Board of 
Ordnance, and dated at Inverness, February 7, 
1746-7, he announces his arrival, and after giving 
an account of the state of the roads, and also of 
the bad weather he had experienced, he adds: 
“ That it has tried the constitution of one who has 
been twenty years in the warm climate of Spain.” 
From some circumstances I presume the above 
Lt.-Gen. Skinner was descended from the ancient 
family of the Skinners of the co. Hereford. He 
had been in the service as an engineer for sixty- 
one years, of which period he had been chief en- 
gineer twenty-three years. He built Fort George 
and many other works. In the early part of his 
service he had been stationed for twenty years at 
Gibraltar. He was appointed “chief engineer” of 
Great Britain in 1757. During the latter part of 
his life he resided at Crooms Hill in Greenwich, 
where he died on December 24, 1780, in the 
He left no issue sur- 
eighty-first year of his age. 
CHartHaM. 
viving him. 
The Seven Prelates.— Mr. Macaulay, in his 
History of England, speaking of the seven prelates 
committed to the Tower by James IL., says: 
“On the evening of Black Friday, as it was called on 
which they were committed, they reached their prison 
just at the hour of divine service. They instantly hast- 
ened to the chapel. It chanced that in the second lesson 
are these words: ‘In all things approving ourselves as 
the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in 
distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments.’ All zealous 
churchmen were delighted with this coincidence, and re- 
membered how much comfort a similar coincidence had 
given near forty years before to Charles I. at the time of 
his death.” — Vol. ii. p. 363. 
What was the other “ coincidence” here alluded 
torae 
This suggests what an interesting and valuable 
body of notes might be made on the Scriptures 
and Prayer-book to passages which have thus had 
a fortuitous historical influence, or which have 
had a critical influence on the minds of great men. 
If another class of literature — our best books — 
were to have similar references applied, a glorious 
book would be the result. I may append an in- 
stance of both: “ God shall wipe away all tears 
from their eyes” (Rev. vii. 17.), was Burns’s fa- 
vourite text. Dr. Arnold could never read the 
blessing of Abdiel in Paradise Lost (book vi. lines 
29. to 54.), without being deeply moved. Would 
not contributions to these heads be suitable for 
PRAMS aa Fi iple 
THE GRAVE OF NELSON. 
In Mr. Cunningham’s introduction to the erypt 
of St. Paul’s, appears this antiquarian notice of 
the grave of Nelson: 
“The sarcophagus which contains Nelson’s coffin, was 
made at the expense of Cardinal Wolsey, for the burial of 
Henry VIII. in the tomb-house at Windsor.”— Handbook 
of Modern London. 
The coffin was constructed from the mainmast 
of the “ Orient;” part of which was picked up 
after the battle of the Nile by the “ Swiftsure,” 
and expressly prepared by her captain (Hallowell) 
[* The “coincidence” alluded to is that of the exe- 
cution of Charles I. “For by a signal providence,” says 
Wheatly, “the bloody rebels chose that day for murder- 
ing their king, on which the history of Our Saviour’s 
sufferings (Matt. xxvii.) was appointed to be read as a 
Lesson. The blessed martyr had forgot that it came in 
the ordinary course; and therefore when Bishop Juxon 
(who read the morning office immediately before his mar- 
tyrdom) named this chapter, the good Prince asked him 
if he had singled it out as fit for the occasion; and when 
he was informed it was the Lesson for the day, could not 
without a sensible complacency and joy admire how 
suitably it concurred with his circumstances.”’] 
