452 A. D. 1766. 



May 13'* — A reward of/^-yoo was given by the parliament of Ireland 

 to Meflieurs Holt and Warring for the difcovery of a method of tanning 

 leather with heath boiled in a copper veflel and applied to the leather 

 blood-hot. What a field of enterprife and induftry for the wildeft parts 

 of Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland ! 



Aitgull: — ^AVith a view of fecuring to Britain the pofTefllon of Turk's 

 iflands, which the French had fome time ago made an attempt upon, 

 by the title of occupation, the king appointed Mr, Andrew Symmer to 

 be his agent in them, and to regulate their trade, which had hitherto 

 confifled of nothing but fait. 



The corporation of Liverpool, in the true fpirit of a commercial 

 community, ereded an obfervatory, to be furnifhed with nautical in- 

 flraments proper for the inftriidion of young navigators. 



The Eaft-India company thought themfelves warranted by the fplen- 

 did acquifitions made for them by Lord Clive to raife their next di- 

 vidend from three \.o five per cent for the half year. 



September — In conlequence of petitions and addrefles from the prin- 

 cipal cities and leveral other parts of the kingdom, fetting forth the 

 general diftrefs occafioned by the enormous price of bread, the king if- 

 fued three feveral proclamations, before the meeting of parliament, for 

 enforcing the laws of Edward VI and Elizabeth againfl foreftallers and 

 engroflers, for laying an embargo on all veflels loaded with wheat or 

 flour in any of the ports of Great Britain, and for prohibiting diftillation 

 from wheat or wheat flour for a limited time. And by another procla- 

 mation, iflued the day after the meeting of parliament, the embargo was 

 prolonged, and extended to veflels having onboard barley or malt. 



The high prices had provoked the populace to rile in many places, 

 who in their heedlefs fury committed many atrocities tending to in- 

 creafe the evil they complained of. With all the outcry the price of 

 the finefl; quartern loaf was only eightpence on the 27th of Odober *. 



The method taken by government to encourage the cultivation of 

 filk in Georgia was to take the cocoons off the hands of the breeders 

 at the fixed price of 3/" a pound, of which price at leafl; three fourths 

 were in reality bounty : and government employed Mr. Otolenghi, a 

 native of Piedmont, to bring the filk to a merchantable ftate, and to 

 give the fettlers the necefl^iry inftrudions for managing the worms and 

 the filk. But it being now thought proper to reduce the price to ijd, 

 the planters of any property, who made rice and indigo their principal 

 objeds, no longer paid any attention to it, the breeding of filk-worms 

 was abandoned to the very pooreft of the people, and confequently it 

 never arofe to be an objed of any confequence. The produce this 

 year amounted only to 20,350 pounds of cocoons, raifed by 264 per- 



• In the year 179J, the quartern loaf was at 1/3, and there were no riots. What a ftrong de- 

 moaftration of the fall in the value of money in Icfa than thirty years ! 



