*4 0 L O N 
their dutj'', violated one of the firft principles of the con- 
flifution, and ahufed the confidence of their fovereign. 
“ Refolved unanimoufly, That the fheriffs, attended by 
Mr. Remembrancer, do forthwith wait upon his nrajefty, 
and deliver into his .majefty’s liand, in the name of the 
lord-mayor, aldermen, and livery, of London, a fair copy 
of the foregoing refolutions.” 
On the 23d of February, Mr. Waithman, at a court of 
common council, brought forward a motion for a petition 
to parliament, againft granting a penfion to lord Welling¬ 
ton for his fervices ; which, after two divifions, was car¬ 
ried by a majority of feven ; and a petition to the houfe 
Of commons agreed to accordingly.—This will appear, at 
the prefent moment, to have been a very ungracious pro¬ 
ceeding ; but it mull be obferved, that his lord lit ip’s talents 
■were not then fo fully appreciated by the public in gene¬ 
ral, nor had his fervices been of Xo decided and unam¬ 
biguous a nature. Another reafon was, that, while lord 
Wellington’s peniton-bill was paffing through the houfe, 
y the finecure office of a tellerfhip of the exchequer became 
vacant; and might have been given to lord Wellington, 
inftead of Mr. Yorke, who had certainly never performed 
any fervices for which a direft penfion to that amount 
could with decency have been granted. The whole 
amount of the penfion, therefore, might have been faved 
to the public. This circumftance was alfo urged in the 
houfe of commons by Mr. Bankes. 
In the early part of this month, a court-martial was 
held at Portfmouth, on the Hon. Capt. W. Lake, of his 
tnajefry’s ffiip UlyfTes, for having, when commander of his 
majefty’s fhip Recruit, on the 13th of December, ’807; at 
fix o’clock in the evening, caufed a feaman of the name 
of Robert Jeffery, to be put on-fhore on the defert ifland 
of Sombrero, in the Weft Indies. It appeared, that in the 
month of November, 1807, Jeffery went into the gunner’s 
cabin, and took out a bottle whir fome rum in it; that 
on the day he was fent on-fhore he broached a c'afk of 
fpruce-beer, which had been brewed for the (hip’s com¬ 
pany ; and that his general charaffer was that of a fkulker. 
The Recruit being off the ifie of Sombrero, captain Lake 
nfked the mafter w hat ifland it was, and if there were not 
fome thieves on-board ? To which the mafter anfwered, 
i£ Yes, there are two.” Captain Lake then defired him to 
fend Jeffery up to him : the man foon came up, and cap¬ 
tain Lake faid he would not keep fuch a man in the fhip. 
He then ordered lieutenant Mould to land the man, and 
return immediately to the ffiip. As foon as admiral Coch¬ 
rane heard of the circumftance, he reprimanded captain 
Lake, and fent him to take the man off the ifland. Some 
of the officers of the Recruit landed, and explored the 
ifland, but they found only a barren fpot, covered in the 
middle with a kind of rough grafs-weed. There was no 
houfe nor inhabitant on it. It appeared, however, by the 
American newfpapers afterwards received, th.at the man 
had.been taken off the ifland by an American fhip, and 
landed in America. Captain Lake, in his defence ad¬ 
mitted that he put the man on-fhore, but denied that he 
intended to put his life in jeopardy, as he thought the 
ifland was inhabited ; that in landing him he thought he 
would be more fenfible of his want of conduct, and would 
reform in future. The court agreed that the charge had 
been proved, and fentenced captain Lake to be—Dilmiffed 
from his majefty’s fervice. 
In October following, Jeffery arrived in London from 
America; when the lords of the admiralty gave hint Iris 
free difcharge from the fervice ; and the friends of captain 
Lake made him a liberal compenfation for the hardships 
he had fuftained. In the account of his fufferings and 
prefervation, lie fays, that at firft he did not believe that 
it was intended to leave him on the ifland. He faw the 
ffiip the morning after he was put on-fhore, and expetted 
every moment that a boat would be put off to take him 
on-board. He fuffered at firft very much from third ; 
and to'allay it he drank a quantity of fait water, which 
£>uiy<increafed it. Fortunately for him, fome rain fell on 
D O N. 
the third day after he was put on-ft;ore, and the quanti¬ 
ties that remained in the cavities of the rocks fupplied 
him while he remained there: he was under the neceffity 
of fucking it out with a quill. He faw great numbers of 
birds of the gull kind, rather larger than a goofe, but he 
could not catch any of them : he found only one egg, but 
it was in fuch a putrid date that he could not eat it. The 
only food (if it may he called food) that he had was fome 
bark, which he found on the fhore. He faw five (hips 
pafs by while he was on the ifland, but at too great a 
diftance for him to be vifible to the people on-hoard ; and 
the American veflel by which he was at laft taken oft’ 
would probably have paffed on in the fame manner, if the 
captain had not hove-to from motives of curiofity, to ex¬ 
amine the birds which were flying in great numbers about 
the ifland. ■> 
Early in the morning of the 31ft of May, an attempt 
was made to affaffinate his roya; highnefs the duke of Cum¬ 
berland. The duke had dined at Greenwich, returned 
to town in the evening, and went to the concert for the 
benefit of the royal fociety of muficians. He came home 
about half pail twelve, and went to bed about one. About 
half part two he received two violent blows and cuts on 
the head; The firlt impreffion upon his mind was, that a 
bat had got into the room, and was beating about his 
head ; he was foon convinced to the contrary, by receiving 
a third blow: he jumped out of bed, when he received a 
number of other blows: from the glimmering light, and 
the motion 01 the inftrument that infliifted the wounds, re- 
flefted from a dull lamp in the fire-place, they appeared 
like flafiies of lightning before his eyes. He made for a 
door near the head of his bed, leading to a fmall room, 
to which the affaflin followed him, and cut him acrols 
the thighs. His royal highnefs, not being able to find his 
alarm-bell, which there is no doubt the villain had con¬ 
cealed, called w ith a loud voice feveral times for Neale, his 
valet in waiting, who came to his affiance, and, toge¬ 
ther with his royal highnefs, alarmed the houfe. The 
duke defired Neale not to leave him, as he feared there 
were others in the room. His royal highnefs, however, 
fhortly afterwards proceeded to the porter’s room ; and 
Neale went to awaken Sell is (a Piedmontefe), another of 
the duke's valets. The door of Sellis’s'room was locked, 
and Neale called out to him faying, “The duke is mur¬ 
dered.” No anlwer, being given, the door was broke open, 
and Sellis was found dead on his bed, with his throat cut 
from ear to ear. It is fuppofed that Sellis, confcious of 
his own guilt, (for it is (aid that he was the affaflin,) ima¬ 
gined, when the alarm was given at his door, that they 
were about to take him into cuftody, and immediately cut 
his throat. His blue coat was found folded up on a chair 
in one corner of the room, the'infide of which was ftained 
with blood ; and, as he had cut his throat in another part 
of the room, the-blood mult have been that of his mafter. 
A pair of his flippers was alfo found in the clofet adjoin¬ 
ing the duke’s chamber, where he had concealed himfelf 
until his royal highnefs was afleep. The affaflin feems to 
have flood rather back towards the head of the bed, which 
was placed in a final! recefs, in order to avoid difeovery, and 
was therefore obliged to ftrike down at the duke’s head in a 
flanting direiftion ; in confequence of which, the curtains 
which hung from the top impeded tire action of the fword ; 
and to this alone can his royal highnefs’s prefervation be 
attributed—feveral of the taffeLs ot the curtain were cut off. 
The weapon was a large military fibre of the duke’s, and 
had been lately fliarpened. The whole edge appeared 
hacked and blunted with the force ol the blows. His 
royal highnefs’s firirt was cut through in feveral places, 
and a great fplinter was fhivered from the door through 
which he made his efenpe. Adjoining\the room itielf, 
and com mu nica ting’ with it, is the little clofet where the 
murderer is thought to have fecreted himfelf. There is in 
this clofet a fmall prefs, in which the bolfters were tifually 
put, and in which he hid himfelf, as the fcabbard .of the fa- 
bre was found there. Sellis had five different rooms to 
3 pafs 
