34 
and plenty of Gne water: it is level, very 
fertile, and woody, and produces every 
fort of grain, particularly wheat, in abun- 
dance: farms are rather larger than in 
fome counties that I have lately pafled. 
But this county is moft noted for the great 
quantity and good quality of its cyder and 
perry: it is felling this year at from 30s. 
to 40s. per hogfhead of 110 to 120 gal- 
Jons ; it is found cheaper than maalt li- 
quor, and forms the common drink of all 
ranks of people. It is certainly an over- 
ficht in the people of landed property that 
apples, &c. are not more cultivated in 
other parts of the kingdom: the notion of 
their not fucceeding is in my opinion a 
ereat miftake. Prefteign is a fmall, 
ancient looking market town; the fur- 
rounding country hilly, 
enough, and the foil good. Farms are 
from 30]. to 3001. a year, and rent per 
acre ros. to 60s.: it is neither a manufac- 
turing nor a commercial country but 
chiefly inhabited by farmers. 

(To be continued. J 
— ea 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR; 
-T SHROUGH the medium of your 
widely extended Magazine, E beg 
leave to make known to the proprietors 
and projeétors of canal navigations, that 
I have invented a lock, by which vefiels 
may be conveyed through any fall with 
kalf, and, in fome inftanees, one fourth 
of the water that is ufed upon the prefent 
plan. The improvement is upon a fimple 
hydroftatic principle, and I fhall be able 
to demonttrate the truth of it in one mi- 
nute, to any gentlem.m or company, who 
are defirous of purchafing the invention. 
FREDERICK HILL. 
Loughborough, Fan. 20, 1799- 
rene Sap 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
OUR Magazine, Mr. Editor, is, I 
hope, devoted to fimple, in oppofi- 
tion to convenient truths. The truth of 
an hiftorical fa&, more particularly wher 
it involves important moral confiderattons, 
mult always be an interelting object of 
enguiry. Should the characters of in- 
dividuals, or bodies of men, ftand impli- 
cated, the path of honourable exculpation 
is open; the genuine friends to freedom 
ef enquiry, having neither the defre, nor 
the need, of thofe little arts which mark 
she conduct of their opponents. For the 
fixe OF poor humanity, fo often outraged, 
Account of Chevalier De la Bar. 
but pleafant. 
fJan. 
and the character of the French clergy, 
many ef whom were among the moft en- 
lightened and humane of men, it were to 
be hoped the following correéted ftate- 
ment will prove falfe; and it is recom- 
mended to the Abbe BARUEL, or fome 
one of his friends, to prove its falfe- 
‘hood. 
It is related in Moore’s Narrative, and 
elfewhere, that in the reign of Louis the 
15th, the young Chevalier De la Bar, a 
youth under twenty years of age, was 
beheaded at Amiens, for ftriking the 
ftatue of the holy Virgin with a fabre, in 
a fit of inebriety. For what reafons I do 
not immediately recolle€&t, but an Englifh 
literary gentleman fufpeCting the truth of 
the relation, as it regarded the mode of 
the Chevalier’s execution, made it his 
bufinefs, fome years ago, to enquire on 
the fpot; the refult, whieh was as fol- 
lows, he communicated to me. ‘The un- 
fortunate young man was eondemned to 
the horrid punifhment of being broken, 
alive upon the wheel. Great intercefliom 
was made with the King, on the fcore of 
the culprit’s youth, his noble extraction, 
and the intoxicated ftate in which he was, 
during the commiffion of the fuppofed 
crime; and his Majefty was beginning ta, 
relent, when a certain bifhop, near four- 
{core years of age, haftening to the royal 
prefence, intreated, or rather infifted, that 
his majefty meddled not in the affair, but 
that he fhould fuffer the law to have its 
eourfe; vehemently urging, that the 
deavett interefts of religion were concerned. 
The King, on this, fuppofed himfelf 
bound in confeience, to facrifice the duties 
of humanity to thofe of religion; and the 
pious patriareh, dreading the effect of 
farther powerful folicitation on the mind 
of his royal difciple, departed with all 
fpeed for Amiens, and caufed the dread~ 
ful fentence to be immediately executed ; 
and was even perfonally prefent, while 
the coup de grace was delayed, and the 
miferable wretch kept in the moft excru- 
ciating torture, an hour and half! 
VeruS DEMOCRATICUS. 
P.S. I have been affured, by a French 
emigrant, of honourable as well as literary 
chara€ter, that the particulars relative to the 
death of Voltaire, D*Alembert, and Diderot, 
given by a certain author, and ately copied 
into a certain-Magazine, are to his per final 
knowledge, totally and circumftantially talfe, 
and never intended to be otherwife, thar 
conveniently true. Being in need of farther 
information on this head, J fhould feel myfelf 
highly obliged by the communications of apy . * 
correfpondens of the Monthly Magazing. 
ES 
<8 
