W. and her father, and brother: she was fortunate enough to obtain from the jeweller's shop jewellery to the amount of about 261. the day after she had entered her apartments, which she desired immediately to pay for. A bill was delivered, when she recollected she had not sufficient money to spare until the arrival of her husband in a day or two, and she paid 101 in part. The next day she looked out a gold watch, value 20 guineas, and appendages, and other jewellery, to go to the ball of a lady of distinction. Many artifices were resorted to, which would be too voluminous for detail, to cover the frauds; but the jeweller at length suspecting his customer, and finding that Mr. Wakefield did not appear, sought means to recover the debt, which was nearly 1001. and put an execution into the house. Mrs. Wakefield was arrested at this moment, and on searching her apartments, the property had been removed. She, convulsed with laughter, was surprised that the jeweller should be such a fool as to expect to recover the property, and she informed her mother, her housekeeper, that had it not been for her meanness in attempting to save a few shillings, she should have left the apartments before she was arrested. Mr. Wakefield was a student at law, and separated from Mrs. W. By extraordinary artifices, she procured him to marry her under a false name, which renders the marriage void. It was stated by one of the witnesses, that in one instance a tradesman in Mortimer street was referred to by the prisoner, and he represented her to be the wife of a man of 50001. per annum. He would have been glad to have let his first floor to her, had

it been unoccupied. Mr. Layton, a milliner, in Berkeley-square, had supplied Mrs. W. with goods to the amount of 401. He gave her credit from her appearance and equipage. Her valet and footman wore liveries, with a silver band to their hats, and they represented her husband as a man of considerable fortune. Mrs. W. when she got the goods, at dif.. ferent times spoke of many ladies of distinction, some of whom Mr. L. supplied, and the lady expressed her satisfaction at getting to a fashionable shop. Mrs. W. ordered her bill, and on its being delivered she had fled. It would be impossible to enumerate the various artifices resorted to by this family to carry on their frauds. The two prisoners were proved to have been in the coalition by various circumstances, and they were remanded, whilst methods should be used to bring up Mrs. Wakefield.

After the examination of M'Eavy, and Heary, his son, on Wednesday, the mother, Ann M'Eavy, and William, another son, the footboy to Mrs. Wakefield, were apprehended. The mother, who, it has been stated, acted as housekeeper to Mrs. W. represented herself to have been merely a companion to Mrs. Wakefield, at 161. per annum. On being ques

tioned whether she was not the mother as well as the housekeeper of Mrs. W. she said relationship had certainly tied her to her. The son was examined apart from his mother, but he refused to answer questions without consulting her. He did not know what relationship Henry, the footman, was to him. On being asked if M'Eavy was not his father, he said he was his mother's husband," and he believed Mrs. Wake, field was his cousin. The two pri

soners

soners were committed, and to be brought up again with their relations on the following day.

15th. William Tyrrel was indicted for an assault on Mary Mills. The prosecutrix stated, that she was married, but had been separated from her husband. She had an allowance of half a guinca a week, from a Mr. Moore, of Suffolkstreet, St. Luke's. She was going to the house of her benefactor, on the 2d of January, when the defendant, in company with another person, seized her at Islington, hurried her into a hackney coach, and took her to a mad house, at Hoxton, where they left her. She was confined there three weeks, the first few days of which she was accommodated with people of the better order; but her money being exhaust. ed, she was turned into another ward amongst mad people, and her situation was so dreadfui, that she was nearly deprived of her faculties. After having been three weeks in this situation, she solicited some Jew boys, who were allowed to vend their commodities through a little hole in the door of her apartment, to convey a letter to Mr. Moore. This was refused. She at length found in her apartment an old dry inkstand, and having procured the feather of a chicken, she, with a little water, was enabled to commit her distresses to a piece of paper she accidentally found, and threw it out of the window, which was fortunately picked up by some person in the street, by which it found its way to Mr. Moore, who, on receiving the letter, repaired to the mad-house, and with considerable difficulty was admitted, when he conveyed her to his house. She

knew the defendant, and she be lieved the other man belonged to the mad-house. She at that time suspected Mr. Mills had been the author of her misery.

Mr. Nares, the magistrate, stated, that he understood the prosecutrix had been taken up by an order, signed by the apothecary of the mad-house; he had investigated that fact, and he could say that the man alluded to had never seen the prosecutrix.

The chairman was amazed at such conduct, which had seldom been heard of.

Mr. Alley stated, that he, and other gentlemen at the bar, would at any time conduct a prosecution against the husband, the mad-house keeper, and the defendant, for a conspiracy; and advised the prosecutrix to lose no time in indicting the whole of them.

The jury, without hesitation, found the prisoner guilty.—Judgment respited.

26th. COURT OF KING'S BENCH. The King versus governor Picton.-Last term the defendant was found guilty of torturing Louisa Calderon, one of his majesty's subjects in the island of Trinidad.

Mr. Dallas moved yesterday morning for a new trial. He stated that the defendant was a person of respectability and character in his majesty's service, as governor of the island of Trinidad. He solicited for a new trial upon the following grounds:

1. The infamous character of the girl, who lived in open prostitution with Pedro Rauiz, and who had been privy to a robbery committed upon her paramour, by Carlos Gonzalez, and when a complaint found

against

against her had been brought before a magistrate, she refusing to confess,

had been ordered to be tortured. 2. That governor Picton, who condemned her to this torture, did not proceed from any motives of malice, but from a conviction that the right of torture was sanctioned by the laws of Trinidad; and that he was rooted in this opinion, by a reference to the legal written authorities in that island.

3. That whatever his conduct might be, it was certainly neither personal malice, nor disposition to tyranny, but resulted, if it should prove to be wrong, from a misapprehension of the laws of Trinidad.

4. That one of the principal witnesses in this trial, M. Vargas, had brought forward a book, entitled Recopilacion des Leys de los Indes, expressly compiled for the Spanish colonies, which did not authorize torture. The defendant had no opportunity of ever seeing that book, but it had been purchased by the British institution, at the sale of the marquis of Lansdowne's library, subsequent to his trial; and having consulted it, it appeared that where that code was silent upon some criminal cases, recourse was always to be had to the laws of Old Spain, and these laws, of course, sanctioned the infliction of torture.

The court, after some consideration, granted the rule to shew cause for a new trial.

ble uneasiness in the family. An elderly woman, of shabby appear. ance, knocked at the door of the house in question, and requested to have an interview with the lady of the house on an affair of considera. ble importance. She was refused admittance by the servant, when she insisted on her right of access to the house, being nearly related to the family by marriage. The gentleman was not at home, and the intruder was shewn into a back room, where she had an interview with one of the daughters.-She represented herself as being the wife of her father, to whom she had been united in wedlock, as long since as 1772. This assertion caused great uneasiness in the family, as the intruder, mentioned the place where the gentleman of the house resided, and with hearty tears she insisted on protection under the roof. She was suffered to remain in the house until the return of the alledged husband, whom she seized with apparent anguish and fondness. He, however, knew nothing of her, and her subsequent conduct was such as to require her detention. Her name, it appears, is King.

The abuses committed in the West Indies, are said to exceed every thing

that was ever stated in romance. The commissioners are stated to have discovered that forged bills and receipts, for articles never purchased, and bills drawn on government indorsed under forged and fictitious names, were common and notorious. They found a most base collusion between the officers of government, and the merchants and contractors, by which the latter were allowed to charge stores at a much higher rate than they might have been obtained Dd

for

for in the market. In one instance it was discovered, that to conceal this iniquity, a bribe of 87,000l. had been given; in another a bribe of 35,0001. Vessels, houses, stores, &c. were usually hired at most extravagant rates, in consequence of fraudulent contracts, where others might have been obtained much cheaper. But worse than either of these iniquities was the diabolical fraud of suffering the merchants and contractors to furnish his majesty's troops with inferior and bad rum, and other articles, at an extravagant rate, by which the lives of the troops were endangered, as well as the country defrauded. And, for the purpose of committing these practices, all free competition for the supply of articles was prevented; and every obstacle was put in the way, even of the purchase of bills on the treasury. They were dated in one island and negociated in another; and they were sold at a much more advantageous exchange than that at which the officers debited themselves in their accounts.

The following instance of coldblooded economy, in Bonaparte, is mentioned as a fact:

When the English force, under sir J. B. Warren, had put into St. Jago, after the capture of the Marengo and Belle Poule, admiral Linois requested of sir John permission to assemble the French officers, for the purpose of reading to them an imperial edict, which he had by him for some time, and which materially affected his and their interests. The English admiral having accordingly assented to this demand, with all that urbanity and politeness which distinguish him, the French officers were got together, to the amount of nearly 70, when the

instrument in question was read to them by admiral Linois. It began by reciting, that his imperial majesty, Bonaparte, having had serious cause of chagrin and displeasure, at the repeated checks and disasters his naval force had hitherto experienced in the contest with England, was determined that it should undergo a thorough reform. Then, after many regulations for the better ordering and conducting his navy in time of. hostility with other powers, and for the excitement of his sailors to heroic deeds, it concluded by stating, that in future all officers of his navy, who were captured by the enemy, should be from that moment reduced to one-fourth of their actual pay: And you, gentlemen, therefore," continued Linois, "with myself, are hereby so reduced, and we must shift, as well as we can, with the little that remains !"

SHOCKING MASSACRE.-Account of the Massacre of the Officers and Crew of the Ship Atahualpa, communicated by Capt. Isaacs of the Montezuma.— "Theship, Atahualpa, had been lying at anchor in Sturgis cove, up Millbank Sound, three days. The natives had, during that time, been remarkably civil. On the 12th of June, 1805, they came off in several canoes, and desired captain Porter to purchase their skins; and about ten o'clock, Calete, the chief of one of their tribes, desired captain Porter to look over the side, and see the number of skins in his canoe. Capt. P. was complying, but was obliged to bend over the rail, when the chief threw his coat over his head, stabbed him twice between his shoulders, threw him overboard, and gave the signal for a general attack.

"Mr. John Hill, the chief mate, was shot through the body, but ran

below

below, got his musket, returned on deck, shot the chief, and gave him his mortal wound,

"John Goodwin, the second mate, shot dead.

"John G. Rackstraw was daggered, and died immediately.

"Lyman Plummer was daggered, and lived until the ship was got out, when he requested the surviving crew to take care of the ship, and find captain Brown.

"Isaac Summers, cooper, Luther and Samuel Lapham, Peter Spooner, seamen, and John Williams, cook, were all killed. The cook defended himself bravely, as long as his hot water lasted, but that being expended, they cut him down with an axe. Three seamen, one Sandwich islander, and a Kodiac Indian, were dangerously wounded. Five more of the crew were slightly wounded; and three men and a Sandwich islander were all that escaped unhurt.

"These four at length bravely rushed through the crowd of Indians, got below, and finding a few muskets loaded, fired them through the loopholes, in the break of the forecastle, which terrified the natives, and many jumped overboard. The four men then regained the deck, and after fighting some time with a few Indians, who seemed determined to hold their prize, killed or drove all overboard. One canoe was now scen under the bows, endeavouring to cut the cable; but a swivel was brought from the after part of the ship, and discharged at them; ten were killed by the swivel, and one by a musket-shot, so only one was left alive in the canoe.

"The crew lost their jacket knives, by plunging them into the sculls of the Indians, from whence

they were unable to draw them out. After the decks were cleared, the topsails were loosed, when the ship swung her head off shore, the cable was cut, and after some time beating, was able to get out of the Sound. Two days after were off Newatta; the wind coming a-head, shaped a course northward.

On the 13th of June deposited the bodies of our murdered shipmates in the deep."

10th. This evening, at nine o'clock, a dreadful fire broke out at the dwelling-house of Mr. Steptoe, butcher, in Bear alley, Fleet-market, which consumed nearly the whole of his house, and a part of the adjoining one: very little of the property was saved. Mr. and Mrs. Steptoe were both at their shop in the market when the accident happened, and three fine children, who were in bed, perished in the flames.

As a young girl, named Anderson, of Deeping St. James, Lincolnshire, was returning from school, she was struck by a fire-ball, which caused her instant death.

Christopher Simpson, lately executed at Lancaster for highway robbery, confessed he had broken open above eighty houses, stolen thirty horses, and committed more highway robberies than he could remember!

The Gazette of this night contained his majesty's proclamation for a new copper coinage, of 150 tons of penny-pieces, 427 tons and a half of half-penny pieces. an i 22 and a half tons of farthings. The penny-pieces are in the proportion of 24 to the pound avoirdupois of copper, and so on with the others.

The Vigilant, of 74 guns. in ordinary at Portsmouth, which sunk in January, is raised. It appears Dd 2

that