cies, and Hector Munro, Efq; Major and commander of the king's and East-India troops, and M. Louet, commander in chief of the French garrifon at Myhie. And the English flag was hoifted the next day at Myhie and the feveral forts adjacent. The number of guns found in the forts amounts to 319.

There is alfo advice, that out of the 6co prifoners, taken at Pondicherry, who were fent to Bombay, upwards of 300 have fince entered into the English service. AMERICA.

By a letter from New York, dated Oct. 6, we find, That general Amherst is pushing on the expedition against Martinico with great fpirit, and that a moft tremendous portion of artillery was to be embarked the next day.

The Greyhound man of war had fome time before been difpatched to Guadalupe, for the governor to prepare the forces there for their embarkation.

Orders have been fent to Albany to march down four more regiments to join 5000 men as effective and brave as any. --The laft have been fome time at the inland called Staten, from the ftates of Holland preferving formerly the only right to it.

The difpofitions in their arfenal were fo 'great, as to give great hopes of fuccefs.

From Charles Town, South Carolina, we are informed, that on the 29th of Auguft laft, the little Carpenter, and other chiefs of the Cherokee Indians, waited on colonel Grant to treat of peace: when all the articles propofed by the colonel for that end were agreed to, except the fift, which runs thus:

"Four Cherokee Indians fhall be delivered up to be put to death in the front of the camp; or four green fcalps brought in, in twelve nights from this day."

The proposals made by colonel Grant, confifted of nine articles, to eight of which the Little Carpenter agreed, and only objected to the one above-mentioned; upon which colonel Grant gave him till the next day to contide of it. The next day the Little Carpenter told colonel Grant, that the Indians thought the first article too fevere, that he could not agree to it without confulting his people, and that he would be back in ten nights. BIRTHS.

Lady of Sir James Caldwell, Bart. of a

fon.

Lady of Lord Weymouth, of a daughter.

Lady of Lord Ranelagh, of a fon. The Princefs-confort of prince Ferdinand, the king of Pruffia's brother, of a princess.

MARRIAGES.

Henry Bingham, Efq; member for Tuam in Ireland, to mifs Daly, niece of the earl of Clanrickard.

Christopher Kilby, Efq; of Spring-Gardens, to Mrs. Martha Jones of the city of Worcester, a well accomplished lady.

Mr. Hinxman, bookfeller, of York, to Mifs Morgan, of Pater-nofter-row, a fortune of 10,000 I.

Rev. Mr. Walker to Mifs Cavely, of Bishop-ftoke, Hants.

Anthony St. Leger, Efq; to Mifs Wombwell.

DEATHS.

Margrave of Baden-Baden.
Duke of Holftein-Bloen.

Mr. William March at Liverpool, aged

III.

Jane Owen at Criclade, aged 101. Mrs. Dunch, widow of Dunch, comptroller of the houshold to George I. Sir John Price of Newtown-Hall, in Montgomeryshire, Bart.

The Hon. George Treby, Efq; member for Plympton.

Dr. Love, in Westminster.
PROMOTIONS.

Lord Bolingbroke, Lord of the bedchamber to his majesty.

Mifs Loretta Baden, to be one of the chief dreffers, and keeper of her majefty's ward-robe.

George Creffeners, Efq; his majesty's minister to the princes and states of the circle of Weftphalia.

Major-general Luckner, lieutenant-general in the Hanoverian fervice.

Duke of Bedford, Lord-privy-feal. ECCLESIASTICAL PREFERMENTS. Dr. Plumptree, vice-chancellor of Cambridge, on the refignation of Dr. Sandby.

Dr. Smith, of Clare-hall, vic. Walden Abbots, Herts, with rec. Datworth, worth 260l. per annum.

Mr. Stainfberry, reader of Charterhoufe.

Mr. George Baldwin, rec. Uplands, in Northamptonshire,

Mr. Jofeph Hill, rec, Great-Kingston, in Dorfetfhire, and rec. Chilton Cantloe, Somerfetshire.

Mr. Cookfon, chaplain to Ironmongers Alms-houses.

H

OW much foever Sir Francis Bacon might gain in honour by this promotion to the office of lordkeeper of the great feal, Ik ste it is very doubtful whether he gained any thing in point of profit; fince he quitted three very advantageous places: first, that of attorney-general, which he told the king brought him in fix thousand pounds a year, a very great fum at that time; next, that of chancellor to the prince of Wales; and laftly, the registership of the court of Star-Chamber.

He had been lord-keeper only eight days, when the king and his favourite, newly created earl of Buckingham, went to Scotland; and by this means he was placed at the head of the council, and intrusted with the management of public affairs in the king's abfence: an acceffion of power accompanied with no fmall envy and malice. He very foon experienced the truth of the obfervation, that the highest feats are the moft expofed : for within a little time after the king's departure, the treaty of marriage between December, 1761.

prince Charles and the infanta of Spain was, by his majesty's directions, brought upon the carpet : an affair, in which, tho' contrary to all the rules of good policy, king James persisted for seven years together, against his own intereft, and. against the universal voice of his people; only to procure the imaginary honour of an alliance with a crowned head. Sie Francis Bacon faw through the vanity and danger of this intention, and had too much wisdom and penetration not to perceive the many and great difficulties with which it would be attended. He hinted them to the king in a letter; prudently. and honestly advised him not to proceed but with an united council; that whatever their private fentiments might be, their fuffrages on this occafion ought to be unanimous; and he expreffed his juft fenfe of the misfortunes that ever attend a difcordancy of opinions. As the bufinefs proceeded, his diflike to it encreas ed; yet he did not openly declare against it, but contented himself with making use of fuch infinuations as he thought might reftrain and discountenance it; though they were not fufficient to open the king's eyes. On

4 I

IT being effential, as well as agreeable to the defires of France and England, that the treaty of projected peace ferve for the bafis of a folid reconciliation between the two crowns, which may not be difturbed by the interefts of a third power, and the engagement which one or the other court may have entered into anteriourly to their reconciliation; the king of Spain fhall be invited to guaranty the treaty of future peace, between his most Christian majesty and the king of Great Britain. This guaranty will obviate the inconveniencies both prefent and future, respecting the folidity of the peace.

The king will not conceal from his Britannic majesty, that the differences of Spain with England, alarm and make him dread, if they should not be adjusted, a new war in Europe and America. The king of Spain has confided to his majefty, the three points of difcuffion which fubfift between his crown and that of Great Britain.

Thefe are, 1. The reftitution of fome prizes made, during the prefent war, under the Spanish flag.

2. Liberty to the Spanish nation of fishing on the bank of Newfoundland.

3. The deftruction of the English establishments formed on the Spanish territory in the bay of Honduras.

These three articles may be easily fet

tled agreeable to the juftice of the two fovereigns, and the king desires earnestly, that they may be able to find out temperaments, which may content on these two points the Spanish and English nations: but he cannot dissemble from England the danger, which he forefees, and which he will be forced to partake of, if these objects, which may affect fenfibly his catholic majesty, should end in a war. It is for this reason, that his majesty regards as one of the first confiderations for the advantage and folidity of the peace, that at the fame time that this defireable end fhall be fettled between France and England, his Britannic majesty would terminate his differences with Spain, and agree that the Catholic king shall be invited to guaranty the treaty which is to reconcile (would to God it may be for ever) his most Christian majesty and the king of England.

For the reft his majesty does not communicate his fears on this head to the court of London, but with the most upright and open intentions of preventing every thing which may happen to interrupt the union of the French and English nations; and the king entreats his Britannic majesty, whom he supposes animated with the fame defire, to tell him, without difguife, his opinion on an object fo effential.

from France was formed, and at the inftant that the courier was ready to fet out for London, the king received the confent of the Emprefs Queen to a fe

conditions.

1. To keep poffeffion of the countries belonging to the king of Pruffia.

2. That it shall be ftipulated, that the

it was granted, fo with as little ceremony was he deprived of his office, without one reafon being aligned, except the king's pleafure. In fuch a wretched condition did the English constitution remain, (with only one short intermiffion during the troubles, when an act was extorted from Charles I. which declared the judges commiffions should be during their good be. haviour) till the year 1700, when the act of fettlement of the crown was paffed: by which it was enacted, that no king fhould have it in his power to difmifs or difplace a judge, fo long as he behaved well. Yet, till very lately, their commiffions expired with the king's life; but now we have the happiness to find them entirely independent, and that their places are fecured to them as long as they live, notwithstanding the monarch's demife; unless, by any abufe of their power, they occafion their own fall. To return; tho' this great lawyer, Sir Edward Coke, had the honest courage to refift king James to his face, yet he wanted that independence of mind which alone enables a man to bear folitude, and an acquaintance with himfelf. His difgrace, which reflected more honour on him than all his preferments, he knew not how to fupport: and therefore foon after fued to be reinstated in the king's favour. To recover it, he meanly enough courted the favourite with an offer, which he had rejected when it was formerly made to him. While in power, he had refused to give his daughter in marriage to Sir John Villers, the brother of Buckingham: but finding the power of this family to greatly encreased, he now fubmiffively entreated the fame perfon, to bonour him with his alliance, as a means of bringing himself again into favour. This alarmed the lord-keeper Bacon. Ever jealous of Coke's reputation, and ever at variance with him, he dreaded bis alliance with fo powerful a family. It might not have been wrong in a difinterested perfon, to have diffuaded Villiers from the marriage. It would have been a proper check on the pride of Sir Edward, to fee himself, now become the fuppliant, in turn refused. But this was not Bacon's motive. His interpofition was entirely felf-interested. His imagination fuggefted to him all the danger that threatened his prefent and future fortunes from this union; and it was an additional misfortune

to fee that man again invested with power, and again become his antagonist, from whom he thought himself for ever happily delivered by his difgrace; and whom he had very lately treated with great freedom, and little ceremony. Thefe apprehenfions made him caft about how to defeat the intended match, by raising such objections to it as might touch the king and his favourite, in point of public honour and advantage. Thus the greatest men have their weaknesses, and the corruptions of courts are capable of tainting the most noble minds. He wrote to them both. He ufed all the arguments he could think of against the match, though with a feeming unconcern with refpect to himself, as if he enlarged only upon confiderations that regarded those he was writing to, whom he would be thought to ferve. But this management proved ineffectual. It was refented by the earl of Buckingham, andchecked by a rough answer from the king. Having thus, to prevent a diftant and uncertain danger, involved himself in one that was real and immediate, he made no fcruple to change fides at once; to go directly against his former opinion, and to offer, unafked, his intereft in the young lady's mother, for promoting that marriage he had just been labouring to difappoint. On fuch trivial accidents do the fortunes of minifters depend; and to fuch little arts is ambition often obliged to floop. Nor even thus did he prefently regain his credit with Buckingham. The family continued to load him with reproaches; and he remained long under that agony, which an afpiring man must feel, when his power and dignity are at the mercy of a king's minion, young and giddy with his elevation, and who thinks himself offended. On the return of Buckingham from Scotland, he was at laft reconciled to him, and through his means, foon after, to the king; though, not till he and feveral others of the council, who, for different reafons, refpecting themselves, had fhewn their diflike to the alliance, had been reprimanded for their concern in this affair. The marriage was concluded, Sir Edward Coke recalled to the council table, (though he did not long continue in favour) and every thing returned into its ancient channels. This happily over, Sir Francis Bacon retired to his former province, of fuperintending the king's 412

affairs