A.D. 1774.

into the Corn market but to this Mr. Peter Muggleworth, who owned the adjoining property, and his tenants objected, on the ground that the said pump had been and still was very serviceable; that thirty-six years before there had been a fire in the street, which would have destroyed many houses but for its water, inasmuch as the All Saints pipe and other springs were entirely dry, whilst this spring had never been known to fail even in the dryest season; that its very presence gave greater security to the inhabitants, who, now the horse nuisance was removed, were perfectly satisfied, indeed petitioned that it might not be moved; that the Corn market was only 14 feet wide, and that if the pump be placed against the wall of Mr. Muggleworth's property it will be so great a nuisance that his tenants threaten to leave, &c.

The house still manifesting a desire to effect the alteration, a majority being clearly in favour thereof, Mr. Muggleworth had a case prepared and laid before the Hon. J. Dunning, who, on April 15th, said "the corporation have no right to accommodate the public by any act at the expense of private individuals or prejudicial to their private property. I suppose the soil unto which it is proposed to remove the pump belongs to the corporation, otherwise they have no right to place it there; but, supposing them to have such rights, they will be answerable for the consequences if it proves injurious to their neighbours and Mr. Muggleworth's tenants, or he himself, if his houses through this cause become untenanted, may, by an action in the case against the workmen employed to do the act, recover a suitable satisfaction for their loss." (The pump still stands.)

John Evans, the author of the Chronological Outline of the History of Bristol, from which we so copiously quote, was born on the 23rd October, in Ellbroad street.

In 1774 there was a general election, and in addition to the old members, Matthew Brickdale and Lord Clare, Henry Cruger, a man whose sympathies were with the American colonists, was nominated. The two firstnamed candidates had the support of the corporation; but a vigorous attempt was made to break up the monopoly of the representation by the chamber. Edmund Burke, whose name had been mentioned, was not accepted by the public meeting. The cry was "Cruger only!" Burke immediately left Bath for Malton, for which town he was elected. Meanwhile Lord Clare, discovering that many old friends had forsaken and others were looking coldly upon him, and his intimates acknowledging that he was looked on as second to Cruger, retired on Saturday in disgust from the contest. On the second day of the polling Burke

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was nominated as a candidate by Joseph Harford and Richard Champion, Brickdale's friends protesting that nomination after an election had begun was illegal; however, at last the sheriffs, John Durbin, jun., and James Hill, were persuaded to allow the name to stand. Brickdale petitioned, on the ground that he was at the head of the poll when Clare retired; that many freemen were made after the writ was issued, who voted at that election. Another petition, signed by 383 electors, alleged that Burke's nomination was contrary to law. The committee sat from Saturday, February 11th, to Saturday, February 18th, 1775, when Cruger and Burke were declared duly elected. Brickdale was strongly censured by many of his old friends for including Cruger's name, seeing that he had not coalesced with Burke.

It was after this election that Thistlethwaite published his Consultation, a mock heroic poem in three cantos, pp. 48. In 1775 a second edition, to which he had added another canto, was published. On August 12th, 1774, Robert Southey was born in Wine street, Bristol.

8. On Sunday, November 6th, the ferry boat crossing from New Passage, containing eight persons, was overset through the folly of one of the passengers, whose hat blew overboard. He insisted on the boat being put about to recover it, and being resisted he seized the helm, and in the struggle the boat fell away, was upset, and seven of its occupants drowned. It is said that the unfortunate man had a large sum of money in notes within the lining of his hat, which made him so anxious for its recovery.

In 1775 the way was made from Wine street to Broadmead, called Union street; and May 1st St. James's market was opened. In July, St. Michael's church commenced re-building, except the tower. The building of Park street, in Bullock's park, began. Blind steps, leading from St. Nicholas market to Back street, taken down, enlarged and opened. It was estimated at this time that £5,970 per annum was expended for the poor of Bristol in the hospitals, &c., exclusive of £10,000 raised for the parochial poor, and that there were constantly 1,032 persons of all ages who lived wholly upon public charity.1

The ground rents of Clare street sold for £69,000 and upwards. Lady Huntingdon's chapel, St. Augustine place, was opened.

James Thistlethwaite published The Tories in the Dumps, or the Lamentation of Matty to his Friend Ned. The humour of this talented writer is defiled by the scurrility which seems to have been common to most of the authors of that age. The struggle with the American colonies was now nearing its height. Dean Tucker, who was all his life a great controversialist and a copious writer on trade, was at this time the incumbent of St. Stephen's church and dean of Gloucester. 1 Evans, 292. 2 R. Smith.

As early as 1745 he was termed by the London Evening Post (a strong Jacobite publication), "A Low Church, fanatical, Oliverian Whig, Josiah ben Tucker, ben Judas Iscariot." Differing with Burke on the American question, he, in answer to that statesman's speech in favour of the American colonies, published a pamphlet, in 1775, entitled A Letter of Dean Tucker to Edmund Burke, M.P. for Bristol, and Agent for the Colony of New York, a copy of which is in the city library. Tucker's scheme of dealing with the revolted American colonies was different from that of the Parliament and that of Burke. The majority in Parliament claimed absolute supremacy; Burke would have given up parliamentary control over each colony, but would have erected each provincial assembly into an independent parliament, subject to the king with his usual prerogatives. Tucker's scheme was absolute separation; as the colonies would not submit to the authority and jurisdiction of the British legislature, neither should they share in its privileges and advantages. At the same time he would enter into alliances of friendship and treaties of commerce with them, as with any other sovereign state.

Josiah Tucker was a native of Langharne, Carmarthenshire. Born in 1712, he became a scholar of Jesus college, Oxford; entered holy orders at twenty-three years of age, was curate of St. Stephen's, 1737; chaplain to Bishop Butler, by whose interest he was made a prebendary of Bristol cathedral, and on the death of Mr. Catcott, was made rector of St. Stephen's. He took a decided stand for the naturalisation of the Jews, for which his effigy in canonicals was burnt in Bristol. In 1753 he published a pamphlet on the Turkey trade, in which he opposed the principle of chartered companies. He was largely instrumental in the return of Lord Clare for Bristol, and his lordship, out of gratitude, obtained for him the deanery of Gloucester, in 1758, at which time he took his degree as D.D. In his famous pamphlet, Thoughts on the Dispute Between the Mother Country and America, he asserted that the latter could not be conquered, and if it could, the purchase would be dearly bought; he warned this country against commencing a war with the colonies; advised they should be left to themselves, which he contended would be productive of infinite good to Britain. Both Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke, one the champion, the other the enemy, of American taxation, treated Tucker's view with contempt; and Burke, in the House, called him "the advocate of the court," and supposed "his labours would raise him to a bishopric." Burke disliked him because he was a thorough supporter of Lord Clare, and opposed the invitation of himself to Bristol. In 1778 Miss Peloquin bequeathed to him a considerable legacy, and her house in Queen square to be a residence for the rector of St. Stephen's. He sent John Henderson, a young man of extraordinary ability, to Oxford, and supported him there at his own expense. Tucker resigned his living, with the consent of the chancellor, in favour of his curate, for whom every man in the parish, Dissenters included, joined with him in the petition. He died in December, 1799.1

9. On Monday morning, April 8th, 1776, the Snow Dickenson, from Philadelphia to Nantes, which had been fitted out by order of the congress, and consigned to 1 Abridged from Public Characters, I.

Messrs. Montandonin & Co., was brought into this port by the mate and crew, who, on finding that the cargo was destined to the purchase of warlike stores to be used against this country, determined to make for Bristol. The cargo and ship were valued at £7,500. The captain's orders were to purchase with the proceeds of the cargo 1500 stand of arms, with bayonets and steel ramrods, and fifteen tons of gunpowder, or failing that to bring saltpetre and sulphur.

During this year Dr. Johnson and his friend Boswell paid a visit to Bristol in order to enquire into the authenticity of Rowley's poetry. There occurred also this year a most fearful storm; all the ships in Kingroad but two were driven on shore. It was computed that 2,500 persons perished in different parts of the kingdom. Some of the lime trees which formed eight cross lines in Queen square being uprooted, the remainder were all cut down.

"The late treasurer, Mr. Garrard, said in 1825, the corporation had no account of Mayor's dues anterior to 1776. Prior thereto they were received by the Mayor himself. He had accounts of Town's dues up to 1640." 1

An Act of Parliament was obtained, "to remove the danger of fire amongst the ships in the port of Bristol, by preventing the landing of certain commodities on the present quays, and for providing a convenient quay and proper places for landing and storing the same; and for regulating the said quay, and the lighters, boats, and other vessels carrying goods for hire within the said port of Bristol; and for other purposes therein mentioned." The object of this Act was to enlarge and occupy the Merchants' floating-dock, in Rownham meads. From September 29, all that part of the parish of Clifton that lay between the bound-stone of the city on the east of a little brook, anciently called Woodwelllake, but now a sluice under ground, at Limekiln dock, and the ferry called Rownham passage, and between the river Avon and the road which leads from the said bound-stone and the said ferry, were hereby separated from the judicial jurisdiction of Gloucestershire, and made part of Bristol, except with regard to taxes and votes at elections for knights of the shire.

October 17, the limits of the new docks marked out. 2

Hannah More published Sir Eldred of the Bower and the Bleeding Rock, dedicating the work to David Garrick. John Howard published a pamphlet on Bristol Newgate and Bridewell. The "Five Beakers" inn, New Market, was re-named the "Queen Charlotte."

During this year the American colonies declared themselves independent.

In December, 1776, a diabolical series of attempts was made to burn the shipping and city. The Savannah la Mar, a ship of 400 tons belonging to Mayler and Maxey, bound for Jamaica, was maliciously set on fire by means of combustibles, pitch, tar, rosin, with which the decks and rigging were bedaubed and set on fire. Fortunately there were two large puncheons of water on 1 R. Smith. 2 Evans, 292-293,

A.D. 1776.

the deck, and being promptly discovered the fire was extinguished with the loss of the mizen-mast and rigging. The well-known privateer, the Fame, which was lying about the middle of the quay, was also attempted. A third ship, the Cork trader, Hibernia, Captain Knethell, had her binnacle stuffed with inflammable materials, including a bottle of turpentine. These had been ignited, but for want of air had failed to burn.

On the same day an attempt was made to fire the warehouse of Mr. Morgan, druggist, Corn street. Climbing a wall ten feet in height the incendiary had wrenched off three iron bars from a window, and having thus forced an entrance he filled a large box that had contained Glauber's Salts with combustibles, including tar, spirits of wine, and turpentine, which he placed against the oil casks. Providentially, the elm wood of the box being damp the fire was confined to it. On Sunday morning just before daybreak the warehouses of Messrs. Lawsley, Partridge & Co., Bell lane, were found to be in flames, and although ten engines. were at work with plenty of water from the river they were soon entirely consumed. One of the clerks found in one of the rooms a large torch, with a lot of matches and other inflammable material. The sacks of grain and bales of Spanish wool that were

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use through cellar and other windows, were discovered, which had failed in the object intended by the villainous incendiary.

The alarm excited in the city by these attempts was very great. The citizens enrolled themselves in bands and patrolled the streets night and day. The king offered a reward of £1,000 from his privy purse, to which the inhabitants and the chamber added 500 guineas, for the discovery of the offender. For some weeks every effort at discovery failed. At last suspicion fell on a Scotchman named James Aitken, alias Jack the Painter, who lodged in the Pithay. He was apprehended, but for some days kept his own counsel. A

Welsh painter named Baldwin, who had long resided in America, pretended friendship with and visited him, to whom Aitken confessed that he had not only caused these fires, but that it was he who had burned Portsmouth rope-house on December 7th, and that he had attempted to fire the dockyards at Chatham and Plymouth, but had failed, his design being to weaken or destroy the flourishing navy of this country; that he had made drawings of every dockyard in the kingdom, and knew the number of ships, their weight of metal and the number of their guns, and that his employer was Mr. Silas Deane, a member of the American congress who was then in Paris.

saved were conveyed to the Exchange and the area of Queen square, and were guarded day and night by the military. The "Bell" inn at the bottom of Broad street caught seven or eight times, but fortunately the fire was extinguished, or in all probability the buildings in the area between Broad, Small and Corn streets would have been burnt to the ground. There was no wind, the tide was high, and the fire, after eating its way eastward as far as the dead wall of St. John's arch, was conquered. Between seven and eight o'clock the same day two other attempts at arson were made in Lewin's mead, one being at the sugar-house of Mr. Alderman Barnes. In divers other parts of the city large torches of a peculiar make, with long handles for

The machine he employed was a box of wood and perforated tin, in which he placed certain combustibles and a lighted candle, which would ignite them after burning a fixed number of hours. One of these machines which had failed, being found in one of the warehouses at Portsmouth, was produced at his trial at Winchester, on the 6th March, 1777.

Aitken was found guilty, and was hanged at Portsmouth on a gibbet 67 feet high, being the mizen mast of the Arethusa frigate. Before his execution he confessed his guilt not only of the fire at Portsmouth but also of those at Bristol, stating that he had placed combustibles in at least a dozen warehouses in that city,

A.D. 1778.

209

Endorsed.

MERCHANTS' HALL, BRISTOL.

LIST OF MEMBERS.

November 10th, 1777.

Merchants' Hall, Bristol.-The manner of choosing officers on the 10th November, yearly. Note, the master is to be one that hath been master, warden or assistant, to be chosen thus:-The present master to nominate one person, the present wardens and

assistants one, the commonalty one. These three in competition to stand to the vote of the whole society present, and the person that hath the majority of voices to be master. The persons that are to be in election are to be present in court.

The wardens to be such as have been assistants, to be chosen thus: The present master to nominate two persons, the wardens and assistants two, and the commonalty two. Out of these six, two are to be chosen by one at a time, and majority of voices to carry it.

Assistants to be chosen thus :-The present master ever to be one. He to name of the former assistants four. He to name ten persons out of the commonalty and their names to be put into lots, and those five the master takes out of the hat to be the other

five.

11. In 1778 the Gloucester, for 60 guns and 316 men, 896 tons, and the Medea, for 32 guns, were built and launched at this port. The estates and rentals of the corporation produced £14,000. Old England, private ship-of-war, James Todd, commander, sailed in September on a cruise, she returned with La Hebe, a large brigantine, from St. Domingo. On her. second cruise she was sunk by a French frigate, which she engaged a considerable time; the captain and some of the crew were drowned.

In 1779, Mrs. Mary Peloquin bequeathed £19,000 to the corporation for various purposes. The drawing of pitch and tar from pit-coal was now first discovered in Bristol. An Act of Parliament was obtained for making and repairing several roads round the city of Bristol, reciting all the former Acts, inclusive of that of 31 Geo. II. 1751.1

Henry VII. had made of a pretender to the crown a scullion in his kitchen, and condemned him to turn the spit on which the king's dinner was roasted, but the operation was generally performed by an unhappy dog shut up within a wheel. Somewhere about the year 1780, a frolicsome young midshipman, from Bristol, home for his holidays, enticed all the turnspit dogs of the city of Wells out for a run on the Mendip hills, to the dismay of the cooks and the detriment of the diners, the truant dogs could not be found until the frolic was ended. Out of this circumstance arose the invention of

that date being the only one within twenty years on which an eclipse could happen.

On December 6th, 1780, the house of Joseph George Pedly, in Little King street, was set on fire by the occupier, who, as a fraudulent bankrupt and suspected of arson, was committed to Newgate, whence he escaped on the 1st of April, 1781, but was re-taken in Newcastle in September. At his trial he signified that £2,500 of his creditors' money could be restored, 650 guineas being buried in a field at Clifton, ten £100 bank notes in Tyndall's park in a bottle, fourteen £100 bank notes in another part of the plantation. The two first items were found and recovered for the creditors, the latter the prisoner could not find.1

12. In 1780 there was a contested election, the candidates being Sir Henry Lippincott, Matthew Brickdale and Henry Cruger; Lippincott dying a new writ was issued, and the election of 1781 took place. Edmund Burke, who had declined to stand in 1780, made the following speech:

Gentlemen,-I decline the election. It has ever been my rule

through life to observe a proportion between my efforts and my objects. I have never been remarkable for a bold, active and sanguine pursuit of advantages that are personal to myself.

I have not canvassed the whole of this city in form. But I choice will not ultimately fall upon me. have taken such a view of it, as satisfies my own mind, that your Your city, gentlemen, is in a state of miserable distraction, and I am resolved to withdraw whatever share my pretentions may have had in its unhappy divisions. I have not been in haste; I have tried all prudent means, I have waited for the effect of all contingencies. If I were fond of a contest, by the partiality of my numerous friends (whom ye know to be among the most weighty and respectable people of the city), I have the means of a sharp one in my hands. But I thought it far better with my strength unspent, and my reputation unimpaired, to do early and from foresight that which I might be obliged to do from necessity at last.

I am not in the least surprised, nor in the least angry at this view of things. I have read the book of life for a long time and I have read other books a little. Nothing has happened to me but what has happened to men much better than me, and in times and in nations full as good as the age and country that we live in. To say that I am no way concerned would be neither decent nor true. The representation of Bristol was an object on many accounts dear to me, and I certainly should very far prefer it to any other in the kingdom. My habits are made to it, and it is in general more unpleasant to be rejected, after long trial, than not to be chosen

at all.

But, gentlemen, I will see nothing except your former kindness, and I will give way to no other sentiments than those of

Ferguson, the astronomer, in a lecture on eclipses delivered in Bristol, and subsequently published by S. Farley, Castle green, asserted that the 3rd of April, 4746 Julian period, was the date of our Saviour's crucifixion, 1 Evans, 293.

[VOL. III.]

you have done for me. You have given me a long term which is now expired. I have performed the conditions and enjoyed all the profits to the full, and I now surrender your estate into your hands, without being in a single tile or a single stone impaired or wasted by my use. I have served the public for fifteen years. I have served you in particular for six. What is passed is well stored. It is safe and out of the power of fortune. What is to 1 Bristol Tracts, XXXV.

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