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Samuel Pepys to Lady Carteret-Plague in London.

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My Lord Sandwich has gone to sea with a noble fleet, in want of nothing but a certainty of meeting the enemy. My best Lady Sandwich, with the flock at Hinchingbroke, was by my

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The absence of the court and emptiness of the city, takes away all occasion of news, save only such melancholy stories as would rather sadden than find your Ladyship any divertisement in the hearing; I, having stayed in the city till above 7,400 died in one week, and of them, above 6,000 of the plague, and little noise heard day or night but tolling of bells; till I could walk Lumber street, and not meet twenty persons from one end to the other, and not fifty upon the Exchange; till whole families, ten and twelve together, have been swept away; till my very physician, Dr. Burnet, who undertook to secure me against any infection, having survived the month of his own house being shut up, died himself of the plague; till the nights, though much lengthened, are grown too short to conceal the burials of those that died the day before, people being thereby constrained to borrow daylight for that service; lastly, till I could find neither meat nor drink safe-the butcheries being everywhere visited, my brewer's house shut up, and my baker with his whole family dead of the plague.

Yet, madam, through God's blessing, and the good humors begot in my attendance upon our late amours,* your poor servant is in a perfect state of health, as well as resolution of employing it as your Ladyship and family shall find work for it.

How Deptford stands, your Ladyship is, I doubt not, informed from nearer hands.

Greenwich begins apace to be sickly; but we are, by com* The marriage of Lady Carteret's son to the daughter of Lord Sandwich.

Samuel Pepys to Lady Carteret-Plague in London.

mand of the King, taking all the care we can to prevent its growth; and meeting to that purpose yesterday, after sermon, with the town officers, many doleful informations were brought us, and among others this, which I shall trouble your Ladyship with the telling. Complaint was brought us against one in the town for receiving into his house a child, newly brought from an infected house in London. Upon inquiry, we found that it was the child of a very able citizen in Gracious street, who, having lost already all the rest of his children, and himself and wife being shut up and in despair of escaping, implored only the liberty of using the means for the saving of this only babe, which with difficulty was allowed, and they suffered to deliver it, stripped naked, out at a window, into the arms of a friend, who, shifting into fresh clothes, conveyed it thus to Greenwich, where, upon this information from Alderman Hooker, we suffer it to remain. This, I tell your Ladyship, as one instance of the miserable streights our poor neighbors are reduced to.

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But, madam, I'll go no farther in this disagreeable discourse, hoping, from the coolness of the last seven or eight days, my next may bring you a more welcome account of the lessening of the disease, which God say Amen to.

Dear madam, do me right to my good Lady Slaning, in telling her that I have sent and sent again to Mr. Porter's lodgings, who is in the country, for an answer to my letter about her Ladyship's business, but am yet unable to give her any account of it.

My wife joins with me in ten thousand happy wishes to the young couple, and as many humble services to your Ladyship and them, my Lady Slaning, Lady Scott, and Mr. Sydney, whose return to Scott's Hall, if not burthensome to your Ladyship, will,

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I am sure, be as full of content to him as it will ever be of joy and honor to me, to be so esteemed.

Dearest madam, your Ladyship's most affectionate and obedient servant,

S. PEPYS.

V.-TRIAL OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS.

From

to John Ellis.

LONDON, June 30th, 1688.

SIR: Yesterday the seven Bishops came to their trial, which held from morning till seven at night. We gave you an account of the jury in our last. The first twelve stood, only Sir John Berry was not there: they did not bring in their verdict last night, and it is said they had not agreed upon it this day at four in the morning.

The counsel, in handling the matter for the Bishops, divided the substance of the information into two parts, whereof the same consisted; the first was that they had maliciously, seditiously, and slanderously made, contrived, and published, a false and seditious libel against the King, which tended to diminish his regal authority and prerogative: the second part of the plea for the Bishops was as to the special matter of their petition, which showed there was no malice or sedition in it.

As to the first point, much time was spent in proving the hands of the Bishops: that of the Archbishop was proved and well known by several, but that of the other Bishops was not otherwise made out than by the belief and supposition of the witnesses, though their own servants were subpoenaed against their masters, so that the Court was of opinion there was not sufficient proof of their handwriting.

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As to the Archbishop, it was objected that he could not be within the indictment, for that it was laid in Middlesex, and his Grace had not been out of Surrey in seven or eight months. To this it was answered, that his signing and writing of the petition, and sending of it over to be delivered in Middlesex, was a sufficient publishing of it there. But the Court was divided on this point.

Then the King's counsel alleged that the Bishops had owned their handwriting in the council, and had also confessed the delivery of the petition. It was replied, on the Bishops' side, that they had owned their hands, but after that the Lord Chancellor had required them to do it; and that they had done it, trusting to his Majesty's goodness that no advantage would be made of their confession against themselves. But they denied they had owned the delivery of the petition, much less that they had published it; and there being no other evidence of it than that they had been with the Lord Sunderland, and had offered his lordship a sight of a petition, which he had refused, nor did he see them deliver it to the King, the Court said it was only a presumption, and no proof.

As to the matter of the petition, whether a libel upon the Government or no, the Attorney and Solicitor-General maintained it was, for that it boldly meddled with the acts of the Government, declaring his Majesty's toleration to be illegal, and thereby tending to diminish the King's authority and prerogative royal.

To this the Bishops' counsel replied that they had done but what was the right of every subject, to petition the King, and that in matter of conscience, and upon the account of religion, which they were by their oaths and by the laws of the land to take

Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann-Scotch Rebellion in 1745.

care of; and quoted several laws and statutes to that purpose. They urged also, that they did not declare the King's declaration of indulgence to be illegal, but said only that the Parliaments of 62, 72, and 89 had declared so; whereupon the journals of Lords and Commons were read.

The Court was also divided in this point. The Chief Justice and Judge Allibone said that it was a libel, but Judges Powell and Holloway were of a contrary opinion.*

The attorney and solicitor were only for the King, and kept their ground against Pemberton, Sawyer, Finch, Pollexfen, Treby, and Sommers, who were for the Bishops.

This morning, between ten and eleven, the jury. brought in their verdict, the Bishops attending in Court, not guilty in part or whole, which causes great joy.

VI.-SCOTCH REBELLION IN 1745.

Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann.

ARLINGTON STREET, Sept. 13th, 1745.

The rebellion goes on; but hitherto there is no rising in England, nor landing of troops from abroad; indeed, not even of ours or the Dutch. The best account I can give you is, that if the boy has apparently no enemies in Scotland, at least he has openly very few friends. Nobody of note has joined him but a brother of the Duke of Athol, and another of Lord Dunmore.

*"The counsel for the Bishops, the ablest of their profession in all England, produced such arguments in their behalf that the judges were divided, two of them declaring that the proofs did not extend to the making their petition or address a libel, and two of them that they did, which cost Sir Richard Holloway and Sir John Powell their seats on the bench as soon as the term was over."-Reresby's Memoirs.

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