paper to the sheriffs, he told them they might give the word of command when they pleased, "For, said he, as I have been an officer in the army many years, I have been accustomed, and am ready to obey command." After this he knelt down and said a short prayer, then drank a little burnt brandy with bitters, and was conducted to the scaffold.

When he was ascending the steps, he looked round, and observing such a prodigious crowd of people on the hill, he said, "He wondered there should be such a bustle about taking off an old grey head that could not get up three steps without two men to support it." As he stood on the scaffold, observing one of his friends look very much dejected, he clapped him upon the shoulder, saying, "Chear up thy heart, man; I am not afraid, why shouldst thou?" He then gave the executioner the purse with ten guineas in it, recommending him to act his part handsomely; for, said he, "if you do not, and I am able to rise again, I shall be very angry with you;" and after examining the axe, and viewing his coffin, he sat down in a chair provided for him, and repeated several lines from Ovid and Horace. This done, he took off his cloaths, and kneeled down at the block, telling the executioner he would say a short prayer, and then drop his handkerchief as a signal for him to do his business.

- Having placed himself too near the block, the execu tioner desired him to move a little farther back, which he did; and after placing his head and neck properly on the block, in half a minute he dropped his handkerchief, when the executioner, having now become expert in his business, severed the head from the body at one blow, both of which were put into the coffin, and carried in a hearse to the Tower, where, the next day, they were interred.

A perpetuity passed the great seal about this time for incorporating the bishopric of London, &c. into one body politic, for the relief of the poor clergymen's widows and children within the diocese of London.

The sixpence per chaldron on coals, allowed by parlia ment in aid of the Orphan Fund, expiring at Michaelmas

1750, the court of common council, after having agreed on the 22d of October 1747, and passed a bill on the 10th of December to raise 2000l. on the personal estates of the inhabitants for the Orphan's Fund from Midsummer 1742 to Midsummer 1748, petitioned parliament for a continuation of the said duty, and a bill was brought into the House of Commons, by which the said sixpence per chaldron on coals was continued for the further term of thirty-five years from and after the thirtieth day of September 1750, under the following conditions: "That the said city, out of the produce of the said imposition, shall pay 3000l. per annum to the Mercers Company; and that the revenues of the city shall be charged with 2000l. per annum over and above the 8000l. per annum applied by the fifth and sixth of William and Mary, for the relief of the orphans; with power to the lord mayor and aldermen to pay off the principal debt and interest, due upon the act above mentioned." By this power the city borrowed 25,000l. at the rate of 31. 6s. per cent.; and the chamberlain, by order of the common council, dated on the 20th of June 1751, discharged the sum of 21,735l. 17s. 9d. due to the Orphan's Fund from the city account, and placed it to the credit of the Orphan's Fund in discharge of the same debt. And from this time the city has always been assessed at Midsummer, from year to year, and paid 2000l. per annum by act of common council.

2

The same year, George Montgomerie, Esq. and Thomas Byrd, Esq. jointly with Resta Patching, having, about the year 1743, set on foot a work to furnish the inhabitants of the several parishes and places of Stratford and Westham,' Bow, Bromley, Mile End, Stepney, and other parishes and places adjacent, with water; and for that purpose had obtained leases of several foot paths, and other waste grounds; and had also, at a considerable expence, built reservatories at Mile End, Stratford, and near the engine which they had erected at the latter place, to be worked by fire, near unto the three mile stone in the road to Stratford; they applied to parliament, and obtained an act, empowering them "to complete the said water works, and to lay and repair any pipes in, under, or over any highway, roads, or bridges;

and to lay pipes from the main branches into streets, &c. the undertakers making good all damages; with a penalty upon those who wilfully or maliciously hindered, interrupted, or destroyed the said water works."

On the 25th of March 1748, a dreadful fire broke out at the house of Mr. Eldridge, in Exchange Alley, Cornhill; which, notwithstanding the greatest supply of water and engines, and every other possible assistance, before twelve o'clock at noon upwards of eighty houses were entirely consumed, besides many others very considerably damaged. Mr. Eldridge and his family all perished in the flames; and Mr. Cook, a merchant, who lodged in the house, broke his leg by jumping out of the window, and died soon after. The effects of the sufferers were preserved as well from theft as from the flames, by the care of the magistrates, and the assistance of parties of soldiers sent from the Tower and St. James's; notwithstanding which, the loss occasioned by this accident was estimated at 200,000l. Several gentlemen, bankers and others, opened a subscription for the relief of the sufferers; a committee was appointed, and Alderman Stephen Theodore Janssen, Esq. was chosen chairman; and that the houses destroyed might be rebuilt with expedition, the common council, on the twenty-ninth, agreed to permit as many non-freemen to be employed as should be found ne

cessary.

The mode of election for city officers not being satisfac. tory, and great advantages having been taken, on account of the remissness with which the laws were executed; to remedy future inconveniencies, a court of common council was held on the seventh of April, when an act, repealing all former acts, orders and ordinances, relating to the nomination and election of sheriffs of the city of London, and for regulating and enforcing such nominations and elections for the future. The substance of this act is as follows:

"That the right of electing persons to the office of she riffalty shall be vested in the liverymen, and that the general election day for sheriffs shall be the twenty-fourth of June, except it happens on a Sunday, and in that case the election to be on the following day.

"That

"That the person or persons elected to the said offices shall take the same upon him or them on the vigil of St. Michael the archangel, next following the said election, and hold the same for and during the space of one whole year from thence next ensuing, and no longer, when some other persons shall be duly elected, and sworn into the same office in their stead.

"That at the general election for sheriffs, all the aldermen who have not actually served the said office shall be publicly put in nomination, according to their seniority, before any

commoner.

"That the lord mayor may, at any time, between the fourteenth day of April, and the fourteenth day of June, in every year, nominate in the court of lord mayor and aldermen, any number of persons (not exceeding nine) free of the city, to be put in nomination for the said office of sheriffalty, to the liverymen assembled for the election of sheriffs, who shall be put in nomination publicly for the said office, before any other commoner, and in the same order as nominated by the lord mayor.

"That if any so nominated shall, within six days after notice thereof, pay 400l. to the chamberlain, and twenty marks towards the maintenance of the ministers of the several prisons, together with the usual fees, every such person shall be exempt and discharged from serving the said office, except he shall afterwards take upon him the office of an alderman.

"That no freeman shall be discharged from such election or nomination for insufficiency of wealth, unless he voluntarily swears himself not worth 15,000l. in lands, goods, and seperate debts, and the same be attested on oath by six other freemen of credit and reputation.

"That every person elected to the said office shall, at the next court of lord mayor and aldermen, give 1000l. bond to the chamberlain that he will take upon him the said office on the twenty-eighth of September next following.

"That the person elected, who does not give bond to serve, shall, if an alderman, or commoner of the lord mayor's nomination, forfeit and pay 6007. ; but if he be neither alderman, nor one nominated by the lord mayor, he

shall

shall forfeit and pay only 4007. to be recovered by action of debt, in the name of the chamberlain of London, to be ap. plied to the use of the lord mayor, commonalty and citi zens, subject to the orders and resolutions of the court of common council; except 100l. to be paid to each of the new sheriffs, if two fines happen; or 50l. to each if only one fine happens. And, lastly,

"That no person who has fined shall be ever after eligible, except he takes upon him the office of an alderman; neither shall any person be compelled to serve the said office more than once."

After an expensive and destructive war, the preliminaries for a general peace having been signed by the plenipotentiaries of the contending powers at Aix la Chapelle, on the mineteenth of April, a cessation of arms was proclaimed on the ninth of May at the Royal Exchange, and the other usual places in London and Westminster.

Whilst the blessings of peace, at last, seemed to smile on the country after a domestic and foreign warfare for the space of nearly a century, no fitter place than that we have here adopted, can be appropriated to record the increase of the city and its environs since the great fire.

Taking the north-east part of the metropolis, we commence at those vast ranges of building, called Spitalfields, reaching from Spital Yard at Northern Fallgate, and from Artillery Lane in Bishopsgate Street, with all the new streets, beginning at Hoxton and the back of Shoreditch church north, and reaching to Brick Lane, and to the end of Hare Street, on the way to Bethnal Green east; then sloping away quite to Whitechapel road south-east, containing above three hundred and twenty acres of ground, closely built, and numerously inhabited.

Before this improvement, the lanes were deep, dirty, and unfrequented; that part now called Spitalfields Market was a field, with cows feeding on it, since the year 1670. The Old Artillery Ground (where the parliament enlisted their first soldiers against the king) took up all those long streets leading out of Artillery Lane to Spital Yard Back

Gate;