The nobleffe of the province formed a project to deliver the marquis from his confinement. A large affociation was made, which was very fecretly kept; and they affembled at the appointed day at a neighbouring place in the foreft. That no one might have any fufpicion of their defign, they cloathed themselves in the uniform of the mare chauffé, and carried with them a man bound and fettered like a criminal, with a pretended order from the king. Thus prepared, they came to the fort, diftributing themfelves fo as to hinder the centinels from oppofing them, or from alarming the main guard they then knocked at the gate, and being let in, told the gaoler he must put the pretended criminal in the fame place with the marquis de Fratteaux. The gaoler accordingly carried the criminal, accompanied with these pretended officers of the marechauffé, to the very chamber where the marquis was; upon which, clapping a piftol to the gaoler's head, they forbid him to speak a word on pain of death: they then took the marquis with them, and fhutting all the gaolers into the prifon, and carrying all the keys away with them, they got fafe to the fo

reft.

This affair made no noife, nor was it enquired after, because fome of the nobleft families of France were in the plot; but the marquis would have been foon retaken, had he not got immediately into Spain. On his arrival at Madrid, he waited on the bishop of Rennes, who was at that time ambaffador from France to that court, and was received as his rank re

The

quired. He gave the bishop a diftinét account of his misfortunes, and befought him to mediate between him and his father, which the bifhop immediately undertook, and wrote accordingly to court. But how was the good man furprifed when he received, for anfwer, exprefs orders not to permit the marquis to vifit him. bifhop fent at midnight to defire the marquis would come no more to him, for reasons which he could not be ignorant of, and which he begged leave to be excufed from repeating, and advised him privately not to stay above a week at fartheft in Spain, or his perfon would not be in fafety. The marquis took his friendly advice, and without any further information, fet out the next day for England, where he arrived fhortly after.

It is the cuffom in France to pafs over in filence many affairs, of which the too close examination would produce fatal confequences. When they are thoroughly acquainted with any defigns, they are careful to prevent them, and wait, though it fhould be a long time, for a favourable opportunity to punish the authors of them. Some days before the battle of La Feldt, a scheme was laid to seize and carry off the king of France from the camp; but it was timely difcovered by the vigilance of M. de Sechelles, then intendant of the army, and confequently prevented. The carts which carried the uniforms of the body guards, and which were to have been made ufe of in the execution of the plot, were all feized and burnt, without even the chefts, &c. being opened, that the army might not afk for what thefe uniforms were

defigned,

defigned. Immediately one Fontauban, a fpy of the two armies, a man of an intriguing genius, who had helped to ruin many of the nobility by the ufurious bonds he had made them contract, and by the pleasures he had procured for them, not daring to return to Paris, thought he should be fafe at Lifle, in Flanders; but he was taken up under the pretence that he had tried to negotiate feveral bills of fundry lords who were yet minors, and under guardianfhip he was carried to M. de Sechelles, who had in his hands fufficient proof of his manifold guilt, and he was interrogated in the cabinet of the minifter, who was affifted only by a difcreet fecretary. After fix hours examination he was fent to prison, and an order given to a prieft to go and prepare him for that death he was to fuffer in three hours after. A gallows was fixed in the market-place, and twelve regiments of foot were ordered to furround the place, and that the very moment the criminal appeared, the drums fhould beat to arms, and never cease till the execution was over, that no perfon whatfoever might hear what he faid. All this was done, and the dead body was burnt at the foot of the gallows, with all the papers of the proceedings of that affair.

The French are often furprised at the choice their kings make of minifters and favourites; it is he alone who, by fecret proceedings, is able to know his fubjects, and he very often leaves the curious public ignorant of the caufe of his preferring a filent punishment; for in the above plot there were more French than English or Germans.

In like manner, if the marquis de Fratteaux was guilty of the attempt on his father's life, his father could not make too many fecret precautions to feize him; and thereby not only preferve his own life, but fhun the ignominy a public punishment would have caft upon his own family; and therefore the steps he took were the most wife and prudent: for if he had accused his fon in a court of justice, he would have been punished according to all the rigour of the law, and the father would not have been able, either by his intereft or his riches, to take him then out of the hands of justice. Parricides in France are punished by the wheel and fire; and the king, with all his authority, could not have pardoned him the only favour which could have been granted, would have been a tranfmutation of his fentence to beheading, and even then the fcandal following fuch a crime would have been an indelible blot upon the father and the whole family.

:

In confidering impartially this affair, it is very easy to perceive, that if the marquis had not been chargeable with that attempt, he had been guilty of fome other capital crime; and the coldness with which the English miniftry acted, in fending after him, fhews that they were fomewhat in accord with the court of France, and were not willing that he fhould be brought back to England: becaufe he being free in London, might have found there bad people, as capable to execute his defign upon his father, as his father had found to feize and carry his fon.-Thefe are the charges of accufation brought against M. de

off

Fratteaux,

Fratteaux, which neither the court of France, nor that of England, thought fit to make public.

It has been faid that, after M. de Fratteaux was carried off, he languished in the Baftille; which is totally falfe; he is now actually at liberty at his estate at Fratteaux; for when his brother, M. Bertin de Bourdeille, was made in. tendant at Lyons, he obtained his liberty, on his giving his word of honour to M. Bertin de Bourdeille, to remain at his eftate at Fratteaux, and never to go above fix miles from it, without leave from his father. Two months after his arrival there, his father went to fee him, and he had leave to return the vifit at Bourdeille. He has kept his word of honour ftrictly, and lives at present in cordiality with his whole family.

Epitaph on the late Doctor King,

Sæpe æquo iracundior,
Haud unquam ut effem implacabilis.
A luxuria pariter ac avaritia
(Quam non tam vitium
Quam mentis infanitatem effe duxi)
Prorfus abhorrens.

Cives, hofpites, peregrinos
Omnino liberaliter accepi.
Ipfe et cibi parcus, et vini parciffimus.
Cum magnis vixi, cum plebeis, cum
omnibus,

Ut homines nofcerem, ut me ipfum
imprimis :

Neque, cheu, novi!
Permultos habui amicos,
At veros, ftabiles, gratos,
(Quæ fortaffe eft gentis culpa)
Perpauciffimos,

Plures habui inimicos,

Sed invidos, fed improbos, fed inhu

manos.

Quorum nullis tamen injuriis
Perinde commotus fui

Quam deliquiis meis.

Summam, quam adeptus fum, feneЯntem

Neque optavi, neque accufavi. Vitæ incommoda neque immoderate ferens,

Neque commodus nimium con

tentus.

Mortem neque contempfi,

Neque metui.

Deus optime,

written by himself, in order to be engraved on a silver case, in which he directed his heart should be preserved, in some convenient part of that house.

EPITAPHIUM

GULIELMI KING: A seipso scriptum Pridie nonas Junii

Die natali Georgii III.

MDCCLXII.

Fui

GULIELMUS KING, LL. D.
Ab anno MDCCXIX. ad annum
MDCC-

Hujus Aulæ Præfectus.
Literis humanioribus a puero deditus:
Eas ufq; ad fupremum vitæ diem colui.

Neque vitiis carui, neq; virtutibus; Imprudens et improvidus, comis et benevolus;

Mifcerere animæ meæ !

Thas been justly regretted, that we know little more of the inland parts of Spain, than of the inland parts of Africa. Except the Spanish novels, and the ladies travels into Spain, there is scarce a book yet extant from which we can form any idea of the manners of the people, or the produce or curiosities of the country; some letters lately published having only disappointed the curiosity they raised. The following piece, therefore, must be considered as a valuable addition of knowledge to the common stock, as the product of a mine scarce opened before, which abounds with the most valuable and curious materials. It is greatly to be wished that the ingenious author would transmit some farther account of a people who are, in many respects, what the rest of Europe was five centuries ago. They have no intercourse with other nations, either for pleasure or profit; their superstition has suffered very little from the advancement of general knowledge, and they have preserved their ancient habits of life, which, in other places, have been changed by the improvement of arts, and the establishm-nt of manufactories.

There are, besides, in the interior parts of Spain, many curious remains of Moorish antiquity, many traditions of unwritten events, many opinions which have been driven from the rest of Europe, and some amusements and employments known no where else.

Though the following letter relates principally to the sheep and sheep walks of Spain, it contains,

however, many other very curious particulars relating to the fate of the country and its product and contents, the revenues of the king, the character of the ecclesiastics, and the economy of a pastoral life.

Account of the sheep and sheepwalks of Spain, in a letter from a gentleman in Spain, to Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S.

SIR,

HERE are two kinds of fheep in Spain. The coarsewoolled fheep, who remain all their lives in their native country, and who are houfed every night in winter; and the fine woolled fheep, who are all their lives in the open air, who travel every fummer from the cool mountains of the northern parts of Spain, to feed all the winter on the fouthern warm plains of Andaloufia, Manca, and Extremadura. From computations made with the utmost accuracy it has appeared, that there are five millions of fine-woolled fheep in Spain, and that the wool end flesh of a stock of ten thousand fheep produced yearly about 24 reals a head, which we will fuppofe to be nearly the value of 12 English fixpences; of thefe but one goes clear a head to the owner yearly, three fixpences a head goes yearly to the king, and the other eight go to the expences of pafture, tithes, fhepherds, dogs, falt, fheering, &c.

Thus the annual product of the five millions of fheep amounts to 37 millions and a half of fixpences, a little more or lefs, of