Page:The Annual Register 1758.djvu/126

112 in that country, exceeds that of the killed by sea and land during the present war.

His Portuguese majesty coming out of the country in the evening, attended by three of his domestics, was set upon by three fellows near Belem, in a lonesome place; two of them had muskets, and the third had a blunderbuss loaded with small shot; one was discharged at the coachman, who is very much wounded; the king is very dangeroufly wounded in several parts of his body and face, and his right armyarm [sic] is so much shattered, that it is thought his majefty will never have the use of it; the footman was miserably wounded. None are permitted to see the king but the physicians and surgeons, and ministers of state. The queen transacts all public business during his majesty's indisposition.

A part of the battalion of militia for the county of Dorset, commanded by Edward Hooper, Esq; was reviewed near Cranborn by the Right Honourable the Lord Lieutenant of the county. The men were dressed in their uniform, made a handsome appearance, and performed their exercise with great dexterity.

In other counties so few gentlemen have offered to serve in the militia, that the act has been obliged to be suspended until next year.

The corps of an undertaker and pawnbroker near Moorgate, was interred in Islington church yard, attended by a company of the artillery, who were to perform the usual ceremony of firing over his grave, as he was a member of their body: but in the procession of the funeral a mob arose, and committed such enormous outrages, out of resentment to the deceased, that the clergyman who officiated had great difficulty to perform his office. It is said that he died worth several thousand pounds, and that he has left upwards of 200l. to pay to the debtors in prison at his suit, a groat a day each for their maintenance, according to the act of parliament. The croud was so great that several persons were much hurt.

John Houls, a farmer at Longhope in Gloucestershire, was convicted of drawing a narrow wheeled waggon on the turnpike road with more than four horses, and paid the penalty of 5l. and his servant who drove the horses was also convicted in the same penalty, and for want of ability to pay the same, was sent to the house of correction for a month; which, it is hoped, will be a caution to others.

A great storm of wind at W. and W. by S. did considerable damage to the shipping in the Downs, at Portsmouth, and in many other places on the sea coaft. At the Isle of Wight, a fish of an enormous fize, supposed to be a whale, was cast on shore near Athenfield rocks in that island, where he disembogued daily large quantities of oil into the sea. He was upwards of sixty-six feet in length, and had part of an hawser or cable hoisted round his tail, so that it is supposed he was cut loose from the