AUGUST 4.
57 B. C. The decree recalling Cicero from banishment, which passed the full senate, consisting of 417 members, was ratified in the field of Mars, by a vote of all the centuries; it was nearly the last genuine public act of Roman liberty.
882. Louis III, of France, died. He shared the throne with his brother Carloman, and ably defended himself against his enemies.
1060. Henry I, of France, died in consequence of taking an improper medicine; highly respected as a good warrior and a benevolent man.
1265. Battle of Evesham; the earl of Leicester defeated and killed by the forces under prince Edward, and the king released from confinement. No quarter was given, and the aged king only received his life by an unwonted energy of mind; exclaiming to his antagonist, "Hold, fellow, I am Harry of Winchester."
1347. The conquest of Calais by the third Edward, after a siege of 11 months, when the six citizens, with halters round their necks, surrendered the keys of their independence. The condemned lives of these men, whose patriotism has scarcely ever been equaled, were spared through the tears and intercessions of Philippa. The inhabitants were removed and the city repeopled with English, in whose possession it remained more than two centuries. The pay of the army was as follows: the marines and archers on foot received 3d.; the black prince £1; and the bishop of Durham, with the earls, 6s. 8d. per day.
1496. Bartholomew Columbus, the
admiral's brother, laid the foundation of St. Domingo.
1578. Battle of the three kings, in the west of Africa, which was invaded by Sebastian of Portugal, in which the Moors were victorious, but the three kings engaged in it lost their lives.
1583. Sir Humphrey Gilbert landed at St. Johns, Newfoundland, and took possession of it in the name of the queen of England.
1598. William Cecil, lord Burley, died. He was an eminent English statesman, memorable for his virtue and integrity, as well as his great abilities.
1609. Hudson discovered cape Cod, and under the supposition that it was an island, called it New Holland, in compliment to the country of his employers. The Dutch afterwards called it Staaten hoek. The Indians here were observed to have green tobacco, and pipes with clay bowls and copper stems.
1612. Hugh Broughton, an eminent Hebrew scholar, died. So classical was his Hebrew that a Jew predicted the turning of the whole Jewish race if the New Testament would be printed in such pure Hebrew.
1633. George Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury, died, aged 71. He rose from humble circumstances to great dignity.
1651. Stirling castle and town taken by Monk for Cromwell.
1666. A disastrous hurricane in the West Indies. Lord Francis Willoughby perished with his fleet of 15 sail. The poor fellows who escaped the wreck, were seized with exultation by the French.
1696. General Frontenac invaded the Onondaga country.
1713. William Cave, an eminent English scholar and divine, died. He published a great number of useful works.
1723. William Fleetwood, an English bishop, died. "His character was great in every respect."
1747. Michael Maittaire, a learned French critic and bibliographer, died. He edited many of the classical authors, with useful indexes, and wrote several important works.
1759. Crown point on lake Champlain, taken from the French by Gen. Amherst.
1774. Christopher Coudrette, a French ecclesiastic, died. His chief work was a history of the Jesuits; he was an opposer of that order, and of the pope's bull, unigenitus.
1781. Isaac Hayne, a patriot of the revolution, hanged at Charleston by order of the British lord Rawdon, an act, under the circumstances, extremely unjust and merciless, and which his lordship attempted to justify in a pamphlet.
1783. Captain John Darby, of the Astrea, arrived at Salem with the news of the ratification of the treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain. He is said to have carried out the accounts of the first conflict at Lexington.
1789. Privileged classes abolished in France.
1792. John Burgoyne, a British general, died. He surrendered his whole army to general Gates at Saratoga, and returned to England. He was a member of parliament, and a successful dramatic author. (June 4, P. Cyc.)
1799. John Bacon, an English sculptor, died. He was apprenticed to a porcelain manufacturer, in which condition he devoted his leisure to statuary, and finally rose to great eminence in his profession.
1804. Adam Duncan, a gallant English admiral, died; celebrated for the victory he gained over the Dutch fleet at Camperdown, for which he was rewarded with a peerage.
1806. Miranda arrived at Coro an hour before day; the place was abandoned, and through mistake his troops fired on each other.
1808. French assaulted Saragossa in Spain, and penetrated into a part of the town.
1808. The commencement of Wellington's famous retreat into Portugal.
1814. United States troops under Col. Croghan attacked the British and Indians at fort Mackinaw, but were repulsed with the loss of 50 killed.
1815. Bonaparte delivered a written protest for the prince regent of England, against being sent to St. Helena.
1821. William Floyd, one of the signers of the declaration of independence, died at Western, New York.
1835. The Spanish ministry having suppressed the Jesuits and confiscated their property, a royal decree to this effect was signed. By this decree 900 convents were suppressed in Spain, and their property applied towards the payment of the debts of the state.
1836. The famous bell of Moscow, the largest in the world, raised from the ground, where it had laid a great many years. Its weight is about 440,000 pounds, is 21 feet in height and 23 in diameter.
1842. John Banin, a popular Irish novelist, died near Kilkenny, Ireland.
1846. Fisher Ames Harding, one of the editors of the Detroit Daily Advertiser, died at Detroit.
1848. Daniel Wadsworth, a gentleman of highly cultivated taste and benevolence, died at Hartford, Ct., aged 77.
1848. Capital punishment except in cases of martial law, abolished in the
Prussian assembly, also in the German parliament at Frankfort.
1851. At Leon, Nicaragua, Gen. Munoz, late minister of war, with a small body of troops, took prisoners president Pineda and most of his cabinet, sent them to a port in Tigre islands, and elected Justo Albuanez president.
1852. Alfred D'Orsay, the mirror of fashion, letters and art, died in Paris, aged 54.
1854. A severe battle was fought between the Chippewa and Sioux Indians.
1854. Bailey Washington, a surgeon in the navy, died at Washington, aged 67. He was a relative of general Washington, and entered the navy in 1810 as surgeon. He was with the Enterprise when she captured the Boxer, and was fleet surgeon under Rogers, Elliot and Patterson, in the Mediterranean.
1854. Jose Barundia, minister from Honduras, died at New York, aged 70. He was elected to the presidency of the confederation of Central America, when he adopted many of the laws of the United States, and devoted his salary to the promotion of public schools. He was the prime mover of the liberal party, and the first to raise the standard of rebellion against the Spanish government.
1857. Joshua Forman, founder of the city of Syracuse in New York, died in Rutherfordton, N. C., aged 71. He was one of the early promoters of the Erie canal, and first judge of the county of Onondaga, from which he removed about twenty years before his death.