AUGUST 9.
357 B. C. An eclipse of the moon which preceded the departure of Dion from Zacynthus (Zante) upon his celebrated expedition against the tyrant Dionysius the Younger. He entered Syracuse with his little band of 800 veterans in September, and in three days became master of the empire. The deaths of Democritus and
Hippocrates, each 104 years old, and of Timotheus, the Milesian poet and musician, took place in that year.
378. The great and disastrous battle of Adrianople, second only to that of Cannæ, in which the Roman legions under Valens, were for the first time defeated by the Cythian Goths. The wounded emperor was removed to a cottage, which was fired, and he perished in the flames.
1342. Sir Walter Manny raised the siege of Hennebon in Brittany, so nervously and heroically defended by Jane, countess of Montford, against the power of France.
1611. John Blagrave died; an early English mathematician of considerable eminence and a laborious author on his favorite science.
1634. Noy, attorney-general to Charles I of England, died at London. He is supposed to have devised the plan of levying ship money, which went into operation the day after his death.
1641. David Baker, an English Benedictine monk and ecclesiastical historian, died. He collected the records of the ancient congregation of the black or Benedictine monks in England, 6 vols. folio, and his religious treatises filled 9 folio vols. in manuscript.
1694. Anthony Arnauld, a French theological and philosophical writer, died. He was one of the most learned men of his age, and did much for the improvement of morality in the catholic church. His works were printed in more than 100 volumes of various sizes.
1710. French and Spaniards defeated at Saragossa, with the loss of 5,000 killed, 7,000 prisoners, and all their artillery, and the allies entered the city.
1718. Action off cape Passaro, between the British fleet, 20 sail, admiral Byng, and the Spanish fleet, 27 sail of the line. The Spaniards were defeated with the loss of 21 of their ships, either taken or destroyed.
1719. Dominico de Angelis, an Italian scholar, died. He made the tour of France and Spain, and was everywhere received with honor by the learned.
1720. Samuel Ockley, an English divine, died; a very learned man, and well skilled in oriental literature.
1744. John Bridges, duke of Chandos, died. Few particulars are known of this peer, except of his munificence. The earlier part of his manhood was spent in reflection and observation; his middle age in business, honorable and useful; and his advanced years in deeds of benevolence. He erected the princely seat of Canons, near London, where he lived in a splendor to which no other subject had ever aspired. His liberality was equaled only by his generous forgiveness of injuries. Pope made him the subject of his satire, which Hogarth punished by representing the poet on a scaffold whitewashing Burlington house, and bespattering the duke of Chandos's carriage as it passed. Yet Pope's verse respecting the short-lived magnificence of Canons was prophetic:
Another age shall see the golden ear
Embrown the slope, and nod on the parterre:
Deep harvests bury all his pride has planned,
And laughing Ceres reassume the land.
Three years after his death the stately mansion was sold by auction, piecemeal, such was the rage to buy something at Canons. Its site was soon an arable.
1746. Battle of Rotto Fredo, between the allies and the Austrians; the former defeated with the loss of 8,000; Austrian loss about half that number.
1748. Alexander Blackwell, a Scottish physician, beheaded in Sweden, on suspicion of treason. His wife, to support him in prison, published a Herbal in two vols. folio, containing 500 plates, drawn, engraved and colored by herself.
1757. Fort William Henry with a garrison of about 2600 men under Col. Monroe, capitulated to Montcalm, who had invested the fort with an army of 11,500. The garrison was to be allowed the honors of war, and protected from the Indians; but with the characteristic perfidy of the French in all these colonial wars, the Indians were allowed to pillage and massacre the defenceless soldiers, so that their baggage was lost and 1500 slain or made prisoners.
1759. Birthday of Jean Baptist Annibal Aubert Dubayet, in Louisiana. He served in the American army during the war of independence, and went to France on the breaking out of the revolution there. He was appointed minister of war, and the next year ambassador to Constantinople, where he died.
1775. Captain Linzee, of the British sloop of war Falcon, attempted to take an American schooner in Gloucester harbor, cape Ann, in two barges, a whale boat, schooner and cutter, all of which were captured by the Americans; in consequence of which he bombarded the town. American loss 1 killed, 2 wounded.
1778. General Greene's army crossed over from Tiverton to the north end of Rhode Island.
1778. Lord Howe's fleet arrived off Newport, in quest of count d'Estaing, who put to sea the next morning.
1782. De la Perouse, with a considerable French military and naval force, took fort Prince of Wales, at Hudson's bay,
and soon after forts York and Severn; the settlements and forts were destroyed.
1787. The ship Columbia, captain Gray, and sloop Washington sailed from Boston for the north west coast of America and China. They returned in 1790, being the first American vessels that circumnavigated the globe.
1793. Alexis Brulard de Genlis, marquis de Sillery, a French general, guillotined at Paris. He was a deputy to the states-general, and an avowed enemy to the king, on whose trial he voted for detaining the royal family until the peace, and for their perpetual banishment after that event.
1796. Elba surrendered to the British under commodore Nelson.
1804. Robert Potter, an English prelate, died; known by his elegant translations of Æschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, the three great dramatists of ancient Greece.
1805. Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike commenced his voyage to the sources of the Missouri river, with a party of 22; they were taken by the Spaniards, and returned the next year.
1808. Romana, with 10,000 Spanish troops, deserted the French army under Bernadotte, and were conveyed to Spain in British transports.
1809. The president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, received official information of the non-ratification of the British treaty, and suspended all intercourse with that country.
1811. Battle of Baza; the Spaniards under Blake defeated by the French under Soult; of 20,000 Spaniards not more than 7,000 rallied again.
1812. Battle of Magauga; the British and Indians under major Muir and Tecumseh, defeated by the United States troops under general Miller, and driven into Brownstown, whence they escaped to Malden in boats. American loss 10 killed, 8 wounded.
1814. Bombardment of Stonington, by the British, commenced. It continued three days. British loss 21 killed, 50 wounded; American loss 6 wounded.
1815. Commodore Decatur settled the differences between the United States and the dey of Tripoli. The dey made restitution of property and prisoners.
1815. The British ship Northumberland, 74 guns, admiral Cockburn, sailed from Torbay with the exiled Napoleon for St. Helena.
1818. Captain Ross discovered the Esquimaux tribe of Indians, situated at the north east corner of Baffin's bay, extending on the sea shore 120 miles, and not exceeding 20 miles in breadth, and bounded on the south by an immense barrier of mountains, covered with ice. They seemed utterly ignorant of other nations to the south, whence they are supposed to be the original race. They are destitute of boats, and furnish an unique instance of a fishing tribe unacquainted with the art of floating on the water.
1824. Joseph Nightingale, an English dissenting minister, died. He possessed great literary talent, and published many excellent works.
1839. Pera, a suburb of Constantinople, nearly destroyed by fire; 3700 houses burnt.
1841. The steam boat Erie, on her passage from Buffalo to Chicago, took fire and was totally destroyed. Of 200 persons on board, principally Swiss and German emigrants, only 28 were saved. The boat was valued at $75,000; merchandise $20,000; specie $180,000.
1842. Treaty establishing the boundary line between the United States and Canada across the state of Maine; the British acquiring thereby a good portion of the latter state that of right belonged to the United States.
1844. Imprisonment for debt abolished in England; the act taking effect on this day.
1853. Samuel Jones, a New York jurist, died, aged 80.
1855. Santa Anna left the city of Mexico with 2600 men, under pretence of putting down the revolution at Vera Cruz; but signed an abdication at Perote, and sailed to Havana. On his departure a mob destroyed a large number of houses.