1709. Edward Lhuyd died; a celebrated antiquary and linguist, and keeper of the Ashmolean museum.
1731. John Montgomery, governor of New York, died. He possessed a kind and human disposition, and his death was much lamented.
1743. Action between the British ship Centurion, 60 guns, 400 men, Com. Anson, and Spanish ship Acapulco, 64 guns, 550 men. The latter was captured, with above a million and a half of dollars on board. Spanish loss 67 killed, 84 wounded; British loss 2 killed, 17 wounded. (See [June 15, 1744].)
1762. John Baptist Nolin, a French geographer, died at Paris.
1766. John Francis Lefevre de Labarre,
a young French nobleman, executed. A wooden crucifix had been defaced on a public bridge, at which the bishop of Amiens was greatly enraged, and demanded a disclosure of the perpetrators. Labarre was arraigned on the false accusation of his enemy, Duval de Saucourt, and the indictment also charged him with having passed a procession of monks without taking off his hat. He was sentenced to have his tongue cut out, his right hand cut off, and to be burnt alive. This sentence the parliament of Paris commuted, by a small majority, into decapitation before burning. Labarre was scarcely nineteen years old, and was one of the latest victims of that religious fanaticism in France which led to the revolution. Voltaire exerted himself as warmly against this infamous act, as he had against the execution of Calas.
1780. Action off cape Finisterre between British ship Romney, 50 guns, and French frigate Artois, 40 guns, 460 men. The Artois was captured in 45 minutes, 20 killed, 40 wounded; British 2 wounded.
1780. John Bell, a celebrated Scottish traveler, died, aged 91. He commenced his travels about the year 1714, in the employ of Peter the Great of Russia, with whom he was on terms of great intimacy; and extended his travels into many different countries; was afterwards for several years a merchant at Constantinople, and finally in 1747 returned to his native country to spend the remainder of his life in ease and affluence on his estates of Antermony.
1781. Battle of Porto Novo, in Hindostan; 7,000 British under sir Eyre Coote defeated Hyder Ally and 150,000 men. English loss about 400 killed and wounded; Hyder lost many of his best officers and 4,000 killed.
1782. The marquis of Rockingham, first lord of the English treasury, died. His merit was his patriotism, and his patronizing such men as Burke, and bringing them into influence.