ASTRONOMERS SENT TO THE EAST INDIES.
In the midst of these alarms some regard was paid to the improvements of natural knowledge. The Royal Society having made application to the king, representing that there would be a transit of Venus over the disc of the sun, on the sixth day of June; and that there was reason to hope the parallax of that planet might be more accurately determined by making proper observations of this phenomenon at the island of St. Helena, near the coast of Africa, and at Bencoolen in the East Indies, his majesty granted a sum of money to defray the expense of sending able astronomers to those two places, and ordered a ship of war to be equipped for their conveyance. Accordingly, Mr. Nevil Maskelyne and Mr. Robert Waddington were appointed to make the observations at St. Helena; and Mr. Charles Mason and Mr. Jeremiah Dixon undertook the voyage to Bencoolen, on the island of Sumatra.*
* In the beginning of April, the king granted to his grandson prince Edward Augustus, and to the heirs male of his royal highness, the dignities of duke of the kingdom of Great Britain, and of earl of the kingdom of Ireland, by the names, styles, and titles, of duke of York and Albany, and earl of Ulster.
EARTHQUAKES IN SYRIA.
Except the countries that were actually the scenes of war, no political revolution or disturbance disquieted the general tranquillity. Syria, indeed, felt all the horrors and wreck of a dreadful earthquake, protracted in repeated shocks, which began on the thirteenth day of October, in the neighbourhood of Tripoli. A great number of houses were overthrown at Seyde, and many people buried under the ruins. It was felt through a space of ten thousand square leagues, comprehending the mountains of Libanus and Antilibanus, with an infinite number of villages, that were reduced to heaps of rubbish. At Acra, or Ptolemais, the sea overflowed its banks, and poured into the streets, though eight feet above the level of the water. The city of Saphet was entirely destroyed, and the greatest part of its inhabitants perished. At Damascus, all the minarets were overthrown, and six thousand people lost their lives. The shocks diminished gradually till the twenty-fifth day of November, when they were renewed with redoubled havoc; the earth trembled with the most dreadful convulsions, and the greater part of Tripoli was destroyed. Balbeck was entirely ruined, and this was the fate of many other towns and castles; so that the people who escaped the ruins were obliged to sojourn in the open fields, and all Syria was threatened with the vengeance of heaven. Such a dangerous ferment arose at Constantinople, that a revolution was apprehended. Mustapha, the present emperor, had no sons; but his brother Bajazet, whose life he had spared, contrary to the maxims of Turkish policy, produced a son by one of the women with whom he was indulged in his confinement; a circumstance which aroused the jealousy of the emperor to such a degree, that he resolved to despatch his brother. The great officers of the Porte opposed this design, which was so disagreeable to the people, that an insurrection ensued. Several Turks and Armenians, taking it for granted that a revolution was at hand, bought up great quantities of grain; and a dreadful dearth was the consequence of this monopoly. The sultan assembled the troops, quieted the insurgents, ordered the engrossers of corn to be executed, and in a little time the repose of the city was reestablished.
Notwithstanding the prospect of a rupture in Italy, no new incident interrupted the tranquillity which the southern parts of Europe enjoyed. The king of Spain, howsoever solicited by the other branch of the house of Bourbon to engage in the war as its ally, refused to interpose in any other way than as a mediator between the courts of London and Versailles. He sent the condé de Fuentes, a nobleman of high rank and character, in quality of ambassador-extraordinary to the king of Great Britain, in order to offer his good offices for effecting a peace; and the condé, after having conferred with the English minister, made an excursion to Paris: but his proposal with respect to a cessation of hostilities, if in reality such a proposal was ever made, did not meet with a cordial reception. Other differences subsisting between the crowns of Great Britain and Spain, he found no difficulty in compromising. His catholic majesty persisted in the execution of a plan truly worthy of a patriot king. In the first place, he spared no pains and application to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the state of his kingdom. He remitted to his people all they owed the crown, amounting to threescore millions of reals: he demanded an exact account of his father’s debts, that they might be discharged with the utmost punctuality: an order was sent to the treasury, that ten millions of reals should be annually appropriated for this purpose, until the whole should be liquidated; and to the first year’s payment be added fifty millions, to be divided equally among the legal claimants. He took measures for the vigorous execution of the laws against offenders; encouraged industry; protected commerce; and felt the exquisite pleasure in being beloved as the father of his people. To give importance to his crown, and extend his influence among the powers of Europe, he equipped a powerful squadron of ships at Carthagena; and is said to have declared his intention to employ them against Algiers, should the dey refuse to release the slaves of the Spanish nation.
AFFAIRS OF PORTUGAL.
Portugal still seemed agitated from the shock of the late conspiracy which was quelled in that kingdom. The pope’s nuncio was not only forbid the court, but even sent under a strong guard to the frontiers; an indignity which induced the pontiff to order the Portuguese minister at Rome to evacuate the ecclesiastical dominions. In the meantime, another embarkation of Jesuits was sent from Lisbon to Civita Vecchia; yet the expulsion of these fathers did not restore the internal peace of Portugal, or put an end to the practice of plotting; for, even since their departure, some persons of rank have either been committed to close prison, or exiled from the kingdom. The Jesuits were not more fortunate in America; for in the month of October, in the foregoing year, an obstinate battle was fought between the united forces of Spain and Portugal and the Indians of Paraguay, who were under the dominion of the Jesuits: victory at length declared in favour of the two crowns; so that the vanquished were obliged to capitulate, and lay down their arms. As the court of Portugal had made remonstrances to the British ministry against the proceedings of the English squadron under admiral Boscawen, which had attacked and destroyed some French ships under the Portuguese fort in the bay of Lagos, his Britannic majesty thought proper to send the earl of Kinnoul as ambassador-extraordinary to Lisbon, where that nobleman made such excuses for the insult of the English admiral, as entirely removed all the misunderstanding between the two crowns; and could not fail of being agreeable to the Portuguese monarch, thus respected, soothed, and deprecated by a mighty nation, in the very zenith of power and prosperity. On the sixth of June, being the birthday of the king of Portugal, the marriage of his brother don Pedro with the princess of Brazil was celebrated in the chapel of the palace where the king resides, to the universal joy of the people. The nuptials were announced to the public by the discharge of cannon, and celebrated with illuminations and all kinds of rejoicing.