as there generally are in all focieties, who prefer the favours of minifters, and their own interests, to the welfare of their country; the temper of fuch felfish perfons will render them incredibly active in oppofing all public fpirited measures, from an expectation of being well rewarded for their fordid industry, by their fuperiors: but we doubt not you will be upon your guard againit fuch men, and not facrifice the liberty and happiness of the whole Canadian people and their pofterity, to gratify the avarice and ambition of individuals. We do not ask you, by this addrefs, to commence acts of hoftility against the government of our common fovereign. We only invite you to confult your own glory and welfare, and not to fuffer yourfelves to be inveigled or intimidated by infamous minifters fo far, as to become the inftruments of their cruelty and defpotifm, but to unite with us in one focial compact, formed on the generous principles of equal liberty, and cemented by fuch an exchange of beneficial and endearing offices as to render it perpetual. In order to complete this highly defireable union, we fubmit it to your confideration, whether it may not be expedient for you to meet together in your feveral towns and diftricts, and elect deputies, who afterwards meeting in a provincial congrels, may chufe delegates, to reprefent your province in the continental congrefs to be held at Philadelphia, on the tenth day of May, 1775. In this prefent congrefs, beginning on the 5th of last month, and con tinued to this day, it has been with univerfal pleasure, and an unanimous vote, refolved, that we should confider the violation of your rights, by the act for altering the government of 'your province, as a violation of our own; and that you should be invited to accede to our confederation, which has no other objects than the perfect fecurity of the natural and civil rights of all the conftituent members, according to their refpective circumftances, and the preservation of a happy and lafting connection with GreatBritain, on the falutary and conítitutional principles herein before mentioned. For effecting these purposes, we have addreffed an humble and loyal petition to his majefty, praying relief of our grievances; and have affociated to ftop all importation from Great Britain and Ireland, after the first day of December, and all exportation to thofe kingdoms and the Weft-Indies, after the tenth day of next September, unless the faid grievances are redreffed. That Almighty God may incline your minds to approve our equitable and neceffary measures, to add yourfelves to us, to put your fate, whenever you fuffer injuries which you are determined to oppofe, not on the small influence of your fingle province, but on the confolidated powers of North-America, and 'may grant to our joint exertions an event as happy as our caufe is juft, is the fervent prayer of us, your fincere and affectionate friends and fellow fubjects. By order of the Congress, HENRY MIDDLETON, prefident. O. 26, 1774. To the EDITOR of the LONDON MAGAZINE. SIR, I fend to be inferted, if it shall be judged proper. Upon a ftone within the rails of the I. N reading the Hiftorical Account and Genealogical Defcent of the Cromwell Family, in your Magazines for March and May laft, I recollected that I had many years fince been in the church of Wicken in Cambridgefhire, in which parish Spinney-abby is fituated and that I there copied the following monumental infcriptions, which, as they may be of fome afe to fettle dates more accurately, 2. altar. Elizabetha Cromwell de Ely obiit XVI. die Septembris Anno Chrifti MDCLXXII. anno ætatis LXXIV. Upon a black marble. Henricus Cromwell de Spinney obiit 5. Henricus Cromwell, Filius Hen. Cromwell, jun. obiit 4 Jun. anno 1692, anno ætatis fuæ 12 Septemb. It appears highly probable, that the lady mentioned in the firft infcription, and who had taken up her refidence at Ely, was the widow of the protector Oliver, and the mother of Henry, to which both her chriftian name and age correfpond. She was ufually tiled Joan Cromwell, and faid to be much converfant in the kitchen, as a small book of her receipts in cookery, publifhed in 1664, whilft he was living, evidently fhews. The print prefixed to this book, which is very fcarce, reprefents her in a plain homely drefs, and as a person of no great delicacy. From the second it appears, that the conjectures of Henry's dying about the year 1680 is groundlefs, and that he must have been born at the leaft as early as the year 1627. It fhews likewife, that T. X. the remarker in your Magazine for July, under that article, did not properly attend to the beginning of the ecclefiaftical year at Lady-day, when he placed that event in 1674. He might likewife mistake Oliver, mentioned in the third article, for a fon of Richard the Protector, fince it feems highly improbable, that an only fon fhould be omitted in the pedigree. Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Francis Ruffell, and wife of Henry Cromwell, by the fourth article, appears to have died in 1687; and the fifth fhews, beyond difpute, that the name of his fecond fon, afterwards a major in the army, was the fame with his own, and not Richard, as Mr. Lufon was pleafed to inform T. X. Sir Oliver, the uncle of Oliver Cromwell, married Lady Anne Palavicini, widow of Sir Horatio, at Baberham in Cambridgeshire, the place of her late husband's refidence, in July, 1601. Many other particulars, relating to Henry Cromwell and his family, might undoubtedly be met with in the parish registers of Chippenham and Wicken, where he retired after he quitted the regency of Ireland. I am, Sir, Your humble fervant, R. N. For the LONDON MAGAZINE. The Character of Mrs. BRIDGET BENDISH, Grand-daughter of Oliver Cromwell. Written in 1719, on Occafion of the clofing Words of Lord Clarendon's Character of her Grandfather. By Mr. SAY, a Diffenting Minifter. HE character of Oliver feems to fiftencies, that I do not think any one is capable of drawing it juftly, who was not perfonally and thoroughly acquainted with him, or, at leaft, with his grand-daughter, Mrs. Bridget Bendish, the daughter of his fon-inlaw Ireton + a lady, wo, as in the features of her face, the exactly re Jan. 1775. Vix. "be will be looked upon by pofterity as a brave wicked man.” + Cammillary-general Ireton married the Protector's eldest daughter, Bridget, who, after his death, married lieutenant-general Fleetwood. 26 Charac. of Mrs. Bendish, Cromwell's Grand-daughter. Jan. : at once attracts and commands refpect, the moment fhe appears in company; accuftomed to turn her hands to the meaneft offices, and even drudgeries of life *; among her workmen and labourers, from the earlift morning to the decline of day, infenfible to all the calls and neceffities of nature, and in a habit and appearance beneath the meaneft of them, and neither fuiting her character nor fex and then immediately, after having eaten and drunk, almoft to excefs, of whatever is before her, without choice or diftin&tion, to throw herfelf down on the next couch or bed that offers, in the profounded fleep; to rife from it with new life and vigour; to drefs herself in all the riches, and grandeur of appearance, that her prefent circumftances, or the remains of better times, will allow her; and, about the clofe of evening, to ride in her chaife, or on her pad, to a neighbouring port t, and there fhine in converfation, and to receive the place and precedence in all company, as a lady, who once expected, at this time, to have been one of the first perfons in Europe to make innumerable vifits of ceremony, bufinefs or charisy; and difpatch the greatest affairs with the utmoft eafe and addrefs, appearing every where as the common friend, advocate, and patronefs of all the poor, the oppreffed, and the miferable in any kind; in whose cause she will receive no denial from the great and the rich; rather demanding than requesting them to perform their duty; and who is generally received and regarded, by those who know her beft, as a perfon of great fincerity, piety, generofity, and even profufion of charity. And yet, poffeffed of all these virtues, and poffefed of them in a degree beyond the ordinary rate, a perfon (I am almoft tempted to fay) of no truth, juftice, or common honefty; who never broke her promife in her life, and yet, on whose word no man can prudently depend, nor fafely report the leaft circumftance after her. Of great and most fervent devotion towards God, and love to her fellowcreatures, and fellow-Chriftians; and yet there is fcarce an inftance of impiety, or cruelty, of which perhaps he is not capable. Salt-works. Fawning, fufpicious, miftruftful, and jealous, without end, of all her fervants, and even of her friends; at the fame time that he is ready to do them all the fervice that lies in her power; affecting all mankind generally, not according to the fervice they are able to do to her, but according to the fervice their neceffities and miferies demand from her ; to the relieving of which, neither the wickednefs of their characters, nor the injuries they may have done to herfelf in particular, are the least exception, but rather a peculiar recommendation. Such are the extravagances that have long appeared to me in the character of this lady, whofe friendship and refentment I have felt by turns for a courfe of many years acquaintance and intimacy; and yet, after all thefe blemishes and vices, which I must freely own in her, he would do her, in my opinion, the greatest injury, who fhould fay, he was a great wicked woman: for all that is great and good in her, feems to be owing to a true magnanimity of spirit, and a fincere defire to ferve the intereft of God and all mankind; and all that is otherwife, to wrong principles, early and ftrongly imbibed by a temperament of body, (thall I call it ?) or a turn of mind, to the laft degree enthufiaftic and vifionary. It is owing to this, that he never hears of any action of any person, but the immediately mingles with it her own fentiments and judgment of the perfon, and the action, in fo lively a manner, that it is almost impoffible for her to feparate them after; which fentiments therefore, and judgment, the will relate thenceforwards with the fame affurance that the relates the action itself. If the queftions the lawfulness or expediency of any great, hazardous, and doubtful undertaking, the purfues the method, which, as the fays, her grandfather always employed with fuccefs; that is, the huts herself up in her clofet, till by fafting and prayer the vapours are raised, and the animal fpirits wrought up to a peculiar ferment, by an over-intenfenefs and ftrain of thinking: and whatever portion of Scripture comes into her head at fuch a feafon, which the apprehends Yarmouth. prehends to be suitable to the present occafion, (and whatever coines in fuch circumftances, is fure to come with a power and evidence, which, to fuch a heated imagination, will appear to be divine and fupernatural) thence forward no intreaties nor perfuafions, no force of reafon, nor plaineft evidence of the fame Scriptures alledged against it; no conviction of the impropriety, injustice, impiety, or almoft impoffibility of the thing can turn her from it; which creates in her a confidence and industry that generally attains its end, and hardens her in the fame practice for ever." She will truft a friend that never deceived her." This was the very answer the made me, when, upon her receiving a confiderable legacy at the death of a noble relation, I urged her to fufpend her ufual acts of piety, generofity, and charity, upon fuch occafions, till fhe had been just to the demands of a poor woman, and had heard the cries of a family too long kept out of their money: for," how," faid I, "if you fhould die, and leave fuch a debt undifcharged, no one will think himfelf obliged to pay, it after the decease of a person from whom they have no expectations?" She affured me he would never die in any one's debt." But how is it poffible you fhould be affured of that, who are for ever in debt to fo many perfons, and have so many other occafions for your money than difcharging of your debts, and are refolved to have fo many as long as you live?" Her anfwer was as before mentioned. [ADDED AFTER HER DEATH.] And the event juftified her conduct; if any thing could justify a conduct, which reafon and revelation muft condemn. Such was this grand daughter of Oliver, who inherited more of his conftitution of body, and complection of mind, than any other of his defcendants and relations with whom I have happened to be acquainted. And I have had fome acquaintance with many others of his grand children; and have feen his fon Richard, and Richard's fon Oliver, who had fomething inded of the spirit of his grandfather; but all his other diftinguishing qualifications feemed vaftly inferior to the lady, whofe character I have fincerely reprefented as it has S. S. long appeared to To the EDITOR of the LONDON MAGAZINE. NECDOTES of great, or me pieces, and brought to Mrs. Uvedale Amorable perfons are always pleaf- of Horton: one of the finders had al ing, and ought to be preserved-your inferting the two following, will certainly be acceptable to your readers, as well as oblige A New Correfpondent. Anecdote of the Unfortunate Duke of Monmouth. ON a large heath, called Shags beath, about a mile and half from Woodlands, in Horton parish, Dorfetfhire, is an afh tree, under which the unfortunate duke was apprehended. The tradition of the neighbourhood is, that after the defeat at Sedgemoor the duke and lord Lumley quitted their horfes at Woodyates, whence the former, difguifed as a peafant, wandered hither. He dropped his gold fnuff box in a pea-field, where it was afterwards found full of gold teen pounds for half the contents or value of it. The duke went on to the land as it is called, a cluster of fmall farms in the middle of the heath, and there concealed himself in a deep ditch under the afh. When the purfuers came up, a woman who lived in a neighbouring cott gave information of his being fomewhere in the ifland, which was immediately furrounded by foldiers, who paft the night there, and threatned to fire the neighbouring cotts. As they were going away next morning, one of them efpied the brown fkirt of the duke's coat, and feized him. The foldier no fooner knew him than he burst into tears, and reproached himself for the unhappy difcovery. The family of the woman who first gave the information, are faid to have fallen into decay, and D 2 never never thriven afterwards. The duke was carried before Anthony Ettrick, Efq. of Holt, a juftice of peace, who ordered him to London. Being asked, What he would do if fet at liberty? he answered, if his horfe and arms were restored, he only defired to ride through the army, and he defied them all to take him again. Farmer Kerley's grandmother, lately dead, faw him, and defcribed him as a black, genteel, tall man, with a dejected countenance. The close where he concealed himfelf is called Monmouth Clofe, and is the extremest N. E. field of the island. The tree ftands in a hedge on a steep bank, and is covered with initials of the names of perfons who have been to fee it. Anecdote of that fingular Character, Sir Geo. Haftings. Dorset, bours grounds and royalties were free WOODLANDS, in Do Monro, to him, who bestowed all his time Bart. belonged in the laft age to Sir Geo. Haftings, fon, brother, and uncle, to the Earl of Huntingdon. At Winborn St. Giles is a whole length picture of him, dreft in a stifffkirted lead-colour coat, with knots or tags at his girdle, a white round hat, large band, great boots with long turned-down tops, and fpurs with a great piece of leather in front; a hunting-pole in his right-hand, and his gloves in his left. Under this picture is the following account of him, drawn by the noble author of the Characteristics. "In the year 1638 lived Mr. Haftings, by his quality fon, brother, and uncle to the earl of Huntingdon. He was peradventure an original in our age, or rather the copy of our ancient nobility, in hunting, not in warlike times. He was low, very ftrong, and very active, of a reddifh flaxen hair; his cloaths always green cloth, and never worth, when new, five pounds. His houfe was perfectly of the old fashion, in the midst of a large park well stocked with deer; and near the houfe, rabbits for his kitchen; many fish-ponds; great ftore of wood and timber; a bowling-green in it, long but narrow, full of high hedges, it being never levelled fince it was ploughed; they ufed round fand bowles, and it had a large banquetting-houfe like a ftand, built in a tree. He kept all manner of fport hounds, that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger, and hawkes long and short winged. He had a walk in the New Foreft, and the manor of Christchurch; this laft fupplied him with red deer, fea, and river-fish; and indeed all his neigh on these sports, but what he borrowed to carefs his neighbours wives and daughters, there being not a woman in all his walks, of the degree of a yeoman's wife, or under, and under the age of forty, but it was her own fault if he was not intimately acquainted with her. This made him very popular; always fpeaking kindly to the husband, brother or father, who was to boot very welcome to his house. Whenever he came there he found beef, pudding, and smallbeer in great plenty; the house not fo neatly kept as to fhame him or his dirty fhoes; the great hall ftrewed with marrow-bones; full of hawkes, perches, hounds, fpaniels and terriers; the upper fide of the hall hung with fox-fkins of this and the laft year's killing; here and there a polecat intermixed; game-keepers and hunters poles in great abundance. The parlour was a large room, as properly furnished. On a great hearth, paved with brick, lay fome terriers, and the choiceft hounds and fpaniels. Seldom but two of the great chairs had litters of cats in them, which were not to be difturbed he having always three or four attending him at dinner, and a little white stick of fourteen inches long lying by his trencher, that he might defend fuch meat that he had no mind to part with to them. The windows, which were very large, ierved for places to lay his arrows, cross-bows, and ftone-bows, and fuch like accoutrements; the corners of the room full of the best-chofen hunting or hawking poles; his oyfter-table at the lower end, which was of conftant ufe, twice a-day, all the year round, for he never |