namental as well as ufefal articles of Birmingham manufacture, fuch as buckles, watch-chains, &c. alfo Sheffield manufactures, materials for coach-makers, fadlers, and upholsterers; medicinal drugs, fteel in bars, books, linens, fail-cloth, paper and ftationary; laces, printed callicoes, and other printed goods; filks, falt from Europe; tea, and Faft-India goods in general; falt-petre and gun-powder, lawns, thread, hemp, wine, brandies, Geneva, oil, taifins, figs, olives, and other fruits, and cambrics. The principal part, at least four fifths of them, were at all times provided on credit. The American ftates are in greater want of credit at this time than at former periods. It can be had only in Great Britain. The French, who gave them credit, are all bankrupts. French merchants in general cannot give much credit; many principal commercial houfes in France have been ruined by it. The Dutch in general have not trufted the Americans,† and will not: it is not their custom to give credit, but on the beft fecurity. It is therefore obvious, from this circumftance, and from the above ftate of imports, into what channels the commerce of the Ame rican ftates moft inevitably flow, and that nearly four fifths of their importations will be made from Great Britam directly. Where articles are nearly equal, the fuperior credit given by England will always give the preterence; and, it is probable, many foreign articles will go to America through Great Britain, as formerly, on account of the difficulty the American merchant would find in reforting to every quarter of the world to collect a cargo. + Thofe who did, are bankrupts. SIR, TH To the PRINTER, Derby, September 3, 1783. HE mortality among the horned cattle in this neighbourhood having fpread a general alarm through the country, I thall be obliged to you to give the following account of the circumftances of it a place in your Weekly Entertainer, with the fubfequent obfervations. Sir, your's, &c. E. DARWIN. ABOUT a fortnight ago, Francis Kinfey, of Melborne, loft a cow, as was fuppofed, by a quinfey. The flesh of this cow was was taken to the kennels at Caulk, except the head, and a dog there was obferved to carry a large piece of it among the cows, who were seen to smell of it in a circle, as is the cultom of thofe animals, when they fee raw flesh or blood on the ground. Two or three of thefe cows of Sir H. Harpur became ill in three or four days, and died in about twenty-four or twenty-feven hours from the time they were obferved to abate in the quantity of their milk, or to appear drooping. Sir H. Harpur was unfortunately advised to have all his other cattle blooded and purged thefe have dropped off, day after day, fince that time; fixteen of them are dead; the laft was buried whole on Tucfday morning. The hides of the two or three firft which died (before the difcase was supposed to be infectious), were carried to a tan-yard at Repton. Mr. William Bryant, of Ticknell, had two cows in a piece of ground through which these hides were carried; one of them is fince dead, and one is ill. The fame happened to Mr. Taylor, of Repton, who had alfo two cows in a clofe through which thefe hides were carried, and one is fince dead; and Mr. Whiting, of the tan-yard, has also loft a cow in the clofe adjoining to his vats. The head of the first mentioned cow of Mr. Kinfey was carried in a lime-cart to the orchard of Mr. Richard Foreman, at Chellafton, where four calves were observed to smell of it, and even to lick it; and feveral pigs of thefe, three out of the four calves were dead, and three of the pigs. Befides thefe, Mr. Woodward, of Repton, has loft one cow ; Mr. Robinson, of Melborne, has loft two cows; and Mr. Erpe, of Melborne, one cow but it does not fo diftinctly appear that thefe were infected from the same source. Of the fixteen cows loft at Caulk, nine had been blooded by the fame fleam which had been used in bleeding the first two or three; and as hard fwellings appeared on all thefe about the orifice, they were fuppofed to have been thus, as it were, inocu lated with the diftemper: but this does not feem certain, 1st. because they fell fick at very different times, from one day to nine, after their having been blooded; 2d. because the other fick cows, which had been bled by an uninfected fleam, had fimilar hard fwellings about the orifice; 3d. because the fleam muft have lost its infection, after having been used upon two or three. At the fame time, it is not impoffible but fome might have been infected this way. OBSERVATION S. 1. As this putrid fever evidently had its origin from a highly putrid carcafs, because it deftroyed fwine as well as cattle, it dif fers fers from the plague of the horned cattle, which raged in the years 1748 to 1753; perhaps in the fame manner as the gaol fever may be fuppofed to differ from the plague and as thofe infected with the gaol fever, at the famous black affizes at Oxford, and at the Old Bailey, did not infect their nurses or attendants, as ufual in the plague, there is reafon to hope, with due care, the progrefs of this infection may foon be ftopped. Wife measures have already been taken to induce the owners of infected cattle to deftroy them as foon as they begin to be ill, and to bury them (having first flashed their hides) four feet below the furface of the foil. To which may be added, that those who have cows, cannot be too careful in burying all other carrion, in this putrid feafon of foggy weather, as horned cattle feem particularly liable to this kind of infection. 2. As all putrid difeafes are attended with great debility, whatever contributes to decrease the ftrength of the cattle, makes them more liable to the infection: hence, blood-letting and purging are of the worst confequence; and on the contrary, whatever contributes to encrease their strength, makes them lefs liable to the infection: fuch as giving to each beaft a quarter of a peck of malt, oats, barley, or other grain, either whole, or in meal, or in mafhes, twice a day, and not to confine them in close tables; and if they are in great danger of infection, a pint of the following decoction of oak-bark, every morning, is much recommended:- -Boil two pounds of oakbark in powder, for a quarter of an hour, in two gallons of water.-Cabbage, turnips, and carrots, are alfo recommended, if the cattle will eat them, as they are known to counteract putridity. 3. In the diftemper in 1748, it appears from the Magazines and other prints of that time, and from the treatife of Dr. Barker on that fubject, that ten grains of opium, diffolved in a pint of ale, and given night and morning, was of molt fervice, during the whole courfe of the diftemper: that decoctions of oak-bark were likewife of fervice, with malt, grain, cabbage, turnips, and carrots, for food; and that thofe confined in clofe ftables, and kept hot, to promote fweating, all died; and fearifying the affected parts, boring the horns, and other rowels or fetons, did no good; and laftly, where the belly was bound, half a pound or a pound of white bryony root, boiled to a pulp in a quart water, was the most beneficial aperient. ANECDOTE of ROBINSON CRUSOE. THE of HE real hiftory of the perfonage whofe adventures are published in that character, is as follows:-"Alexander Selkirk, Selkirk, a Scotch mariner, happened, by fome accident, to be left in the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandes, in the SouthSeas. Here he continued four years alone, without any other means of fupporting life, than by running down goats, and killing fuch other animals as he could come at. To defend himfelf from danger during the night, he built a house of tones, rudely put together, which a gentleman, who had been in it (for it was extant when Anfon arrived there), described as fo very fmall, that but one perfon could with difficulty crawl in, and ftretch himself at length.Selkirk was delivered by an English veffel, and returned home. A late French writer fays, he had become fo fond of the favage ftate, that he was unwilling to quit it but that is not true. The French writer either confounds the real ftory of Selkirk with a fabulous account of one Philip Quarl, written after Robinson Crufoe, of which it is a paltry imitation; or wilfully mifreprefents the fact, in order to justify, as far as he is able, an idle conceit, which, fince the time of Rouffeau, has been in fashion among infidel and affected theorists on the Continent, that a favage life is most natural to us, and that the more a man refembles a brute in his mind, body and behaviour, the happier he becomes, and the more perfect. Selkirk was advised to get his ftory put in writing, and publifhed. Being illiterate himself, he told every thing he could remember to Daniel Defoe, a profeffed author of confiderable note; who, instead of doing juftice to the poor man, is faid to have applied thefe materials to his own use, by making them the ground-work of Robinfon Crufoe, which he foon after published, and which, being very popular, brought him in a good fum of money." ANECDOTE of CARDINAL DE RICHLIEU. TH HE cardinal often ufed to amufe himself in childish exercifes in his ftudy. Antoine de Gramont, who died in 1678, one day found him alone in his clotet, in his waistcoat, exercifing himself by jumping against a wall. A courtier lefs verfed in the ways of a court than himself, would doubtless have been much furprized, on being alone with a minifter of the character of cardinal Richlieu, and being witness to an occupation fo very different to his title and dignity; but, being a man of wit, he, without hefitation, faid, he would lay a confiderable wager that he could jump as high as his excellency, and, without waiting for a reply, threw off his cloaths, and began jumping with the minifter. This trait of addrefs made his fortune, and not a little contributed to his future advancement. A HINT to ANTIQUARIANS. OME years fince a ftone was dug out of the ground near Aberdeen, in Scotland, about the place to which the Ro mans are faid to have approached at the invafion of Julius Cæfar. The following letters were diftin&ly engraved on the ftone, R. I. L. The learned of the age directly found out that these initials meant Romani Imperii Limes, or The boundaries of the Roman empire. This was thought an undeniable proof that the Romans came to that fpot, and no farther. These antic-queerians, as Foote calls them, were hugging them felves on this important difcovery, when the heirs of a gentleman deceafed found that this was their father's lana-mark, and meant Robert Innes's Land. The literati, on this, not being able to prove that Robert Innes was Julius Cæfar's aid de-camp, gave up the point directly. A REMARKABLE ADVENTURE. Captain, with a lieutenant, enfign, and 80 men, were dif patched in the year 1769 from fome part of America, (it is prefumed from Canada) to another part of that immenfe continent, but far to the northward, to protect an extenfive wood which fome Indian tribes in the neighbourhood were destroying; thither the officer and his company, who were totally unacquainted with the country, were guided through wild and unfrequented ways, by a few Indian friends. On their arrival they threw up a fort, and erected fuch buildings as they were in immediate want of, and defended themfelves and the place they were fent to protect, until their hope of a promised reinforcement, with every matter requifi e for an establishment, had been elapfed. Happy did it prove for this forlorn detachment, that the captain had orders to cultivate the good opinion and friendfhip of the Indians of the country, the better to effect a fettlemeat adjoining them; for otherwife they muft, in a fhort time, have been all cut off; but when their difpofition for trade and traffic became properly understood, the Indians treated them in the most friendly manner; taught them the art of living in the country according to the Indian fashion; and, as the many attempts which they had made to acquaint thofe who had dif patched them on the expedition proved abortive, they were neceffitated to conform themselves to their fituation. But between those who fell in fome flight fkirmishes which they early had with the Indians, the climate, the hardships they underwent, and various other difficulties which they were forced to encounter, VOL. II. 39. many 2 Q |