PRINCIPAL OCCURRENCES . In the Year 1813. DECEMBER. Dec. 31, 1812. No less than eight violent out rages have been committed at Beeston, New Radford, Watnak, Arnold, and Mansfield, and in some villages on the south side of the Trent. The objects of these attacks have been the destruction of frames; at each place the outrages have been put in execution by numbers of disguised men, armed with pistols and swords, using personal violence on the individuals of their revenge, threatening their lives if they opened their lips; and after placing guards over these unfortunate people, they destroyed their frames, and then escaped undiscovered. In the town of Mansfield, a poor woman, on denying a frame demanded by this lawless banditti, was stabbed in several places, afterwards knocked down, and left for dead. Several of the depredators who committed the outrage at Watnak have been taken, and committed to the county jail. A large meeting of the magistrates has taken place, and the strongest measures have been resorted to, to provide against a repetition of these disorders. The watch and ward bill is to be put in force immediately. The military have been again called upon, the same as on former occasions. LICENSES. On Thursday, Dec. 31, the lords of trade came to the determination of putting a stop to the intercourse with France by licenses. An im. mense number, it appears, has lately been issued by Bonaparte, under the expectation that they would be met by corresponding li censes from the board of trade here, and the cessation of this indulgence will render his grants useless as waste paper. The impediment now given is, in course, not to be understood as applicable to the licenses already issued from our board, for the fulfilment of which the faith of the government being pledged, the concession made under them cannot be withdrawn. JANUARY. DARING ROBBERY. 3. Mr. Daniel Bradley, of Chevahill, was at nine o'clock in the morning overtaken on the road near Stourbridge by two men, who knocked him down, tied his hands behind him, bound his neckcloth round his eyes, stripped him of his shoes, robbed him of his watch and 331. and threw him among some furzes, where he lay helpless nearly an hour. The robbers have hitherto eluded discovery. SPECIAL COMMISSION. 4. The special commission was opened at York.-J. Swallow, J. Batten, J. Fisher, and J. Lumb, were tried for burglary and felony in the house of S. Moxon at Whitley Upper, and found guilty.-On the 6th, G. Mellor, of Longroyd Bridge, cloth-dresser, with W. Thorpe and S. Smith, of Huddersfield, were indicted for the murder of Mr. W. Horsfall, 28th of April last. Benjamin Walker, an accomplice, deposed, that Mellor and Smith worked with him at Woad's; that, in a conversation about Cartwright's mill, Mellor said there was no way to break the shears but to shoot the master. The three prisoners and himself then agreed upon the diabolical act, procured pistols, and hid themselves in the plantation, with an understanding that, if Mellor and Thorpe, who were to fire first, missed, the others were then to take aim. The prisoners attempted to prove an alibi; but were found guilty, and hanged on the 8th. On the 8th, J. Eadon was tried for administering an unlawful path to R. Howell, at Barnsley, in May last. The oath enjoined him not to reveal any secrets of any brother or brothers, and that if any traitors were amongst them, they were to be punished with death. Guilty.-J. Baines the elder, aged 66; C. Milnes, 22; J. Baines the younger, 34; W. Blakeborough, 22; G. Duckworth, 23; and Zachary Baines, 15, all of Halifax, were tried for a similar offence, and were all found guilty, except Z. Baines, the boy. On the 9th, J. Haigh, of Dalton, aged 28; J. Deane, of Huddersfield, 30; J Ogden, 26; J. Brook, 22; T. Brook, 32; J. Walker, of Longroyd Bridge, 31; and J. Hirst, of Liversedge, 28, were convicted of at tacking the mill of Mr. W. Cartwright, at Rawfolds, on the 11th of April, The prisoners were found guilty, excepting the two Brooks and Hirst.-After the trial of some other prisoners, the trials closed; but D. Moorhouse and J. Smith being arraigned, Mr. Parke, leading counsel for the crown, said, that as the ring-leaders of these deluded men were already executed, and several others were under conviction of capital felonies, he trusted the prisoners would see the errors of their ways, and that the punish ment inflicted, and about to be in flicted on those convicted, would have the effect of restoring the peace and tranquillity of the county. The prisoners were then dismissed, and, along with these against whom indictments were preferred, ad mitted to bail.-Fifteen received sentence of death, six to be transported for seven years, and 32 were discharged. the granite rocks of that district a variety of sienite, of singular beauty, surpassing that from Egypt or the continent of Europe. Like other stones of this species, it consists principally of hornblende and felspar: the latter is of a pale red colour, the former is crystalline, and of a beautiful green resembling smaragdite. It exists in large blocks, and might be applied to purposes of ornamental or sepulchral architecture and sculpture. It is of this kind of stone that the durable monuments of antiquity were constructed. BANRRUPTCIES. The bankruptcies gazetted during the year 1812 are as follow: -January 129, February 171, March 162, April 157, May 155, June 145, July 113, August 113, Septen:ber 68, October 139, November 249, December 208.-Total 1809. THE NAVY. The first and great object of Bonaparte is indisputably the crippling of our naval supplies: his attack on Russia had this principally in view, and his intrigues with America are directed to the same end. It will not, therefore, be uninteresting to our readers to be presented with a cursory glance at the demands which this "main prop and pillar of the state" makes upon our resources. Assuming 400,000 tons as the amount of tonnage to be kept in commission, and the average duration of a ship of war at the moderate period of twelve years and a half, there would be required an annual supply of tonnage, to preserve the navy in its present effective state, of 32,000 tons and as a load and a half of timber is employed for every ton, the annual demand will be 40,000 loads. The building of a seventy-four gun ship consumes about 2000 oak trees, or 3000 loads of timber-so that 49,000 loads will build 8 sail of the line and 16 frigates. 16 frigates. Allowing one-fourth part more for casualties, the annual consumption will be about 60,000 loads, or 40,000 full grown trees, of which 35 will stand upon an acre of ground. The quantity of timber, therefore, necessary for the construction of a 74-gun ship will occupy 57 acres of land, and the annual demand will be the produce of 1140 acres. Allowing only 90 years for the oak to arrive at perfection, there ought to be now tations, and an annual felling and standing 102,000 acres of oak planplanting in perpetual rotation of 1140 acres to meet the consumption of the navy alone. Large as this may seem, it is little more than 24 and Wales; which is not equal acres for each county of England to the belt which surrounds the park and pleasure grounds of many estates. GALLANT ACTION. 6. Lieutenants Moffatt and Dawes of the Bulwark were a few days since despatched by admiral Burnham to cut a vessel out of the Rochfort roads, close to the French squadron. They had hardly made themselves masters of her, when they were attacked by all the boats of the French line of battle ships, who commenced a spirited fire of great guns and musketry. Lieutenant Moffatt, undismayed by the numbers, endeavoured to bring the foremost boat to close action, but, all the French boats kept aloof. At that instant the British, being joined by the boats of two other vessels, became the assailants, and cannonaded the enemy till they took shelter under the guns of their men of war. (A 8) THE THE AMERICAN FRIGATES. The following comparative estimate of the force of the American vessels is taken from a letter signed "A Naval Officer," in The Morning Chronicle. 177 2091 Average of 12, 98 Britannia, 110 178 By this table it will be seen that these American frigates are lenger even than an English first-rate; that they are longer and of nearly equal tonnage with our modern large seventy-fours, and of greater tonnage than our old seventy-fours; that they are longer, broader, and of greater tonnage than any of our sixty-fours; and that they exceed in tonnage our fifties in the proportion of nearly three to two, and our thirty-eights in the proportion of seven to four. Is not the term frigate most violently perverted, when applied to such vessels? As well might we call the Ville de Paris a fifty, or the Caledonia a sixty-four; or as well might we call the one a jolly-boat, and the other a yawl. These frigates carry long-twenty four pounders on the main deck, when even the largest first-rates in our service carry on the main deck only long eighteens. Their quarter deck and forecastle guns are forty-four pound carronades; and no vessel of any description in our -navy-carries on either of these decks 52 04 0 a heavier gun than a thirty-two. Now, the vast superiority a ship derives from heavy metal was pretty well illustrated by sir H. Trollope's action last war, in which that celebrated officer was able to beat off a French squadron, in consequence of his ship (the Glat ton) carrying carronades. To all these advantages we must add the consideration of the number of their crews. The com plement of an English seventy-four is five hundred men, but seldom are there on board, even on the home stations, more than from four hundred and sixty to four hundred and eighty; and of these, generally about thirty are foreigners, and sixty are boys. The United States, in the recent engagement, had a complement of four hundred and seventy-eight men; that is, twelve less than the nominal complement of our seventy-fours; and at least equal to the number that any seventy-four actually has on board. But a consideration of by far greater conse quence than the number of men, |