The Every Day Book of History and Chronology. Joel Munsell
in safety.
1788. The settlement at Botany bay abandoned, and this day the regular form of government was adopted, under Gov. Arthur Philip, and settlement made at Sydney cove, Port Jackson, New South Wales.
1791. Saratoga and Rensselaer counties in New York, erected.
1792. Athanase Auger, a celebrated linguist, died. He was born at Paris, 1734, and became a clergymen. His studies of the Greek and Roman writers were indefatigable; the study of Cicero and of Roman history occupied the last thirty years of his life. His translations, &c., were published in 30 vols. Learning proved its worth in his character and life.
1796. The British admiral, Sir Francis Geary, died, aged 86.
1799. John Hedwig died; a German botanist, whose researches respecting the cryptogamia class of plants have established his name.
1807. Schweidnitz in Silesia surrendered to the French general Vandamme.
1810. British General Picton tried for ordering Louisa Calderon to be put to the torture. He was killed at the battle of Waterloo.
1812. Earthquake at Philadelphia; duration 30 seconds. It was also observed in various parts of the United States to a less extent.
1813. Capt. Forsythe with 200 volunteers from Ogdensburgh, crossed at Morristown to Elizabethtown, surprised the British guard and took 52 prisoners, 140 guns and some munitions, and liberated from jail 16 British deserters.
1821. The Caxton printing office, on Copperas-hill, Liverpool, the property of Henry Fisher, totally destroyed by fire. It was the largest periodical warehouse in Great Britain.
1823. Anne Radcliffe died. She was born in London, 1764, and married at the age of 23, William Radcliffe, editor of the British Chronicle. The Romance of the Forest, her third novel, gave her much celebrity, and the Mysteries of Udolpho placed her at the head of a department of fiction then rising into esteem. These works still maintain their place among the more modern and fashionable productions of the kind.
1828. Henry Neele, an ingenious English poet and novelist, died by his own hand, in a fit of insanity, supposed to have originated from too intense an application to study. He was the son of an engraver, and educated for the bar. His literary remains were published after his death.
1834. Cadwallader D. Colden, so favorably known as a philanthropist and scholar, died at Jersey city.
1837. Gustavus Adolphus IV, ex-king of Sweden, died. He came to the throne at the age of 14, on the assassination of his father, 1792; but on account of his violent and impolitic conduct, he was deposed in 1809, and his heirs excluded from the throne. He afterwards traveled in different countries of Europe under different names, and died at St. Gall in Switzerland. The latter years of his life were spent in poverty; he was badly clothed and fed, and possessed only an annuity of £300.
1837. The royal palace at Naples took fire and was partially destroyed. The library and the magnificent collection of paintings belonging to the king were burnt.
1839. Karl August Nicander, a recent Swedish poet of no small celebrity, died.
FEBRUARY 8.
293 BC Papirius Cursor dedicated a temple to Quirinus, on which he placed a sun-dial, the first ever seen in Rome.
291 BC Esculapius, the Sanitary god, as it was fabled, was enshrined as a serpent on an island in the Tiber. As a physician he used the probe, cathartics, bandages, &c., hence the respect.
1250. Robert, count of Artois, killed. He was brother to Louis IX of France, refused the empire of Germany offered him by the pope, and accompanied his brother to the Holy Land, where he conducted himself with great valor. He fell in the battle of Massourah.
1574. Geoffrey Vallee, a French writer, author of Béatitude des Chrétiens, which drew upon him the censure of the inquisition, burnt at Paris.
1587. Mary Stuart, queen of Scots, beheaded in the great hall of Fotheringay castle, at the age of 44. She was the daughter of James V, of Scotland. The misfortunes which it was the destiny of this beautiful and accomplished woman to undergo are well known. After an imprisonment of 19 years in England, she was brought to the scaffold on a conviction of conspiracy against the queen, Elizabeth.
1594. Edmund Bonnefoy, a writer on oriental law, died at Geneva in Switzerland, at the age of 38. He was appointed professor in the university of Valence, in France, where he narrowly escaped assassination at the massacre of St. Bartholomews. He bore an excellent character, independent of his talents and learning.
1637. Ferdinand II of Germany, an enterprising monarch, died.
1664. Moses Amyrault, an eminent French divine, died. He was a man of such remarkable benevolence, that he bestowed the whole of his salary upon the poor, without distinguishing between catholics and protestants.
1674. A resolution was adopted by the house of commons in England, that a standing army is a grievance; that the king should have no other guard than the militia.
1690. A party of about 300 French and Indians made an assault on Schenectady about 12 o'clock at night. The inhabitants were taken by surprise, and 60 men, women and children massacred, and the town destroyed. They took 27 prisoners, the remainder of the inhabitants fled to Albany, nearly naked through a deep snow, of whom 25 lost their limbs from the severity of the frost.
1716. Earthquake in Peru.
1724. Peter I, emperor of Russia, died.
1727. George Sewell died; an English dramatic poet, physician and miscellaneous writer.
1750. An earthquake in London.
1750. Aaron Hill, a celebrated dramatic and miscellaneous writer in the time of Garrick, died.
1752. Gasper de Real died at Paris, author of a valuable work on government.
1772. The princess dowager of Wales died in her 53d year. She is said to have given the peculiar tone to the first years of her son's administration by her laconic exhortation "George be king."
1779. Moses Allen, chaplain to the Georgia brigade, was drowned in attempting to escape from a British prison ship. He was a native of Northampton, Mass.; his age 31.
1807. Battle of Preussish Eylau, between the French army of 90,000 under Bonaparte, and 60,000 Russians under Benningsen. The battle commenced at the dawn of day. At noon a storm arose, which drifted the snow in the eyes of the Russians. The contest ended at 10 o'clock at night, when each army, after 14 hours hard fighting, occupied the same position as in the morning. Twelve of Napoleon's eagles were in the hands of Benningsen, and the field between was strewed with 50,000 dead, dying and wounded. The Russians finally retreated, leaving 15,000 prisoners in the hands of the French.
1815. The congress of Vienna determined to abolish slavery.
1817. Francis Horner died, aged 39. He was distinguished alike for his spirited report of the bullion committee, and his rich contributions to the Edinburgh Review.
1819. John David Ackerblad died; a Swedish scholar, who distinguished himself by his researches in Runic, Phœnician, Coptic and Hieroglyphic literature.
1820. Charles Justus Gruner, a Prussian police officer, died. He was an active opponent of Napoleon during the whole of his career, and was finally imprisoned to appease the French. After the second fall of Bonaparte he was made Prussian director of the police for Paris and the environs, in which capacity he counteracted