at London to treat of peace. The first night
after his excellency arrived in England, he lay
at Canterbury, when the innkeeper's bill in the
morning was as follows:
Tea, coffee, and chocolate         ...       ... £1    4    0
Supper for self and servants      ...       ... 15  10    0
Bread and beer    ...         ...       ...       ...   3    0    0
Fruit          ...        ...         ...       ...       ...   2   15    0
Wine and punch   ...         ...       ...        .. 10    8    8
Wax-candles and charcoal        ...       ...    3    0    0
Broken glass and china   ...       ...       ...   2   10    0
Lodging    ...         ...        ...       ...        ...  1     7    0
Tea, coffee, and chocolate        ...       ...   2     0    0
Chaise and horses for next stage       ...    2    16   0
(Making a nice little total of  Â£44. 10s. 8d. for one
night's expenses.)

The whole company, consisting of twelve
persons, drank mostly port wine; according to the
quantity, it comes to eleven shillings per bottle,
and punch the same. One of the secretaries of
state, being informed of this treatment by an
English gentleman who accompanied his
excellency, made an apology to his excellency for so
flagrant an imposition and so great a breach of
the laws of hospitality, telling his excellency at
the same time that orders should be given for
prosecuting the offender. But his excellency very
generously interposed in his behalf. It is
imagined, however, that he has since paid dearly for
his offence, as the other innkeepers of Canterbury
lost no time in informing the public that it
was not at their house the duke put up."

There are still, probably, some who indulge
in practical jokes, but none, I trust, who, if a
similar state of things existed, could be induced
to perpetrate so bitter a jest as the following:
"A gentleman at a coffee-house," says the St.
James's Chronicle of Feb. 10 (1762), " called a
porter to carry a letter to a house near Charing-
cross. The contents of the letter were:
'Detain the bearer as a man fit to serve his
majesty.  On which he was conveyed on board a
tender, and soon after died of a broken heart,
leaving a wife and children. His name was
William Hall." They who served his majesty
were not all such honest fellows as poor William
Hall. Any kind of scamp was thought fit for a
soldier, when he was known to be fit for
nothing else; witness entries such as these:
"Feb. 26.—Yesterday evening, a young fellow
picked a gentleman's pocket of a silk handkerchief
in crossing Bartholomew-close; but being
pursued, he was taken, and a soldier accidentally
passing by, the gentleman forgave him on
condition he enlisted, which he promised, and the
soldier took him away." At the sessions,
condemning a thief to turn soldier was a common
punishment: "W. Hunt, who had stolen a
tankard, and was to have been executed" (few
crimes escaped the cord, save now and then by
commutation), "was respited, in order to be
employed as a soldier in one of his majesty's
regiments of foot now abroad, during his life."
Again: "John Perry, for stealing sugar from
Cumberland's Wharf, was ordered to be a
soldier." Worthy successors, Hunt and Perry, of
those brave soldiers, Bardolph and Nym, " sworn
brothers in filching!" There were,
notwithstanding, some varieties of punishment besides
soldiering and hanging. The pillory was in full
force as an adjunct, particularly if the offence
were political. "Nov. 29. Peter Annett was,
by judgment of the Court of King's Bench,
committed to Newgate for one month. He was
also ordered to stand in the pillory twice within
that time, and afterwards to be kept to hard
labour in Bridewell for a year, &c." (as Ancient
Pistol says, " And are et cæteras nothing?"), for
—(what does the reader think?)—" for writing
a piece called The Free Enquirer." There was
another kind of writing that exposed its authors
—and here deservedly—to even heavier
penalties. These were the threatening-letter writers,
who seem to have driven a very brisk trade, if
we may judge by the official notice that was
taken of them. Two of these productions follow.
The first is thus heralded:

St. James's, Feb. 16, 1762.

Whereas it has been humbly represented to the
King, that the following anonimous and threatening
letter, directed as hereunder, has been received by
the Post, by Wm. Clarke, Esq., one of his Majesty's
Justices of the Peace for the county of Surry, who
lives at Loman's Pond, in the parish of St. Saviour's,
Southwark; viz.:—Villian I am to aquaint You
That I am coming to Town to be avenged on You
That is if You will not grant a little Money on
demand it is no more than fifty pounds if not Villian
Your Life is at a Stake by me or some of my Gang
Put the Money in a Place where I shall wait for
You, or any One You shall debetise to serve You
and That you may observe by a Letter B; that I
shall put near the Place be shure to put the Money
under the Corner of the grut Stone the Bottom of
Your Yard put no Watch on or You may be shure You
Scounderl to have Your Brains blowed out be me or
some of mine in a short Time after so do not fail
You Villian or else it will be worse for You darned
Scounderl I care not much whether Your Life or
Your Money.

To the Worshpfull Wm. Clarke, Esq., near
Gravel-lane, in the Borough London.

A reward of one hundred pounds was offered
for the discovery of Mr. Clarke's polite
correspondent, as well as for that of the writer of the
next, gazetted, letter:

To Mr. James Booth in Crosby-square,
Bishopsgate-street. You Scoundrall Villian the perticulers
of this is that if you Doe not Leave the Small Sum
of thirty pounds under the Gateway In a white rage
that it may be obeseryed As Soon as I aproach place
apointed Beshure you leave the Money yourself
At the place apointed and if you Let Any body
know of this Letter or set any Body to watch you
may be shure Your Life is to be the Sacrafise for it
Pray you Villian doe not Neglect it or on the first
Time That I or any of my Gang meets you beshure
you shall Get your Desert You Villian the Reason I
write you this Letter is for want of a little Money
which if you Doe not supley me with, it You and
your Famiely shall be burnt in your beds very soon
the time is for you to put the Money in the place is
the 6th of next Month.

In addition to the pillory, which, if any have
deserved it, was the due of these threatening
letter writers, was another punishment, a
hundred years ago, now also happily obsolete. This
was "burning in the hand." On tracing the