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object of the contrivance, treated Miss Freeman with a degree of coolness and contempt that did him honour, and completely disappointed her employers.

"We have a relation of one Elizabeth Freeman, aged about twenty-one years, living at Bishops Hatfield, in the county of Hertford, taken before Sir Joseph Jorden, Knt. and Richard Lee, D. D. and Rector of Hatfield. The substance of the account which she gave is as followeth: That, on Monday night, being January the twenty-fourth, she sitting by her mother's fire-side, between five and six o'clock in the evening, with a child in her lap, she heard a voice behind her, which mildly said, Sweetheart! Whereupon she, turning her face back, saw an appearance of a woman, as she conceived, all in white, covered with a white veil, so that she saw no face; but a very white hand was laid on the back of her chair, and said to her, The fifteenth day of May it is appointed for the Royal blood to be poisoned;" and further said, Be not afraid, for I am sent to tell thee; and so vanished.sunod sa breatht On Tuesday, January twenty-fifth, about the hour of five or six at night, she, going to her mother's house, coming near her door, the same apparition appeared to her again in white as bes fore, and said, Do you remember what I said " And she answered, 'Yes.' And she further said, In the name of the Father, the Son, and the

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Holy Ghost, What art thou? And immediately it appeared in a very glorious shape; and, with a more harsh voice, said, Tell King Charles, from me, and bid him not remove his Parliament, and stand to his Council;' and said, 'Do as I bid you.' To which she answered, Yes;' and so it vanished.

"On January twenty-sixth, between the hours of five and six in the evening, she sitting by the fire, and her mother sitting by her, the same apparition came again to her, whereas she could not speak; and her mother, perceiving her to be troubled, and fixing her eyes, said, 'Daughter, seest thou any thing?' And she, not able to speak, nodded with her head and hand; whereat her mother said,Shall I go out? And thereupon, she being enabled to speak, the apparition nodded to her; she said Yes; whereat her mother going out, the apparition said, 'Do your message. And she answered, I will, so soon as God shall enable me;' and it said, 'Be not afraid; and so vanished.

"The apparition appeared to the maid on Thursday in the evening, between the hours of five and six, she being at a neighbour's house, but said nothing to her.

"This was taken from the maid's own mouth, by Mr. Richard Wilkinson, School-master in the town of Hatfield, and several others of the inhabitants.

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"On the ninth of February, the Hatfield maid, accompanied by Sir Joseph Jorden, Dr. Lee, and Mr. Wilkinson (who were, at taking her first examination in the country), and her mother, and several other friends, attended the King and Council; where his Majesty was pleased to ask her several questions, as also to hear her relation patiently; after which, he was pleased to bid her Go home, and to serve God, and she should see no more such visions, or to that effect; and so she was dismissed."

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Another contemporary observes, most sapiently, "This business is variously censured, but must conclude it the transport of a melancholy imagination. There is likewise a noise of an earthquake near Uxbridge; but we are sparing to credit Visions and Prodigies."

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ANTIENT SENSE OF NATIONAL HONOUR... "Brussels, January 28th. Yesterday here happened a great disturbance, caused by some French officers, who came hither (as they say). from Antwerp. They, being in a tavern, began to extol the greatness of their King, and to undervalue most of the neighbouring Princes, and more particularly the King of Spain, which so enraged some Spanish gentlemen present, that they challenged the French officers to the combat; the which being accepted, they being on

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both sides about twelve in number, went down into a stone court, and with their swords engaged one another very smartly, so that, ere they could be parted (though upon the brink of the encounter some hundreds of people came), there was one of the French killed, and almost all the rest disarmed and wounded, but not without considerable mischief on the other side; which disorder has so incensed our Magistrates, that as many of the combatants as were taken were immediately committed to prison, there to remain till the Prince is made sensible of the matter."

INVASION!!

The British publick was amused and half terrified with one of the most impossible inventions for conveying a Gallic army to England during the last war that ever entered the imagination of man. A raft, hundreds of feet in length, and hundreds in breadth, armed with batteries of cannon, surmounted by castles, and covered with tens of thousands of soldiers, was to float or sail, or be rowed across the straits of Dover, and then but this is not the first contrivance for invasion. "Mercurius Bifrons,"

in his page of "Jocular Intelligence," says, They write from Paris (in 1680) of a very

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new and great project, of four grand Jesuits, who have undertaken to bring into England the French King's great army dry-shod, without the help of ships or boats: and, for this intent, all the wines and brandy, which lie upon their hands since prohibited by the English, are ordered to be brought to the sea-shore, and disposed all along from Brest to Calais; and all the paper likewise is brought down from Rouen, and a ream placed by each hogshead.

"Monsieur de Estrees is gone with his fleet to Brazil, to buy, or take by force, all their sugars; and, as soon as he returns, which is suddenly expected, the aforesaid projectors have promised to do wonders."

The prohibition of French articles, and the destruction of them after importation and seizure by Government, was a measure adopted before the time above-mentioned. Surely the present Ruler of France must have perused the old Act of Parliament, which commanded this silly method of suppressing the manufactures of our antient Rival; at all events, he appears to have improved on the hint, by converting the produce of the sale of his confiscations of English commodities to the use of the State. It was excessive folly to destroy that which could not be sold by the Importer, and would have contributed to fill the Treasury.

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