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volunteers from Virginia, and others from Baryland and Pennsylvania, marched from Fort Pitt the beginning of October, and got to Tuscarowas about the 15th. The march of the troops into their country, threw the favages into the greateft confternation, as they had hoped their woods would protect them, and had boafted of the fecurity of their fitua tion from our attacks. The Indians hovered round the troops during their march, but defpairing of fuccefs in an action, had recourse to negotiations. They were told that they might have peace, but every prifoner in their poffefhon muft firft be delivered up. They brought

neral, and it is to be hoped lafting peace is
concluded with all the Indians who have ta→
ken up arms against his majefty.-Gaz.
Mr URBAN,

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ATT has been propofed, that, in order to obtain a repeal of the late cyder excife, all the cyder counties fhall apply, by petition, to the legislature, for the abrogation of it. But why the cydercounties only? Why not every county? fince what county is there, give me leave to ask, in the whole united kingdom, where fomething may not he found out that is not as jultly excifeable as cyder or perry. But what I have chiefly in view, is this, "Why

in near twenty, and promifed to deliver the B

ret ;

but as their promifes were not regarded, they engaged to deliver the whole on the ift of November at the Forks of the Mufkingbam, about 20 miles from Fort Pitt, the center of the Delaware towns, and near to the most confiderable fettlement of the Shawnese. Col. Bouquet kept them in fight, and moved his eamp to that place. He foon obliged the Delacoares, and fome broken tribes of Mobi-this reafoning will carry them, and

hons, Wiandets, and Mingoes, to bring in all their prisoners, even to children born of white women, and to tie those who were grown as favage as themselves, and unwilling to leave them, and bring them bound to the camp. They were then told that they must appoint deputies to go to Sir William Johnson to receive fuch terms as fhould be impofed upon them, which the nations fhould agree to ratify: And for the fecurity of their performance of this, and that no further hoftilities should be committed, a number of their chiefs must remain in our hands. The above nations fubfcribed to these terms; but the Sbarnefe were more obftinate. They did not approve of the conditions, and were particularly averfe to the giving of hoftages: But finding their obstinacy had no effect, and would only tend

fhould not cyder and perry, lay fome 'people, be excised as well as this, and that, and the other article, among the neceffaries of life ?'-But thefe people do not, furely, confider where

where it mult end. This reafoning, Mr Urban, is, in fhort, no other than this" Since one thing is excited, why should not another thing be excifed too and if one thing and another thing are excifed, why should not every thing be excifed? That is, in one Dword, if our excife is already extended fo far and wide, why should we not have a general excife ?"-This is the very evil that is dreaded, and the advances towards it are become, in this new inftance of the excife on cyder and perry, vifible, daring, and alarming. Alarming, by carrying the excife into private houses:-A moft monstrous ftretch of power, never heard of in this country before; no, not even in the days of the St-ts. This then being the first inftance of its kind, now is the time to make a stand against this mot daring infult on the freedom of private houses; or one day or other every man's houfe will be opened to the loweft officers of government.

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to their deftruction, the troops having penetrated into the heart of their country, they at length became fenfible that there was no fafety but in fubmiffion, and were obliged to floop to the fame conditions as the other nanons. They immediately gave up 40 pritoners, and promifed the reft fhould be fent to Fort Pitt in the fpring. This last not being p

admitted, the immediate reftitution of ail the
prifoners being the fine qua non of peace, it
was agreed that parties fhould be fent from
the army into their towns to collect the pri-
foners, and conduct them to Fert Pitt. They
delivered fix of their principal chiefs as hof-
tages into our hands, and appointed their de-
puties to go to Sir William Jobrfon in the
fame manner as the reft. The number of

prifoners already delivered exceeds 200, and G
it was expected that our parties would bring
in near 100 more from the Sbarvnefe towns.
These conditions feem fufficient proufs of the
hacerity and humiliation of thofe nations:
And in justice to Col. Bouquet I must testify,
the obligations I have to him; and that no-

thing but the firm and steady conduct which

he has oblerved in all his tranfactions with thofe treacherous favages, would ever have brought them to a ferious peace.

i now fatter my(elf that the country is read to is former tranquillity, and that a ge

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In January laff we began with a feries of MAPS, exhibiting a plan of the country for ten miles round London,

which we had the fatisfaction to find was well received. Encouraged by this fuccefs, we have ventured to begin the prefent year with a more extenfive project, which is, that of exhibiting particular Maps of the public roads throughout all England, in

which the exact diflances from town to torn, as well as of the whole from the great metropolis, are accurately mark'd. may be relied on, are, in general preferThefe ufeful Plates, if our own experience red to others of mere curiofity; it joud, therefore, be our Audy to confult ufe rather than amusement, wherever bath cannot in the fame fubject be united.]

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Account of the Life of George Pfalmana. zar. (Concluded from Supp. p. 629.)

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T Rotterdam, Innes introduced him to feveral perfons of confideration and learning, particularly the celebrated M. Bafnage, author of the conti- A nuation of the Jewish history. Among thefe gentlemen he was greatly caref fed, yet he was frequently mortified by the fhrewd questions which were fometimes put to him; as they not only puzzled him, but gave him reafon to fufpect that he was not credited fo fully as he could have wished.

To give, therefore, a new proof of B his fincerity, he pretended that the Japannese eat their provifions raw, both roots and flesh, and as a teft of his being their countryman, he also eat his victuals raw, which he hoped the generality of people would fuppofe could not be done by any one who had not been early accustomed to the practice.

It does not appear that his friend Innes took any notice of this ftrange refolution, which must have had a fufpicious appearance, at least to him, who knew that he had been used to eat his food dressed in the ufual manner; however, his vanity was much gratified by the furprife which others expreffed at his ftrange diet, to which, he fays, he foon accustomed himself without the leaft prejudice to his health.

They imbarked at the Brill, for England, and, though they had a very dangerous paffage, at length landed fafely at Harwich, and proceeded directly to London.

At London he was introduced by his conductor to the Bishop, who received him with great humanity, and he foon after obtained a good number of friends among the clergy and laiety, most of them perfons of piety and worth: He was carried to all publick places, and introduced to all the great men in church and state; he was fre quently mentioned as a prodigy, not only in the London news, but the foreign Gazettes.

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to many perfons of ingenuity and learning by Innes, with great parade, and upon a careful infpection of it, the language was found fo regular and grammatical, as well as different from all others they knew, both with respect to the words and idiom, that they gave it as their opinion that it must be a real language, and no counterfeit, much less invented by such a tripling as Pfalmanazar.

He had, however, many oppofers, and fome of them very formidable, particularly Dr Halley, Dr Mead, and Dr Woodward. They objected that his complexion was an unanswerable teftimony against him; for he was very fair, and Halley, who had been in the Southern feas obferved that natives of a hot country, especially of Formofa, which lies under the Tropic, could not be of that colour. Pfalmanazar readiCly answered, that there was great difference between thofe whose business exposed them to the fun, and those who kept altogether at home in cool fhades, or fubterraneous apartments : This distinction was foon confirmed by many perfons of candour and experíence, who had been in those countries, Dand affirmed they had feen perfons as fair as any Northern European, though not in great numbers, who lived under the rays of a vertical fun.

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Innes, who had now procured a Doctor's degree from one of the univerfities in Scotland, urged him, after he G had been in London a few months, to tranflate the Church Chatechism into his pretended Formofan language, and to prefent it to the Bishop of London, with which, though with much reluctance, he found himself obliged to comply.

He wrote it in the Roman character, with an interlineal Latin verfion in Italic, and his invented character in an oppofite column. This was exhibited (Gent. Mag. JAN. 1755.)

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But his principal advantage was, that his oppofers could never find out his real country, either by his idiom or pronunciation of the Latin, French, Italian, or any other language of which he was matter, which, fuppofing him to be an European, was thought to be very easy; but he had by defign, and a conftant attention, fo blended both the idiom and pronunciation of the various languages he knew, that the most accurate judge could never difcover an uniform likeness to any.

He would perhaps have ftood his ground in fpight of all fufpicion, if he had not yielded to the fatal importunity of Innis to write the hiftory of Formofa as his native country.

The danger of fubmitting a fiction, fo complicated, to the public eye, and being bound by a written relation, is fo great, that it was with great wildom avoided by a later impoftor, till he was forced into it by his oral relation having been reduced into writing by another, which he first declared to be almoft in every particular abfolutely falfe, and was forced afterwards publickly to foften his denial, by saying it was very imperfe, and falfe in many circum

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objections one that was radical and formidable, how fuch a stripling as he who must have left his native country at 16, could have known the particulars he related, fuppofing them to have A been true. To remove this objection, he, by the advice of Innes, who was still interested in the fuccefs of the fraud, affumed three years more than he had, and tho he was only nineteen and fome months, he affirmed that he was three and twenty.

fances, (See Vol.. xxvi. p. 343.) Pfal
manazar, however, fell into the foare
which his affociate ignorantly laid,
and though he was yet fcarcely 20
years old, and had only a confused
and imperfect notion of the country
he was to defcribe, as that in which he
was born, gleaned in scraps from books
and converfation, yet he undertook
the work, and refolved to give fuch
a description as fhould be wholly
new and furprifing, particularly that
it belonged to Japan, contrary to
what all other writers have affirmed, B
who defcribe it as belonging to China.
The only book from which he derived
any affistance was Varenius's defcripti-
on of Japan, which was given him by
Innes to affilt his invention..

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He wrote it in Latin, and a perfon whom he does not name translated the manufcript into English; if this was not Innes, Pfalmanazar had yet another affociate privy to his fraud, for he fays that by the advice and affittance of this perfon he corrected many abfurdities and improbabilities more grofs than any that the printed copy contains. Thofe in the printed copy D are indeed very great, and the writer inferted fome that he was far from approving, in confequence of a rule he had laid down to himself, and from which he determined never to depart, that whatever he had once affirmed in converfation, though to ever fo few people, and though ever fo improbable, and even abfurd, he would never amend or contradict in his narrative, judging it more easy to fupport his credit under the conltant and uniform affertion of an improbability, againft which there could be no external evi- F dence, than under the imputation of having advanced what could be proved to be falfe by his own teftimony, which would have been the cafe if he had ever affirmed and denied the fame thing. Thus having once inadvertently in converfation armed, that 18,000 infants were every year of fered up in facrifice, he could not be perfuaded to leffen the number, tho' he had often been made fenfible that it was impoffible fo fmall an island could lofe fo many children every year without being totally depopulated. The vindication of this and many other par ticulars equally incredible, gave him and his friends great trouble, befides innumerable paffages lefs exceptionable, which in an oral difcourse not fubject to a review, might have escaped obfervation. There was among other

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As with this fictitious addition to his age, he could be but 19 when he left Formosa, the particulars in his narrative which could not be believed, were imputed to mistake, and his fin- 1 cerity not being otherwise impeached, the good bishop of London fent him to Oxford, to purfue fuch ftudies as he was fit for.

At Oxford he found many perfons warmly engaged in his behalf, and others equally zealous against him; with this feeming advantage on his fide, that his advocates were gentlemen of the best character for candour and probity, as well as learning and parts; caution &fufpicion being in general the characteristics of malevolent and little minds, who being confcious of evil in themselves, readily imputed it to others.

Here his vanity was gratified in the highest degree; he was the object of univerfal curiofity, and the topic of every debate; he had a convenient apartment affigned him in one of the moft confiderable colleges, by the worthy head of it, a man in high reputa tion for his writings, univerfally skilled in polite literature, and esteemed. one of the moft accomplished gentlemen of his age; he had access to all publick and private libraries; the acquaintance of fome of the first characters of the age upon terms of friendfhip and familiarity; and the affiftance of a worthy and learned tutor, who not only gave him leave to be present at the lectures which he read to other pupils, fome of them gentlemen of high birth and fortune, but even invited him to make fuch objections as his mind fuggefted, giving him also the choice of the fubject, whether the Newtonian philofophy, logic, poetry, or divinity. Divinity was his favourite study: The mathematicks difgufted him by the feeming abfurdity of learning to demonftrate felf-evident propofitions; and history by its obscurity and uncertainty. For poetry he appears to have had no tafte, but he was gre atly

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