The National Register. — London, England, 1808-10-30 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER. A ludicrous accident occurred to a Mrs. H. a dashing woman, who had been at Brighton some little time, on Thursday last. Mrs. H. had been taking an airing on horseback, with Mr. S. and had purposely diverged from the Lewes road, to enjoy the rural beauties of the Earl of Chichester's park, and the village of Stanmer, which is sitlated about the centre of it. Airs. If. had been in the park but a short time, when she imagined that tier horse betrayed symptoms of being thirsty, and instantly guided hint to a pond there, to drink. Whether from having been for some days on the coat, an inhabitant of a watering place, he wishedhi . be muttered among the most daring bather of the season, or from whatever cause we know not, the animal, the moment he found himself fetlock deep in the water, end% laid himself down, and took a willing and refreshing roll in the pond The situation of Mrs. H. may be well imagined. Mr. dismounted, darted to her asAstance, and in the end snrceedeil in extricating her from her implca-ant dilemma, but no! before she had once or tw ice disappeared in the water and mud. I p pily Mrs. H. received no material injury ; and the residence of a peasant in Staumer furnished her with dry habiliments. WITCHCRAFT, munorn, AND CREDULITY. An artful and villainous plot, accompanied by the mast un precedented instances of credulity that es er engaged public at tention, was lately developed before the Magistrates at the Rotation Office, Leeds. The parties were Mary Bateman, of Camptield, near this town, and 11 intim) Perigo and his w ifr, of Brarnley ; she, the witch, and they the dupes. It appeared that in August, ISO 6, an application was made to this woman by Perigo, to cure hi mile of a complaint which was not stated on the examination, hut w hick we suppose to be what is called amongst people of her rank, " nervous," and amongst their betters, " the hip." Mary, with becoming oto4exla, de clined to undertake the cure herself ; but said, that she had a Friend at Scarbro', a Miss Blvth, who could "read the stars," and collect from them the knowledge requisite to remove all corporeal and mental maladies, and as a preliminary step re quired, that Perigo's wife should send her flannel petticoat to Miss myth, in order that she might from that article of dress collect a knowledge of her disorder : the petticoat was sent, and a propitious answer returned, wherein it was required, that the Medium, Mary Bateman, through which all communication be twixt the Atrologer and Patient was to be made, should have four guinea notes presented to her, and she was in return to give Perigo four other guinea notes inclosed in a small bag, into which if either his own curiosity, or the still stronger curiosity of his wife, should induce them to look, the charm would be broken,and sudden death would he the consequence. Strange as it may appear. the wife of Perigo never looked into the enchant ed bag to the day of her death. Soon after the four guineas had been given to Mary Bateman, a letter arrived from Scarbro', directing that another guinea should he paid into her hands. Similar requests were repeated and complied with, tilt forty guineas had been thus extorted from the-e infatuated people, uncle' a promi4e, however, that they should by and by he allow ed to °pea the bag:, and these bags, they were told, would be found to ((attain ail the mune). they had advanced. About mouths had now expired, and ;he business of fraud and dein-ion still went on. Miss Myth could not, while certain planets ruled, sleep on her own bed ; and in order to promote the comfort of the "wise woman," Periga was to buy her a new bed, It ith all the necessary appeodages, and send it to Mary Bateman, through whose hands it was to be transmitted to the nymph at Scarhro'. The bed, &c. which cost eight pounds, was bought, and notes to the amount of thirty pounds more, paid at various times into the hands of the Impuster. Unbound ed in i,er extortions, she next damanded a set of china ; this was also furnished to her ; bat she complained that the tea-cannister was oat sufficiently handsome to set before the genteel company kept by a lady of her distinction, and demanded a tea-caddy in its stead; which den; and was also complied with. Perigo and his wife, thus drained of all the money/.they had ik the world, and all the :unis their former good credit had enabletP them to raise, and the wife•s health still growing worse rather than better, they became itopatient to look into the mysterious hags, and extract from them the wealth they contained. Their clamourous impatience probably became troublesome, when, a: it should seem, to silence their importunity, Mrs. Bateman received, as she said, a packet from Scarborough ; this packet e.mtained a powerful charm, which was to be mixed up in a pudding, to he prepared for the purpose, and of which Perigo and his wife were to eat, but on no account to allow any person to parta%e with thew. They did eat, and there is hut too much rt:ason to suppose, that this Nile woman had said within herself OCT. 30. in the day you eat thereof you shall surely die. The husband eat sparing, he did not like the taste, hut his illfated wife, le ss scrupulous, eat freely, they both became sick almost immediately and continued in the most deplorable situation for twenty-four hours : the wife lost the use of her limbs, and after languishin g five days, died on the 24th of May, 1807, a victim of credulity': Perigo recovered, partially, but from that time to the pre-e . nt has never had the perfect use of his limbs. Part of the pudding was, by way of experiment, given to a cat, and it died ; some fowls also picked up other parts of it, and shared the same fiv e . Coterary to the direction of Mary Bateman. Perigo applied 10 a surgeon in this town for advice ; and was told by him that he ha I taken poison, but fortunately not in a quantity sufficiently large to occasion his death. After the death of his wife, it is natural to suppose that the husband would have possessed sufficient,fortitude to emancipate himself from the fangs of this wicked woman ; this, however, was net tie, case, she had thrown her toils over him, mid though the wife might not have been, as she supposed, bewitched, it is pretty evident the husband was ender some such influence. From May 18 , 7, till Wednesday last, the charm continued to operate, and the spell could not he dissolved. At one time he went to Manchester by the direction of this Jevabel ; at another he sent her one of Iris wife's gowns, air; site ermrived to coax or frighten him out of another gown, a yeti ireat, and the family bible ! And last of all she demanded from him half a freshet of wheat, with three seven shilling pieces inclosed. His (1 - editors, at length, became impatient, and the hope , of getting any part of his property hack failing, he deter mined to brave all danger, and look into the ussterious hags-- hut what roust have been his surprise and vexation to find iht the contents of these bags were not worth one penny ! ! Aid to find himself a pauper, without property, and with a ruined con stitution. The bubble now burst : and after havinglept the business an entire secret from every soul living, his wife alone excepted, In: upwards of two years, he laid his hopeless case before some of his neighbours ; by their direction Mary Bateman was appre hended ; when brought before the Magistrates she in part con fessed her delinquency, and admitted that there was no sum h person as Miss Myth in existence, but that the whole was a mere phantom, conjured up to forward her N ile purposes. The Magistrates have committed the offender to the House of Cor rection, whether to he tried for swindling practices, or to he re moved from there to the County Caol,,there to take her trial for w ilful murder, NS c are not informed. On searching the house of this woman, (who has a husband and several children) the bed and some other articles, the pro perty of William Perigo, amounting in value to about 10 or till were found, and will he restored to the owner. It is worthy of observation, that Mary Bateman is the per-on whose lien laid an egg, about two years ago, at the Bank, in this town, bearing this marvellous inscription, " Christ is coming. TUESDAY'S LONDON GAZETTE. .Itlnziraltg (Mice, 0ct.25, I FOS. His Ifajcsly's ship Seahorse, off Skyro, July 6, i8O". MY LORD—I have the ho:voir to inform one Lordship, that yesterday evening we observed two Turkish men of war and a ~ alley coming round the east end of the island of Scopolo, to w arils vi hick we immediately made sail. Ott coming near enough to make out that they were both single-decked ships, detrr mined to bring them to action, having every contideuce in the officers and crew of this ship. The action began at half past nine, the Turks going a little off the wind under easy sail, and continually endeavouring to run us on hoard ; indeed 1 early saw that their chief attention was directed to this object, and as the largest ship appeared of great force and full of men, 1 kept !his ship in a position hot to be boarded. At ten o'clock, observing a good opportunity of more particularly attacking the ynall ship to advantage, we dropped along side of her, and attcr a quarter of an hour's hot fire, at half pistol sho t distance, her tire having totally ceased, we left her in a state of the greaiest distress and confusion, with her sails mostly down, and Jost before we had left her, she had partially blown up forward. By this time the large frigate, which, from having fallen a little to leeward, had not been able to assist her consort, had again got pretty close up, and the action between us 5000 recommenced, still so obstinate was the resistance of the Turks, that it was not till a quarter past One we rendered her a motionless wreck. At they now vt (told neither answer nor are, I conceived it nio't prudent, knowing the character of the people, to 54 ait ler Alq• I 1 I