The Sun.
London, England, 1825-12-19 00:00:00

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

UNION HALL.
PRINCE or SAXE COBOUPG.—A Lady who resides• at-
Surrey-grove, Surrey-square. Kent-road, and who has sets
better days, was charged with having at different times galled
at the shop of Mr. Exton, grocer, Bermondsey, and commit-
ting acts of violence, breaking windows to the hindrance of his
business. Mr. SwaiY, who did not wish to harrow up her
feelings, requested the lady to withdraw, when Mr. Exton
stated, in the most humane and gentlemanly mariner, that it
was not his wish in the slightest degree to injure the unfor-
tunate female; who from an aberation of intellect, was not,con-
•scious of the injury he sustained from her visits. Supposing`
him to be the Prince of Saxe Cobourg (it should be observed
there is a slight resemblance), she complained daily to hitn of
his servants breaking open the locks of• her house, and dis-
turbing her property. For some time he succeeded iz
pacifying her; but the complaints she• made becoming-
tiresome, and not having time to listen to her, she
went outside the shop and smashed the windows. Mr.
Exton stated that she had a husband and son, to-
whom he represented her behavour, but unforturiarelrbOth
were equally afflicted as herself, and answered him in the most
incoherent manner. To ask the Magistrates' advice how to
prevent a recurrence of such conduct, equally hurtful to his
feelings and his business, was the only object of the present
application. Mr. Exton having withdrawn, the lady was
brought in. Mr. SWART asked what rea%on she gave for mo-
lesting the complainant. Rolling her eye over every countenance
as if in search of him, she exclaimed, Where is he? What
have you done with him ? Is the Prince of Saxe Coboutg
gone ? If not to him, to whom can I apply for redress ? The
Princes servants come daily, and after forcing the locks of my
house, throw my property about in the most shameful manner.
She was cautioned against a repetition of the offence, but we
tear her own peace and that of her neighbours will not be ob.
tained " Till the cold earth, our common parent, takes her to
its bosom."

TOWN-HALL.
COAL-HAW R 9.—tileorge Butler, a hawker of coals, resid-
ing in Snow's-fields, and two ill-looking fellows named John
Perkins and John Turner, were charged with having feloniously
possessed themselves of a reticule and steel purse, containing
121. 18s., the property of James William Adlard, printer,
Clapham-road,under the folio wing circumstances ;--Jamesclut-
terbuck, a boy about 15 years of age, servant to Butler, stated,
that at three o'clock in the afternoon, a few days since, he, with
the three prisoners at the bar were near the end of Pottersfields,
with a small cart partly loaded with coals; a horse and chaise
passed, from which I saw drop a lady's reticule; I picked it
up and ran after the chaise, the servant in 'which said ittid not'
belong to him. I was then about to put it in my pocket,
when the prisoner Perkins snatched it out of my hand, and ran
ofl'at full speed towards Bermondsey-street, calling to Turner
and Butler, Come along, come along! which they accordingly
did. The prisoner Butler turned round; and threatened to
horsewhip me, if I left the cart. I. took the cart home, and
asked for the key of the stable, which was brought down by
Perkins; they were up stairs, dividing the money. I asked
them what was in the bag? the one said tobacco pipes, but
afterwards they said there was 18s., and gave me 4s. tfd.,
as my share, which they afterwards stopped out of my
wages, but gave me sixpence not to tell my father. Mr. Ad-
lard stated, that the servant in the chaise, not knowing the red.
cule to have been left there by his wife, in arranging the seat
shook it out of a great coat. John Harvey, constable of St.
John's, succeeded en tracing Perkins and Turner so 'Shoreditch
and Bethnal-green, and took Butler at his own house. The
prisoners were remanded, for the purpose of giving time
for the officers to search for the reticule and steel purse.
All the three could muster out of the twelve pounds eigtezeen
shillings was 41., having squandered alvi.y tie difference.
Mr. Alderman Slain', after commending the boy for the
honest manner he behaved by running after the chaise, and
his candid relation of the whole affair, told Butler that his cha-
racter as a tradesman was ruined ; indeed it was to him-a matter
of astonishment how four persons could get a livelihood out of a
small . cart cf coals. The thing could not be dsine honestly ;
L person was sufficient, with the assistance of a boy; and the
public could not be too cautious of admitting to their houses
men of the description of the prisoners at the tar. It they did
not cheat them in dealing,-they would no auubt carry off all
that came within their reach.

Frow the LONDON GAZETTE, Dee. 17.

COLONIAL DEPARTMENT, DEC. 16, 1825.

A Dispatch, of which thefollowing io a, copy, has been re-
ceived from Major-General Sir Howard Douglas, Bart. Lieu-
terrantlGoyernot Of the Province of New Brunswick, ad-
airessed to the Earl Bathurst, K. G., one.ofhis Nlajesty'S Prin-
cipal Secretaries of State t,--7

()Ct. 17,1323.

. .
MY„ LoRD—LIt becomes ray painful' thitli to repOrt to your
Lordship, that very extensive ravages, attended by circum-
stances: of the most afflicting description, have been occasioned
several parts of the province, by the conflagrations which
'for sometime have been raging in the woods; and the destruc-
tion of my Government-House which I reported in my dis
patch of the 3e inst., has been followe‘by calamities and visi-
tations the most awful. _ - . • ,

For;sorne days previous to the 7th instant, the temperature
of the air and the state of the atmosphere, much charged with
smoke, indicated that fires of extent wore raging in the
woods ; but no previous apprehension seems -to 'have been en-
tertained from the prevalence of conflagrations, which are so
commonly put in action to commence clearances in the wilder-
ness. On the day I have named, however, at about eleven
o'clock' in, the forrnoon, an alarm was conveyed to the town,
that the residence of the Commissioner of Crown Lands, about
a mile and a half distant, was on fire. The garrison and the
greater part of the populati6n, ran itinne,liately thither, and
succeeded in saving .71Ir. Ilaillie's house from the flames,
which were running through the adjoining woods with tremen-
dous-fury.
Whilst there accounts were brought to me that the town was
on fire, and before T could reach it, though mounted on a fleet
horse, whole streets were in a blaze. ,At that time it blew a
gale of wind from the north west, and however incredible ittnay
then have appeared, that the fire should have been communicate
to the town from the woods in the vicinity, the sequel-of this
dispatch will ahew, from what has occurred elaewhere,that there
is every reason to believe such was the case.
The fire raged wit!.l a degree of fury which no exertions (and
those used were very great)'Could flit a moment cheek; and the
whole population abandoned their houses, making what efforts
they could to save,their effects. •
When the fire had mistimed all that part of the town which
lay itilthe direction of the wind, the conflagration took a lateral
coursthre2_tening the barracks and other buildings, which had
they taken firt, must have conducted it to the total destruction
of what has remained of the town of Fredericton.

To these points every eTort wasdirected, and when I acquaint
your-Lordship that the barracks and houses (adjoining to others
in violent combustion, and to the yard containing the winter
- fuel of the garrison, in a prodigious blaze of fire. which threw
its vipers over all the yet standing habitations) were saved by
the joint exertions of the people and the military, your Lord-
ship will be 'able to estimate the conduct which I would ap-
piaud.-
As evening advanced, the woods, which- had continued to
burn throughout the day, were now more distinctly seen to be
everywhere on fire, and vast clouds of smoke rising in the dis-
tancw,,accompanied by extraordinary noises, as of furious ex-
plosions of flame, and the fire reflected on the distant sky, por-
tended other calamities which I have now the pain to report.
On the very same day, and about the hour when this place
Asetfered most, the town of Newcastle, one hundred and twenty
miles distant, together with all the mercantile establishments
on that hank of the 3lirarnichi River, and some on the opposite
side, where consumed by a violent torrent of fire, which issued
from the woods in the rear, at about nine o'clock, r. m. Thus
the destructive element, which was causing such devastations
in- other parts of the province; appears to have been driven
thither by the gale which was experienced here, but which the
mighty action of such extensive and rapid conflagration dilated
as it proceeded to the most impetuous hurricane, and the very
Wide range it has taken, leads me to fear that we have much
yet to learn of its dreadful effects, when reports shall come in
from the numerous gangs of woodsmen dispersed in the vari-
ous parts of the wilderness. .At the same time that the flames
and showers of burning embers poured upon Newcastle, they
reached the establishment similarly placed upon the bank of
the river, and others in the rear, and in fifteen minutes all were
consumed.

1 wish 1 could report that life had been spared ; but so vio-
leotly driven were the flames and embers from the blazing
woods, well prepared for the most active combustion by the
longest season of heat and drought ever known, that men,
women and children, in great numbers, have perished in the
houses and in the woods in exertions to save property, or in at-
-tempts to save life; and when driven in terror to seek safety
on another element, greater numbers still appear to have cut-
fried in attempts to cross the river in boats or in canoes, on
rafts, or on logs of timber, which were alike incapable of resist-
ing. the fury of the storm. Many vessels were at the same time
.east on shore, several set on fire, and three entirely consumed
by the drift of embers from the land.
The total effects of the awful calamity cannot yet be estimat-
ed. Fredericton has lost about eighty habitations or stores, and
property to the value of at least thirty-three thousand pounds.
On the rivers Orunuctoo..and Ronderjonish, tributaries of the
St. John, several lives and many habitations have been lost
and•destroyed, and some nf 'these ravages accompanied by ter-
rific circumstances- On Miramichi River, the loss of life can-
not, I fear, be estima,ed under three hundred souls. Great
numligrs of the destitute survivors had collected in the village
of Chatham for relief, and as so many of the provision stores
of the.merchants had been consumed (the settlement depending
alrneat entirely upon • imported food) serious apprehensions
were entertained of approaching famine. So soon as I learnt
this,l assembled his Majesty's Council to consider what mea-
sures it would be expedient. to adopt, and an agent has been
scent to Quebec to purchase supplies, and to proceed with them
to Miramichi.
In a calamity so extraordinary anti extensive, I feel that I
am called upon to depart from that brevity with which the mo-
mentous operations of my own profession are commonly re-
pottd, and if I have trespassed too much at length in doing so,
it is to spew amply the grounds upon which I ought to apply
and appeal for succour.
I have done all in my power to afford anti extend relief upon
this melancholy occasion, and I have been most nobly support-
ed bythe liberality of the country.
For the. benefit of the sufferers in the fire which has taken
place at Fredericton, a subscription has been raised which will
be sufficient for the supply of its immediate wants. The sub-
scription in Miramichi has been most liberal, the city of St.
John has come forward with a great degree of liberality, and
I bave just learnt by a dispatch from his Excellency Sir James
Kempt, that our sister colony was about to send prompt and
considerable succours from Halifax, but effectual relief beyond
avertiug the horrors of want in the approaching long winter of
seven months' duration, is not within such means.

In promoting subscriptions, I have on my own responsibi-
lity paid two hundred pounds from the King's ,funds for the
benefit of each of the two suffering places, I knovewell enough
his Gracious 11Iajet.ty's benevolent disposition, and your
Lordship's, to doubt of receiving sanction for this ippropria-

The succours to which .the people here naturally-look are
those which the abundint charity and benevolence of the mother
countries usually contribute on such calamitous occasions, and
slvuild any funds be so raised at home, they would be effectu-
ally and properly applied by Committees here to many cases of
very great distress, which is brought upon those who will en-
dure it silently, but severely, and to re-establish in business
many persons who have entirely lost their little capital invested
in the- beginnings of a produCtive trade, in the prosperity of
• which the mother countries participate, and to aid others who
are reduced more partially to difficulty. Should funds so consi-
derable be contributed as to. be applied further to restore Wild-
ings, that would be carefully regulated by measures to ren-
der the recurrence of such dangers less likely, in a way which
could not be effected, if the sufferers are constrained,
from instifficiency of funds,- to rebuild in the cheaper, but
more -perilous manner and material of the country. Means for
immediate subsistence and succour being thus provided, I shall
to-morrow open a subscription .here for those latter important
.purppScs, and to this fund, instead of that for rebuilding the
Government-House, I crave your Lordship's grant in aid from
tho,Hing's revenue. To this, too, I invoke the benevolence of
the mother countries, and I trust some measures may be adopt-
ed to excite it. The subscription for this purpose will be com-
•meneed to-morrow, and innnediately afterwards I shall proceed
-to the site of the greater calamity, leaving my family in their
difficulty here, to a continuance of those kindnesses and protec-
t ion which they experienced, when driven from their own resi-
dence.—l have, &c.

(Signed)

HOWARD DOUGLAS.

DECLARATION OF INSOLVENCY.
S.'Bratt, Macclesfield, Cheshire, silk-manufacturer.
BANKRUPTCIES SUPERSEDED.
W. M'Murdie and W. C. Pont, Epping, Essex, stationers.
J. S. Wade, Benhall,Suffolk, brick-maker.