August 11

50. The first of the month Thoth, in the movable Egyptian year, corresponded, as Pliny intimates, with this Julian day (798 of the era of Narbonasser); and with the 30th July, A. D. 97 (845 era Narb.), in the Greek month Metagitnion, as we collect from Plutarch.

1332. Battle of Gladsmuir, near St. Johnstown, in which David of Scotland was defeated by Baliol.

1454. Nicholas de Cusa, an Italian cardinal, died. He rose from extreme indigence and obscurity by his own merit, to great dignity and fame. His talents and learning were extraordinary; for besides his profound knowledge of law and divinity, he was distinguished as a natural philosopher and geometrician.

1576. Martin Frobisher entered the strait bearing his name.

1607. A party of English under George Popham landed at the mouth of the Sagadahock or Kennebec river. It consisted of 100 men, with ordinance and all provisions necessary until they might receive farther supplies. Only 45 remained, who built a store house on Parker's island, and fortified it.

1642. Johannes Megapolensis, the first minister at Albany, arrived from Holland to take charge of his church.

1654. Virgilio Malvezzi, an Italian author, died. He quitted the law to enter the Spanish service, at arms, and wrote in both languages.

1673. Sanguinary engagement off the Texel between the combined English and French fleets under Rupert and d'Estrees, and the Dutch under De Ruyter and Cornelius Tromp. Both sides claimed the victory. Admiral Sprague was drowned, his boat being sunk by a cannon shot.

1693. The Indians of New Hampshire sued for peace, after a long and bloody warfare with the English colonists, incited by the French.

1718. Action off the coast of Sicily, between the British fleet, admiral Byng, and the Spanish fleet, under Castanats; the latter lost 21 ships, captured and sunk.

1744. Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, bequeathed to William Pitt £10,000, "upon account of his merit in the noble defence he had made for the support of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country."

1766. Ann Sowerby was burnt at York, England, for poisoning her husband; one of the last relics of this mode of capital punishment.

1768. Peter Collinson died; an eminent English botanist and natural historian.

1772. A charged cloud at Java destroyed 2,000 persons.

1778. Augustus Montague Toplady died; an eminent English Calvinistic divine and theological writer.

1781. The British took into New York the American frigate Trumbull. Congress had then but two frigates left.

1782. British evacuated Savannah.

1787. First bishop appointed for Nova Scotia. First bishops in England, 694; Denmark, 939; form of consecrating bishops in England ordained, 1549; the office abolished by parliament, 1646; restored, 1660; first episcopal bishop in America, 1784; first catholic, 1789.

1794. Battle of Wilna; the Poles defeated by the Russians, and the town taken by assault.

1809. Battle near Almonacid; the Spaniards defeated by the French under Joseph Bonaparte, and compelled to retreat, after nine hours' hard fighting.

1810. Severe earthquake at St. Michaels, one of the Azores, which continued two days; 22 houses swallowed up.

1813. Henry James Pye, an English poet, died. Having ruined his fortune, he was gratified with the office of poet laureate, and left many poems, original and translated.

1818. Nikolai I. Novikov, sometimes called the Franklin of Russia, died, aged 74. Certain it is that by his activity and taste he contributed not a little to the improvement of Russian literature.

1822. Samuel Auchmuty, commander-in-chief of the British forces in Ireland, died. He was a native of New York, who took the side of the British in the revolutionary contest, and held various honorable and lucrative stations under the British government.

1831. Barbadoes destroyed by a hurricane. It commenced at 3 P. M., and continued two hours; 5,000 persons perished; the houses were mostly destroyed, and the face of the country changed to a desert; neither trees nor vegetables were left standing.

1834. The Ursuline convent at Charlestown, Mass., destroyed by a protestant mob. The house was occupied by females, who were driven to seek shelter where they could find it, in the midst of night, while their valuables to a large amount were plundered.

1849. General Görgey, to whom the Hungarian diet had confided its powers, surrendered his army to the Russian general, Rudiger, at Vilagos, and the conquest of Hungary was consumated.

1849. A proclamation was issued by the president of the United States, warning all citizens against connecting themselves with an armed expedition believed to be fitting out with the intention to invade the island of Cuba, or some of the provinces of Mexico.

1853. John Downes, an American commodore, died at Charlestown, Mass., aged 69. He entered the navy in 1802, was in active service during the war of 1812, and commanded the Potomac, which bombarded the piratical town of Quallah Battoo, in reprisal for injuries done American sailors by the Malay pirates.

1853. Great heat from this day to the 14th throughout the United States, and Canada; the thermometer everywhere ranging at about 100° Fahrenheit; 200 deaths in New York on the last of these days, and the total deaths of the four days from that cause exceeded 400.

1855. Samuel J. Peters died at New Orleans, aged 54. He held various offices, and the city owed much of its prosperity to his energy and enterprise.