the officer, and a soldier or two. At last, finding they could not get at him, they set fire to the house, and then he, with Mrs. Walker, were obliged to make their escape from the flames, out of a garret window, naked; and thus he fell into the soldiers’ hands, who then, it is said, fell upon him and beat him unmercifully. They carried him in a batteau to Montreal, where he was immediately put into very heavy irons, and no candle, or pen, ink, and paper, were allowed him. Mr. John Porteous was permitted to see him, being a correspondent of Mr. John Strettel, of London, who is also Mr. Walker’s friend and correspondent; and he obtained a candle for him to read by. The postman who brought the first news, said that the Canadians who were taken in the action near Montreal, on the 25th of September, against Allen’s and Jerry Duggan’s party, when they were examined concerning the reasons of their enterprise, and were asked how they could think to take Montreal with so small a body of men, had replied, “that Duggan had assured them that all the Canadians were in his interest; that they had doubtless heard of Mr. Walker; and that he was to join them with four or five hundred men.” Now, Duggan might artfully have said all this to the Canadians, without any foundation whatsoever, in order to encourage them, and keep up their spirits. But, be that as it may, not a syllable transpired, nor could any thing be learned concerning the grounds on which such a step was taken, from that day until two days ago, when a gentleman in the service of Government was heard to say he had full evidence enough to convict him, and to mention at the same time the deposition of Mr. Walker’s own negro wench, who swears that a Captain of the Provincials dined with Mr. Walker, the day before the action near Montreal, and relates some of the conversation that then passed at table. Others say there is certain proof that he had a number of Canadians ready to join the Provincials. But this I never will believe until I see it proved by good undoubted testimony; for had that been the case, nothing could have prevented their succeeding. And as to that Provincial Captain’s having been at Mr. Walker’s on the day before the action, as is said, it seems to me, that if that report is true, it affords a strong proof in Mr. Walker’s favour, that, instead of complying with the Captain’s request to join him with the Canadians under his influence, (for that we must suppose to have been the Captain’s errand, ) he disapproved and declined the proposal.

A worthy and very sensible gentleman of this place, (Quebeck,) who has been for some time past at Montreal, and returned from thence since Mr. Walker was taken up, cannot give the least credit to any one of the reports that are circulated there to his prejudice; nor can he, for his life, imagine on what grounds the Governour goes on in this violent prosecution of him. His loss must be very great by the burning of his house, store, potash, books, &c., besides the cruel, ignominious treatment of him, rarely executed on felons until convicted.

OFFICIAL NOTICE OF ADVICES FROM AMERICA.

Secretary of State’s Office, Whitehall, December 16, 1775.

By the last advices received from Quebeck, of the 26th of October, it appears that General Carleton, who was then at Montreal, had formed a considerable corps of Canadians, and English; that he, and Lieutenant-Colonel McLean, who commanded another corps on Sorel River, were preparing to proceed by separate routes to the relief of St. John’s, which had been for some time invested by the Rebels, without their being able to make any impression upon it; and that there was the greatest probability that the Country would be soon cleared of those invaders, whose force was considerably diminished by sickness and desertion, and in great want of necessary supplies.

There are no advices from Boston later than the 12th of October, when General Gage left it invested as before by the Rebel Army, which had, however, attempted nothing since the affair of Bunker’s Hill.

The Earl of Dunmore, Governour of Virginia, acquaints the Secretary of State, in a letter dated the 22d of October, on board the Ship William, off Norfolk, that on the 15th his Lordship had landed, with a party of between seventy and eighty men, in the neighbourhood of the Town of Norfolk, and destroyed seventeen pieces of ordnance, and brought off two more, which had been carried away from that Town by the Rebels, and concealed in the country; that on the 17th he had landed again, at about eight miles from the Town, and marched between two and three miles into the country, where about two hundred shirt-men were collected to oppose him, but who fled into the woods upon the appearance of the party, leaving behind them some small arms and ammunition, which his Lordship carried off; that on the 19th he had again landed, and destroyed ten guns and brought off six, at a distance of two miles from the coast, and on the 20th brought off six more; and on the 21st, the day before his Lordship’s letter is dated, he had landed again, and brought off ten guns, and two cohorns, and about sixty small arms, and a great quantity of ball of different sizes; and his Lordship imagines there are not any military stores remaining in the possession of the Rebels in that part of the Province. In these several landings his Lordship made seven prisoners, among whom is one Robinson, a Deputy to the Provincial Convention, and one Matthews, a Captain of the Minute-Men.

ADDRESS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

Address of the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford, in full convocation assembled, presented to His Majesty by the Right Honourable Frederick Lord North, their Chancellor.

To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty.

Most Gracious Sovereign:

We, your Majesty’s most loyal and faithful subjects, the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford, in full convocation assembled, humbly presume to express, at this alarming juncture, the genuine sentiments of that unfeigned duty, affection, and gratitude, which we owe to your royal person, under whose mild and auspicious Government the blessings of peace have been derived to these Nations; the spirit of commerce diffused; the cultivation of the liberal arts promoted and rewarded; and the civil and religious rights of all your Majesty’s subjects protected, maintained, and confirmed.

We are truly sensible that the continuance of these blessings, and the preservation of these invaluable rights, essentially depend, under God, upon the safety of your Majesty’s person, the dignity of your crown, and the authority of the laws over every part of your Majesty’s Dominions; in the due and vigorous execution of which true liberty consists, and by which alone it can be supported.

Impressed with these sentiments, we think ourselves obliged, by every principle of conscientious duty to our King, by every motive of love and affection to our Country, to declare our utter abhorrence of those base artifices and seditious proceedings, by which some of your Majesty’s American subjects have been tempted to violate the laws, to resist the authority, and at length to rebel against the sovereignty of the British Legislature.

We have observed, with deep concern, the pernicious tendency of that profligate licentiousness, by which every part of the legislative power has of late been insulted and reviled. We have lamented that the liberty of the press, the distinguished privilege of British subjects, has been prostituted to sedition, and most grossly abused by a faction which has openly countenanced rebellion, unawed and unrestrained by the wholesome severity of those laws, which alone can protect and give vigour to a free Constitution.

We have lamented that the illegal associations of men, whose hopes are founded in the calamities of their Country, should prevail to give confidence to disobedience and sanction to rebellion.

We now deplore the miseries into which our deluded fellow-subjects in America have been by these seducing arts betrayed; plunged, as they are, in all the horrours of a civil war, unnaturally commenced against the State which gave them birth and protection.

The magnanimity and lenity of your Majesty’s disposition, already so eminently conspicuous, give us just confidence to hope, that when by the vigour of your Majesty’s counsels, and the valour of your arms, aided by the favour and protection of Divine Providence, your rebellious subjects shall be reduced under the power they have thus