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EXTRAORDINARY PETITION.

To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury.

The humble Petition of Ralph Griffith, Esq. High Sheriff of the County of Flint, for the present Year, 1769, concerning the Execution of Edward Edwards, for burglary,

SHEWETH,

THAT your petitioner was at great difficulty and expense, by himself, clerks, and other messengers and agents he employed, in journies to Liverpool and Shrewsbury, to hire an executioner; the convict being a native of Wales, it was almost impossible to procure any of that country to undertake the execution.

Travelling, and other expenfes on that occasion, 157. 10s.

A man at Salop engaged to do this business. Gave him, in part of the agreement, 57. 5s. Two men for conducting him, and for their search of him on his deserting from them on the road, and charges in inquiring for another executioner, 4/. 105.—9l. 155.

After much trouble and expense, John Babbington, a convict in the same prison with Edwards, was, by means of his wife, prevailed.

on to execute his fellow-prisoner. Gave to the wife 61. 6s. and to Babbington 67. 6s.-127. 125.

Paid for erecting a gallows, materials, and labour, a business very difficult to be done in that country, 47. 128.

For the hire of a cart to convey the body, a coffin, and for the burial, 2/. 1os. and for other assistance, trouble, and petty expenses on the occasion, at least 57.—127. 25.

Which humbly hope your Lordships will please to allow your petitioner, who,

&c.

SIR PHILIP PERCIVAL.

By the late CHARLES SMITH, M. D.

SIR Philip Percival was one of the most eminent subjects of his time: he had a vast estate both in England and Ireland; in which last kingdom he had 78 knights' fees, containing 90,000 acres of land. He was a Privy Counsellor to King Charles I. Register of the Court of Wards, and held several other employments in Ireland at the same time. When the Irish rebellion broke out, he fortified and defended five of his castles for several years, and suffered in

the

the destruction of his woods, houses, castle, and loss of his rents, in six years time, 60,000l. The Parliament of England appointed him Commissary General of the army, with an allowance of 1200l. per annum; and also made him Providore General of the Horse, in which post he expended 1800l. which the family were never repaid. In 1643, he was ordered to attend the treaty with the Irish at Kilkenny, and signed the cessation with them. In 1644, he was summoned by the King to attend as a Commissioner at the treaty of Oxford; he was there offered a peerage to promote the measures of the court, which he refused, and was obliged to fly. from the King's quarters to the Parliament; upon which the King confiscated his estate in England. Being a member of the famous Long Parliament, he opposed the Independent faction, and the army, to the utmost of his power; and thereby drew down many inveterate accusations from them, against which he defended himself with wonderful abilities and proof of his innocence. But Cromwell and the army growing stronger, and attempting to make themselves masters of the Parliament, Mr. Hollis, Sir Philip Stapleton, and many of the leading members, were impeached by the army, and fled; at which juncture Sir Philip Percival had the resolution to stay, and was chairman of those

those committees appointed by the Parliament to raise forces, and conduct the defence of the city and Parliament against the army. But the city being terrified, and the army coming up to London, he was obliged to fly, and conceal himself in the country for some time, till new accusations were framed against him, upon which he resolutely returned to take his trial the week after. At this juncture, he was, by the province of Ulster, appointed a commissioner, to manage their affairs with the Parliament of England. He was at the same time secretly concerned in the design to bring the English army over from Itcland, who had, by an unanimous address, put their interests under his direction; but the danger he was in, and the violence of his enemies, so affected him, that he fell ill of a fever upon his spirits, and died the 10th of November 1647, in the forty-fourth year of his age. He was so respected by his very enemies, that he was buried at the expense of the English Parliament in the church of St. Martin in the Fields, London; and over him was placed the following inscription, written by R. Maxwell, Lord Bishop of Killmore; which monument, on the rebuilding of that church, has been within a few years entirely destroyed,

Epitaphium

Epitaphium clarissimi Viri Phillipi Pearceavelli, Equitis aurati Hyberniæ, qui obiit bonis omnibus desideratissimus 10°. die Novembris, Auno Dom. 1647.

Fortunam expertus jacet Phillipus utramque,
Dotibus ac genere nobilitatus eques;

Qui nisi (sed quis non multis) peccasset in uno
Quod vitio vertat vix habet invidia*.

Which has been thus translated:

Philip here lies, at length subdu'd by fate,
By birth illustrious, and by fortune great;
Capricious Chance long taught him to explore
By turns her fickle fondness, and her
power:
Could the remembrance of his virtues sleep,
Envy herself at the sad loss would weep.

John, late Earl of Egmont, was made a Privy Counsellor, before he was of age; he was afterwards offered a peerage, which, from the circumftance of the times, he refused. At the accession of King George I. being continued in the Privy Council, he was created a Baron by the style and title of Baron Percival of Burton. In December 1722, he was created a Viscount, by the style and title of Viscount Percival of Kanturk, with the fee of twenty marks to be annually paid out of the King's Exchequer. Upon the accession of his present Majesty, he

* The reader will observe this epitaph to be both false Latin and bad metre; but we give it as we find it.

was

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