of seamen voted was 45,000, and L3,205,505 were voted for the
expenses of the navy; exclusive of L4000 for the support of Greenwich
Hospital, and L500,000 to go towards the discharge of the debts of
the navy. The army estimates voted, were about L3,000,000 exclusive
of extras, and some new contracts with German princes, for more German
troops to serve in America. These supplies being granted, on the 13th of
December, both houses adjourned for the Christmas recess.

ATTEMPT TO FIRE HIS MAJESTY'S DOCKYARD AT PORTSMOUTH.

During the recess of parliament, the public mind was agitated by acts of
incendiarism, which seemed at one time to denote that a conspiracy
had been entered into for the destruction of both our shipping and our
arsenals. In 1764, Choiseul, the French minister, had concocted a plan
for such a fearful catastrophe, but having divulged it to Grimaldi, then
prime minister of Spain, through him it was discovered to Lord Rochford,
our ambassador at Madrid, and the scheme therefore failed. Ministers
might have taken warning from this circumstance, and have had the
dock-yards and arsenals watched with sufficient vigilance, as to prevent
so disastrous an event from ever taking place. By this time, however,
they had returned to their old confidence, and on the 7th of December,
a fire broke out in the dock-yard at Portsmouth, which threatened its
total destruction. It was got under by great exertions, and it passed
at first for an accident, but on the 15th of January, one of the
under-clerks of the dock-yard having occasion to move some hemp in the
hemp-room, discovered a machine and combustible materials, which had
evidently been placed there by the hands of an incendiary. Some weeks
before, a sullen, silent man, a painter by trade, and who was known by
the name of John the Painter, had been seen loitering about the yard,
and he was now suspected to be the delinquent. Suspicion fastened
still stronger upon him because he was known to have recently come from
America, and a cry of alarm instantly spread through the country that
American incendiaries had arrived in England, and would spread fire and
destruction on every hand. It was necessary that John the Painter should
be taken, and soon after he was identified at Odiam in Hampshire, where
he had been apprehended for a burglary. John was brought up to London
for examination, but he was so taciturn, and so wise in keeping his
own counsels, that neither the priv