Newspaper Transcripts
Some Selected Reports from the Hampshire Chronicle
Monday, September 9th, 1782
WINCHESTER, Saturday, Sept. 7.
On Thursday last, the Natives and Citizens of Winchester held their One Hundred and Thirteenth Annual Charity Feast, at St.John's House, in commemoration of the happy deliverance of this city from the plague, in the year 1669, after it had for a long time raged with uncommon severity, and reduced most of the surviving inhabitants to indigence and distress. A very numerous and respectable company dined on the occasion, and a considerable sum of money was collected in the room, to be distributed among the reduced citizens wives and poor families in the city and suburbs. Mr.Wilkes, butcher, and Mr. Hobbs, master of the Black Swan Inn, were elected Stewards for the ensuing year.
Tuesday was married at Alton, Mr. George Hillier, and eminent woollen draper of Devizes, to Miss Boyes, daughter of the late Rev. Robert Boyes, master of Alresford Grammar School.
Copy of a letter which David Tyrie, lately executed at Portsmouth for High Treason, delivered to the Sheriff the night preceding his execution.
"SIR,
I would not have died with a quiet conscience has I not been satisfied that an opportunity was given to the executive members of the government to know from me some material points; and which besides myself, but one man now living within the kingdom knows, the neglect or want of knowledge, will be severely, if not fatally felt by the naval interests of Great Britain, while she continues embroiled in the present war.
As my poverty lost me my life, so may the meanness of my condition have lost me your attention upon this occasion. All who know me, know my utter contempt for money. Mr.C. your Attorney, Sir, deceived me; I fear also he has deceived the Crown. Don't have so mean an opinion of my understanding, Sir, as to imagine a that a Middlesex Trading Justice, and an Old Bailey Solicitor, should, in time past, coax or exhort from me a syllable or circumstance more than what I knew they could come at by the materials in their possession; and that I now should be duped by the depraved inhabitant of a common gaol , (a prisoner for debt in Winton gaol) to reveal aught that could endanger either the community or individuals.
I had no conditions to ask for myself, all I wanted was to stipulate for the lives of the individuals; and having given the intimations through a proper channel, my mind is no longer burthened. I have the honour to be, &c.
DAVID TYRIE.
Winchester Gaol, August 23.