Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/333

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  • s. XIL OCT. 24, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


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continued till 1770. In 1771 he emigrated to Maryland, and in 1777 he fought under Washington at Brandy wine, where he was severely wounded and taken prisoner, but soon after was exchanged. He was married in 1780 ; and eleven years later, accompanied by his wife, he sailed for this country to visit his parents, and incidentally to experience the rigour of the laws of his native land.

The year after his arrival in London (1792) he published 'The Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States of America,' &c. But his London agent failed to carry out his agreements, and Lloyd became financially involved. Thereupon he was arrested for debt and lodged in the new Fleet Prison. While incarcerated there he wrote a declaration of republican principles, which was posted on the chapel aoor ; and, although the placard was actually put up by a fellow-prisoner, Lloyd was charged with having published a seditious libel. At his trial, which was reported fully by himself, he conducted his defence with great skill ; but he was convicted, and sentenced to one hour in the pillory and three years in Newgate, and to find sureties in a large sum for good behaviour for five years. While serving his term, which he did to the uttermost day, he published two editions of his trial, "sold by Thomas Lloyd in Newgate," and he kept a diary in shorthand which is now amongst the valued possessions of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia. The records of that society contain much interesting information concerning Lloyd from the pen of Mr. Martin I. J. Griffin, the antiquary and Catholic historian.

Immediately upon the expiration of his imprisonment, Thomas Lloyd returned to the country of his adoption, where he resumed his work in parliamentary and legal reporting, and lived with honour and distinction among the members of his church until his death on 19 January, 1827. Among the works he pub- lished were '-The Congressional Register ; or, History of the Proceedings and Debates of the First House of Representatives of the United States of America/ in four vols., and a reprint of Bishop Challoner's ' Unerring Authority of the Catholic Church in Matters of Faith.' The recently erected tablet de- . scribes Lloyd as " Shorthand Reporter of the House of Representatives, First Congress of the U.S., Author, Soldier, Patriot." The system of shorthand he learnt at St. Omer 140 years ago, which was similar to that published by Graves & Ash ton at York in 1775, was applied by him in reporting Washington's first inaugural address, and it


was primarily in recognition of his important services in connexion with the parliamentary and political history of America that the National Shorthand Reporters' Association erected the memorial. A. T. WRIGHT.

22, Chancery Lane, W.C.

CHARLES POTTER. In Mr. Litchfield's ' Pot- tery and Porcelain ' (p. 234) there is the follow- ing bald entry under 'Paris: Potter': "In 1789, Charles Potter, an Englishman, estab- lished a factory of hard paste. He called his ware * Prince of Wales' China.' " In the Sun of 10 July, 1797, 1 came across the following interesting passage, which I think well worthy of being preserved in ' N. & Q.' :

"The well-known Kit Potter, formerly Member for Colchester, and the first of Cheap Bakers, was, within these few days, in London, upon a visit incog. He is at present the possessor of the Prince of Conde's magnificent Palace at Chantilly, where he conducts a very considerable manufactory of Porcelaine, and is supposed to clear about six thou- sand a year. The superb stables of that noble mansion are now the manufactory."

W. ROBERTS.

FORTESCUE'S ' BRITISH ARMY ' : THE PICKET. My attention has been called to the foot- note in Fortescue's 'History of the British Army,' vol. ii. p. 34 :

"There was such a rush to see the first infliction of picketing that several spectators were injured, Daily Post, 9th July, 1739. The punishment con- sisted in hanging up a man by one wrist, with no rest for his bare feet but a pointed stake."

These words convey the idea that the occa- sion referred to was the first infliction of the picket in our army, but the punishment had been in use in our cavalry regiments for about fifty years before that date, and minute descriptions of it are to be found in English dictionaries of 1702 and 1705. I suppose this was the first opportunity the people of South- wark had ever had of witnessing the punish- ment in their midst, and the character of the offence for which it had been awarded must have also inflamed the desire of many to be present, As Mr. Fortescue does not quote the paragraph in the Daily Post, I will now do so :

" On Saturday a Drum and a private Man belong- ing to General Honeywood's Dragoons, for Mis- behaviour in their Quarters, underwent the Military Punishment of the Picquet at the Stone's-end in Blackman-Street, Southwark. The Novelty of the Thing brought a Crowd of People together, who pressing too hard one upon another broke down the rail that fences the black Ditch against St. George's- Fields, whereby several of them were push'd in and almost suffocated with the Filth."

The regiment to which the private soldier and the drummer belonged was the 3rd Dra- goons, whose colonel at that time was General