Norfolk Annals, Vol. 1: A Chronological Record of Remarkable Events in the Nineteeth CenturyMackie, Charles
History
Norfolk Annals, Vol. 1: A Chronological Record of Remarkable Events in the Nineteeth Century
Mackie, Charles
Norfolk (England) -- History
16.—Died, aged 81, Mr. Peter Finch, who for many years held the office of
Clerk of the Peace for the county.
23.—A fleet of 24 sail of the line assembled in Yarmouth Roads, under the
command of Admiral Gambier, who, with Vice-Admiral Stanhope, sailed on
the 26th with 16 sail of the line, 10 frigates, 10 sloops, 9 gun brigs,
&c., for the Baltic. Sir Sidney Smith sailed in the Prince of Wales, of
98 guns, Admiral Gambier’s flagship. A strict embargo commenced on the
24th. The remainder of the fleet afterwards sailed. An expedition,
under Lieut.-General Sir David Baird, sailed from Harwich about the same
time. On September 16th, intelligence was received of the surrender on
the 7th of Copenhagen, with the arsenal and the whole of the Danish Navy,
to the British forces, under the command of Lieut.-General Lord Cathcart
and Admiral Gambier. The British fleet, which sailed from Yarmouth,
sustained but comparatively trifling loss.
27.—At the Norfolk Assizes, held at Norwich, before Mr. Justice Grose,
Martha Alden was tried for the murder of her husband, Samuel Alden, at
Attleborough, on July 18th. While the man was asleep in bed his wife,
with a bill-hook, inflicted terrible wounds on his head, face, and
throat. With the assistance of a girl, named Mary Orvice, the prisoner
on the 19th deposited the body in a dry ditch in the garden; on the 20th,
they carried it in a corn sack to the common and “shot” it into a pond,
where it was subsequently discovered. His lordship, in summing up, said
that Orvice might have been charged with being accessory to an attempted
concealment of murder. The jury found the prisoner guilty, and the judge
“doomed her to death, to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution,
there to be hanged by the neck, and her body to be dissected.” The
execution took place at Norwich on July 31st. The populace at
Attleborough showed their detestation of the crime by destroying the
former dwelling-house of the prisoner. It was reported that the ghost of
Alden “walked” on the Castle Hill, and in the month of December a party
of drunken men, who went there to “lay” the spirit, were seized by the
jailer and detained in prison for two days, pending an inquiry into their
conduct.
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