“On New Year’s Day, 1803, the members of the late corps of Wenlock Loyal Volunteers, commanded by Major Forester, dined at the Raven Inn, Much Wenlock, in honour of their much-respected major’s birthday, when the evening was spent with that cheerful hilarity and orderly conduct which always characterised this respectable corps, when embodied for the service of their king and country. In the morning of the day the officers, deputed by the whole corps, waited on the Major, at Willey, and presented him, in an appropriate speech, with a most elegant bowl, of one hundred guineas value, engraved with his arms, and the following inscription, which the Major was pleased to accept, and returned a suitable answer:—‘To George Forester, of Willey, Esq., Major Commandant of the Wenlock Loyal Volunteers, for his sedulous attention and unbounded liberality to his corps, raised and disciplined under his command without any expense to Government, and rendered essentially serviceable during times of unprecedented difficulty and danger; this humble token of their gratitude and esteem is most respectfully presented to him by his truly faithful and very obedient servants, “‘THE WENLOCK VOLUNTEERS. “‘Major Forester.’” The following reply appeared in the same paper the succeeding week:— “Major Forester, seeing an account in the Shrewsbury papers relative to the business which occurred at Willey upon New Year’s Day last, between him and his late corps of Wenlock Volunteers, presumes to trouble the public eye with his answer thereto, thinking it an unbounded duty of gratitude and respect owing to his late corps, to return them (as their late commander) his most explicit public thanks, as well as his most grateful and most sincere acknowledgments, for the high honour lately conferred upon him, by their kind present of a silver bowl, value one hundred guineas. Major Forester’s unwearied attention, as well as his liberality to his late corps, were ever looked upon by him as a part of his duty, in order to make some compensation to a body of distinguished respectable yeomanry, who had so much the interest and welfare of him and their country at heart, that he plainly perceived himself, and so must every other intelligent spectator on the ground at the time of exercise, that they only waited impatiently for the word to put the order into execution directly; but with such regularity as their commander required and ever had cheerfully granted to him. A return of mutual regard between the major and his late corps was all he wished for, and he is now more fully convinced, by this public mark of favour, of their real esteem and steady friendship. He therefore hopes they will (to a man) give him credit when he not only assures