1854. Metropolitan hall and Lafarge hotel, two of the finest buildings in New York destroyed by fire. JANUARY 9. 1514. ANNE OF BRETAGNE, queen of France died, aged 37. 1584. WILLIAM CARTER, a daring London printer, hanged, boweled, and quartered at Tyburn, for printing lewd pamphlets, popish and others, and particularly a _Treatise on Schisme_. 1596. FRANCIS DRAKE, the English navigator, died. He served with distinction under his relative Sir J. Hawkins; and having lost all his property in an action with the Spaniards, he conceived an inveterate hatred against them. He signalized himself in the destruction of the Spanish Armada; and finally died on the coast of America in a war against the Spanish settlements. He made the first voyage round the world. To him is attributed the introduction of the potatoe into Europe. The day of his death is differently stated. 1621. The Plymouth colonists commenced the erection of their projected town, which they built in two rows of houses for greater security. The same street still exists, leading to the water side. 1658. Birthday of NICHOLAS COUSTON, a famous French sculptor, from whose labors the art of statuary received a noble impulse. He died at Paris 1733. 1757. BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE, a French author of great repute, died. He was born at Rouen 1657; his mother was the sister of Corneille. Although his works are now obsolete in consequence of the advancement of science, no learned man exerted a more decided influence on the age in which he lived than Fontenelle. 1766. THOMAS BIRCH, an English historian and biographer, died. He was of quaker parentage, and by unwearied industry educated himself. His literary labors were prodigious, which early rising and a strict economy of time enabled him to perform. He bequeathed his library to the British museum; it contained an incredible number of MSS. in his own handwriting. 1770. CATHARINE TALBOT, authoress of _Reflections on the Seven Days of the Week_, and a contributor to the _Rambler_, died. 1779. JOHN REINHOLD FOSTER, author of _Northern Voyages_, and who circumnavigated the globe with Cook, died in his 70th year. 1788. Connecticut, the fifth state which adopted the constitution of the United States without amendments. 1792. Treaty of peace signed at Jassy between Russia and Turkey. 1793. MR. BLANCHARD, the French æronaut, made the first balloon ascension in the United States, at Philadelphia, in the presence of General Washington. 1795. Thiel in Holland taken by the French under Macdonald. 1799. The habeas corpus act suspended in Great Britain. 1805. NOBLE WIMBERLY JONES, a revolutionary character, died. He came to America under Gen. Oglethorpe, and at the breaking out of the war was a practicing physician in Savannah. He was elected to the Georgia legislature a number of years and then resumed his practice again, at the solicitation of many of his former patients. 1809. Congress passed laws to enforce the embargo.