Of the numerous prisoners taken in the course of the rebellion, some were pardoned, and a considerable number executed, but a far greater number of them were transported to America, where they largely contributed, by their sobriety and industry, to the increasing population and prosperity of that country. The duke continued in Scotland sometime after the battle of _Culloden_, when some further severities were exercised, but whether just and wholesome, or not, we will not now take upon us to pronounce. Agreeably with those severities, an act passed that same year for _disarming_ the Highlanders, and restraining the use of the Highland _dress_; which must have reduced those people to a must humiliating and degrading situation. A more liberal and enlightened policy, towards that country, was adopted by our government some years after, under the administration of the elder _Pitt_: since which time the Scots have ranked invariably among the most loyal and zealous of the adherents or subjects of the House of Hanover. A similar policy adopted towards _Ireland_ would, no doubt, produce similar effects there, and place that whole nation among the most estimable subject of the British empire. But it is to be feared that we shall not be very soon blessed with a ministry endowed with so much virtue, or so much wisdom. From the termination of the rebellion to the time of the king’s death, the affairs of the nation went on prosperously, as did also those of this town. The years 1747 and 1748 were here much distinguished by the uncommon number of persons who were then made free _gratis_—Such as Joseph Tayler M.D. John Wilson Esq. Chas. Townshend Esq. Rd. Hammond Esq. Rev. Wm. Everard; Rev. Dr. Edm. Pyle; Rev. Robt. Hammond; Robt. Hammond Esq. John Nuthall Esq. Chas: Cooper Morely; John Partridge gent. John Davis Esq. Rev. John Daville, and Rev. Chas. Phelps.—Such a batch of new burgesses must, no doubt, have greatly augmented the consequence and respectability of the town. The year 1749, or, at least, the mayoralty that began that year, exhibited here a most sad catastrophe, attended with most shocking circumstances. It was the condemnation and execution of one _Charles Holditch_, for burglary in his own father’s house, and an attempt to murder the old man in his bed, which he was prevented from perpetrating by a child, who was then in bed with the old man. This was certainly an instance of enormous and almost unexampled depravity; and may, perhaps, be considered as an indication of the wretched state of morals then in this town among the common people. The clergy, as it is too often the case, cared, probably, little or nothing about instructing the lower orders; and there were here then but few dissenters to supply the lack of service, or deficiencies of the established ministry.