Category Archives: 18th century

1759: Adrift sailors survive by eating a passenger and leather shorts

In 1759 the London press reported the discovery at sea of the cargo sloop Dolphin and its emaciated crew. The Dolphin had embarked from the Canary Islands the previous year and was bound for New York. Days into its voyage the ship encountered severe weather, suffering considerable damage and losing its bearings. The Dolphin spent the next six months adrift in the mid-Atlantic – but was only carrying supplies for a six-week voyage:

“The captain and people declare that they had not had any ship provisions for upwards of three months – that they had eaten their dog, their cat and all their shoes… in short, everything that was eatable on board.”

As might be expected, the eight men onboard the Dolphin discussed the prospect of eating each other:

“Being reduced to the last extremity, they all agreed to cast lots for their lives, which accordingly they did… the shortest lot was to die, the next shortest to be executioner. The lot fell on one Antony Galatio… They shot him through the head, which they cut off and threw overboard; they then took out his bowels and eat them, and afterwards eat all the remaining part of the body, which lasted but a very little while.”

Galatio was both the only passenger and the only Spaniard onboard, so the lottery may well have been rigged – if it happened at all. Whatever the reality, eating Galatio sustained the crew for another fortnight. The captain managed to stave off more talk of cannibalism when he discovered a pair of leather shorts in his cabin. The shorts were cut up into squares and distributed to crew members, who survived another 20 days on this “miserable allowance”. No charges were laid against the captain or crew for the murder and consumption of Galatio.

Source: The Gentleman’s Magazine, London, Vol. 29, 1759. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1751: Cardiff doctor perishes after his toilet collapses

In 1751 London’s Gentleman’s Magazine, along with several Welsh newspapers, reported the death of Doctor William Parry, a well regarded Cardiff physician. A coronial investigation later concluded that Doctor Parry had died from suffocation. According to evidence tendered at the inquest, Doctor Parry was sitting “astride his privy” when the structure collapsed, sending the doctor tumbling “into the murk of his own cesspit”. The collapsing seat caused the entire building to fold and it “fell in with him”, preventing Parry’s escape. It was an ignominious end for a man described as:

“…a gentleman of distinguished character in his profession, a most religious observer of truth and zealously loyal in the late rebellion.”

Sources: The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vo. 21, 1751; Coronial Reports for 1751. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1774: Dealing with a difficult debtor, 18th century style

In September 1774, an Annapolis artist, Charles Peale, attempted to deal with a non-paying debtor by way of the local press. The following exchange appeared in the Maryland Gazette:

September 6th
“If a certain E. V. does not immediately pay for his family picture, his name shall be published at full length in the next paper. Charles Peale.”

September 8th
“Mr. Elie Valette, pay me for painting your family picture. Charles Peale.”

September 15th
“Mr. Charles Wilson Peale, alias Charles Peale… Yes, you shall be paid; but not before you have learned to be less insolent. Elie Valette.”

There were no further exchanges between Mr Peale and Mr Valette, so presumably the matter was settled.

Source: The Maryland Gazette, September 6th, 8th and 15th 1774. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1728: British noble asks another about the action in Vienna

In 1728, the British diplomat Philip Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, was stationed in The Hague. In October, he wrote to his fellow peer and diplomat, Earl Waldegrave, who was representing Britain in Austria.

Pausing from matters of state, Chesterfield enquired into Waldegrave’s “private pleasures”, asking whether he had taken mistresses in Vienna:

“As I know that both your rammer and balls are made for a German calibre, you may certainly attack with infinite success… So I expect some account of your performances. As for mine, they are not worth reciting… the warmest thing I have met with here between a pair of legs has been a stove.”

Several weeks later Chesterfield wrote to Waldegrave again, reporting that he had found the means to engage “a little into pleasures… provided it is at my own expense”.

Source: Letter from Chesterfield to Waldegrave, dated October 12th 1728. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1774: Boston Tea Party spoils the taste of fish

In May 1774, a Virginian newspaper suggested the quality of fish caught in Massachusetts waters had deteriorated, possibly because of the Boston Tea Party five months earlier:

“Letters from Boston complain much of the taste of their fish being altered. Four or five hundred chests of tea may have so contaminated the water in the Harbour that the fish may have contracted a disorder, not unlike the nervous complaints of the human Body. Should this complaint extend itself as far as the banks of Newfoundland, our Spanish and Portugal fish trade may be much affected by it.”

Source: The Virginia Gazette, May 5th 1774. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1777: Earl meets watery end in well; dog survives

Simon Harcourt was raised to the peerage in 1749 after his military service to George II. Thereafter the 1st Earl Harcourt, he served as an advisor to the future George III and an ambassador on the European continent, including four years in Paris.

Harcourt met a watery end in September 1777, aged 63. While walking on his estate in Oxfordshire, the earl apparently fell head-first into a well while trying to rescue his dog:

“The body of Earl Harcourt was found dead in a narrow well in his park, with the head downwards and nothing appearing above water but the feet and legs. It is imagined this melancholy accident was occasioned by his overreaching himself in endeavouring to save the life of a favourite dog, which was found in the well with him, standing on his lordship’s feet.”

Source: Pennsylvania Evening Post, December 30th 1777. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1741: Teenage princess has “monstrous flummey bubbies”

Just after his election to parliament in 1741, English writer Horace Walpole penned a letter to Lord Lincoln in which he commented on the development of Louisa, the 16-year-old daughter of George II. Walpole declares quite matter-of-factly that the princess’ large breasts might prove a temptation for the widowed king:

“Princess Louisa is grown so fat and, like the [late] queen, has such a monstrous pair of flummey bubbies that I really think it indecent for her to live with her father…”

Princess Louisa and her “flummey bubbies” married Prince Frederick of Denmark two years after Walpole’s letter. Their eight-year marriage yielded six pregnancies, the last of which killed her.

Source: Letter from Horace Walpole to Lord Lincoln, October 1st 1741. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1790: Russian admiral rewarded with a peasant shoot

In July 1790, Russia’s Black Sea fleet, commanded by Admiral Fyodor Ushakov, defeated an Ottoman naval force in Kerch Strait, near the Crimea.

In October a Boston newspaper, the Columbian Centinel, informed its readers of the Russian victory. The outraged Centinel also reported that Catherine the Great had rewarded Admiral Ushakov by allowing him to shoot 2,417 peasants. “It is not [only] in Africa where the horrors of slavery are to be commiserated”, the Centinel bemoaned.

Days later, however, the Centinel ran this brief and somewhat unapologetic correction:

“By a subsequent English paragraph the above is found to be a mistake. The Empress gave her Admiral leave to shoot 2,417 pheasants.”

Source: Columbian Centinel, Boston, October 20th 1790. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1722: Joseph Moody gives spicy weather reports

Joseph Moody was born in York, Massachusetts (now in Maine) in 1700. Moody belonged to a prominent family: his father was a reverend, his great uncle a chief justice of Massachusetts. At age 14, Moody was sent off to attend Harvard. He graduated four years later and returned to York as the local schoolmaster.

Moody kept a diary for the duration of his adult life. Much of it is concerned with his courtships and marriage, work, his religious beliefs and cursory observations about the weather – but Moody’s chronicle also contains some quite frank references to masturbation. Many of these self-pleasuring episodes occurred after romantic flirtations with women. Several follow liaisons with his future wife, Lucy White.

In November 1721, Moody kissed and fondled a 17-year-old girl, the appropriately named Patience Came. He later wrote that “I defiled myself” after she had left. A sampling of similar entries from Moody’s diary follows:

Thursday July 19th 1722
This morning I got up pretty late. I defiled myself, though wide awake. Where will my unbridled lust lead me?

Wednesday November 28th 1722
…We called on Captain Allen. I sat quietly with my beloved. Certain people are here at midnight. I defiled myself.

Thursday February 28th 1722
Raw south wind at night. I lay in bed late… David Storer lodged with me. At first we talked obscenely. Thereafter I defiled myself.

Wednesday March 13th 1722
Raw, cold. Snow at night. I polluted myself without any foregoing lust, and from mere desire…

Thursday April 25th 1723
…I called on Mrs Harmon. I was in a measure, frightened by a thunder storm; nevertheless, when half awake, I polluted myself.

Wednesday June 12th 1723
Very hot. Fresh W. wind. After I had got up, I knowingly and intentionally defiled myself…

Saturday June 16th 1723
Cloudy and cool. My anxiety, as on several occasions before, brought on a diarrhea… Nonetheless, at night, while awake, I defiled myself.

Friday July 5th 1723
Cloudy and Cool, few drops of rain… I spent only one hour with my beloved. I did not defile myself.

Saturday August 31st 1723
Pretty Calm and Warm. Hazy… Last evening, lying in bed, I knowingly and intentionally defiled myself after I had looked into the girls’ chamber.

Monday April 13th 1724
I stayed up with my love, not without pleasure, but I indulged my desire too freely, and at night the semen flowed from me abundantly.

Monday July 6th 1724
Not hot. Flying clouds. N. W. Breeze. Last night, at first, I handled my member, planning as I thought, nothing evil. In the end, though, I defiled myself…

Moody married Lucy White in November 1724. In 1732 he became a pastor but became notoriously unstable, once delivering an entire sermon with his face covered by a handkerchief. He died in 1753.

Source: Diary of Joseph Moody, York, 1723-24. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1773: Mrs Goadby’s brothel is “laying in a stock of virgins”

Jane Goadby was an enterprising brothel-owner in 18th-century London. After working for several years as a run-of-the-mill bawd, Mrs Goadby travelled to France, where she spent weeks studying several Parisian brothels, courtesans and clients.

In Paris, Mrs Goadby was surprised to find the more successful establishments employed prostitutes trained in elocution, deportment, music and conversation. These brothels were not entirely for sex: they were also places where men could spend an afternoon or evening in the relaxed company of entertaining women. The drunkenness, bad language, fighting, abject groping and grimy decor common in English brothels were apparently absent from these venues.

Convinced brothels on the French model would flourish in London, Mrs Goadby acquired a stylish house on Berwick Street (1751) and furnished it in “an elegant style”.

Goadby then recruited “some first-rate fille de joys” and a physician to ensure they remained free from syphilis, consumption and other diseases. Her employees were outfitted in “the most sumptuous finery” and trained in the delicate skill of entertaining men of the upper classes. She pithily referred to her business as ‘the Nunnery’, to its employees as her ‘Nuns’, and to herself as ‘the Abbess’.

In February 1773, the Covent Garden Magazine advertised her business thus:

“Mrs Goadby, that celebrated Abbess, having fitted up an elegant Nunnery in Marlborough Street, is now laying in a stock of Virgins for the ensuing season.”

As might be anticipated, the prices at Mrs Goadby’s ‘nunnery’ were exorbitant – but her clientele was affluent, regular and appreciative so the money rolled in. Mrs Goadby expanded her premises twice and became wealthy enough to purchase a large house in the country, to which she retired around 1780.

Source: Various, inc. Covent Garden Magazine, February 1773. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.