1746       

24th. April Thursday
Rev. Joshua Bayes died April 24. He was the son of Rev. Samuel Bayes, one of the ejected ministers of 1662, who settled in Manchester. Joshua Bayes is said by Wilson to have been born in 1671, but according to his tombstone he died in his 52nd year. He was minister of the Lather Lane Church, and the author of The Church of Rome’s Doctrine and Practice with relation to the Worship of God in an Unknown Tongue, 1735, and several other sermons. He contributed the portion on Galatians to the continuation of Henry’s Cormmentary. There is a portrait of him in Wilson’s Dissenting Churches, iv., 396. In Rose’s Biographical Dictionary (vol. iii., p. 397) he is stated, but on what authority is not said, to have been a native of Sheffield.(7)

16th. July Wednesday
The trial of the officers of the Manchester Regiment commenced at London July 16. Captain Fletcher was vainly urged to turn King’s evidence, but Ensign Maddock was less unbending. The inquiry lasted three days, terminating in the conviction of all the prisoners. There was, of course, no doubt that they were guilty of treason, though their treason had its spring in mistaken loyalty. Moss and Holker effected their escape from Newgate. The national thanksgiving for the suppression of the rebellion was celebrated 9th October, when the mob took vengeance upon the houses of Deacon and Syddall because the unhappy father and the hapless widow had not illuminated their windows in token of rejoicing.(7)

30th. July Wednesday
Colonel Francis Townley, Captains Thomas Theodorus Deacon, James Dawson, John Beswick, George Fletcher, Andrew Blood, David Morgan, and Lieutenant Thomas Chadwick and Adjutant Thomas Syddall, officers in the Manchester Regiment of rebels, were executed on Kennington Common with all the cruel inflictions to which persons guilty of high treason were subject, July 30. After the execution the heads of Captain Deacon, Adjutant Syddall, and Lieutenant Chadwick were brought down to Manchester and stuck upon the Exchange, August 3. Dr. Deacon was the first to gaze upon the remains of his son, and, though bowed with age and adversity, he subdued his parental sorrow so far as to salute the ghastly head, and to express his rejoicing that he had possessed a son who could firmly suffer martyrdom in the Stuart cause. On the other hand they were scoffed at as “the gods spiked upon the Exchange,” and as “Tyburn gods.”(7)

18th. October Saturday
The Rev. Thomas Cappock, the reputed Bishop of Carlisle, was brought to trial in that city. He was taken into court robed in his gown and cassock; and being found guilty of high treason he was drawn, hanged, and quartered October 18. He was a native of Manchester, and received his education at the Free Grammar School. He received the appointment of chaplain to Prince Charles at Manchester. He afterwards turned quartermaster, but again assuming the priestly garb is doubtfully said to have been appointed by the Pretender to the see of Carlisle. Some particulars of Cappock, or Coppock, will be found in Earwaker’s Local Gleanings, Nos. 304, 317, 325.(7)

28th. November Friday
James Bradshaw, lieutenant of the rebel “Manchester Regiment,” was executed at Kennington Common, November 28. His speech from the scaffold is reported in the Palatine Note-book, vol. iii., p. 275. Biographical particulars of Captain James Bradshaw are given in Earwaker’s Local Gleanings, Nos. 195, 202. 219. (7)

1746
The magistrates held regular sittings at “The Dangerous Corner,” and compelled the disaffected or the doubtful to take oaths of allegiance to the reigning monarch. The assembly-room, the private ball, the Exchange, the place of worship, were made arenas for exhibition of party rancour. At church the Jacobites offered negative allegiance to James III, by refusing to join in the church prayers for his antagonist, George II. The following verse, since so famed, was penned by John Byrom at this time:—

God bless the King! I mean our faith’s defender!
God bless (no harm in blessing) the Pretender !
But who Pretender is, or who is King—
God bless us all — that’s quite another thing!

(7)