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The Virginia Gazette Foreign News September 22, 1768
Richmond, Richmond, Virginia
What is this article about?
Berwick celebrated the King's birthday with volleys, toasts, and Wilkes-themed decorations; ladies wore '45' and Wilkes and Liberty emblems.
Quality green show the numbers
Measured from the scan
— how cleanly the OCR engine read the characters
- Mean ink quality
- 98.0% The length-weighted average confidence across the OCR lines — the mean of exactly the per-line scores whose tails the two figures below report. Typical is 99%.
- Illegible ink
- 0.0% Text sitting in OCR-detected lines that scored below 80% confidence — very shaky reads. Weighted by line length, so one long bad line counts for more than a short one.
- Uncertain ink
- 0.0% Text in lines that scored 80–90% — somewhat shaky reads.
- Matches source
- 96.29% How closely the served text matches the raw OCR of the same boxes, letter by letter, after collapsing spacing and case. This measures agreement, not correctness: the OCR is often wrong and the extractor corrects it, so 100% does not mean perfect, and a low figure usually means poor scan text was rewritten rather than that text was lost (length vs source shows loss).
- Length vs source
- 99.48% Below 100% means text was dropped from the OCR; above means text was added to make it read.
Assembled by the extraction model
— whether the stitched-together text holds up; catches layout and segmentation errors, which the scores above cannot see
- Transcription confidence
- 95.0% (typical 96%) How cleanly the extractor could assemble what it was given. Low here with clean ink scores points at layout analysis — the characters were read correctly but grouped or ordered wrongly.
- Comprehension
- 90.0% Whether the piece reads coherently start to finish. Can stay high while transcription confidence drops, when only part of the component is affected.
Clipping
Full Text
Extract of a letter from Berwick, June 28.
The 2nd instant, the day appointed for the celebration of his Majesty's birthday, was observed here with more general demonstrations of joy than ever known on the like occasion. After a discharge of the artillery round the fortifications, nine companies of the Royal Scotch were drawn up on the parade, and fired three volleys; after which the King and several other toasts were drank, with three cheers, and the glasses thrown in the air, while the military band of music played Britannia up and down the parade.
The principal Gentlemen, and the Magistrates, ordered several hogsheads of beer to be distributed among the populace, and the windows to be illuminated; and Wilkes and Liberty rung from every quarter. The assembly in the evening was numerous and brilliant, and it was impossible but that every Gentleman there, even the professed enemies of Mr. Wilkes, must have felt in himself an extraordinary elevation to behold in the dress of the Ladies a most uncommon attachment to Wilkes and Liberty: Their breastknots, and cockades on their heads, were exactly thrown into the figures 45; their foreheads were adorned with Wilkes and Liberty in golden letters, and from their heads behind hung an inverted Boot and Thistle.
These designations of Liberty, and her first rate son, gave such an infatuating and irresistible power to their charms that when the toast of Wilkes and Liberty was proposed by a particular Lady the Scotch Gentlemen in general could not possibly avoid showing their approbation by an easy and smiling taciturnity; and the same infatuation unavoidably led them to swallow, in the sweet and irresistible vehicle of love, that bitter pill of 45.
Thus our Berwick Ladies, even on the borders of Scotland, have the courage and resolution to make the most public declaration of their attachment to Mr. Wilkes, and to the celebrated Number 45.
The 2nd instant, the day appointed for the celebration of his Majesty's birthday, was observed here with more general demonstrations of joy than ever known on the like occasion. After a discharge of the artillery round the fortifications, nine companies of the Royal Scotch were drawn up on the parade, and fired three volleys; after which the King and several other toasts were drank, with three cheers, and the glasses thrown in the air, while the military band of music played Britannia up and down the parade.
The principal Gentlemen, and the Magistrates, ordered several hogsheads of beer to be distributed among the populace, and the windows to be illuminated; and Wilkes and Liberty rung from every quarter. The assembly in the evening was numerous and brilliant, and it was impossible but that every Gentleman there, even the professed enemies of Mr. Wilkes, must have felt in himself an extraordinary elevation to behold in the dress of the Ladies a most uncommon attachment to Wilkes and Liberty: Their breastknots, and cockades on their heads, were exactly thrown into the figures 45; their foreheads were adorned with Wilkes and Liberty in golden letters, and from their heads behind hung an inverted Boot and Thistle.
These designations of Liberty, and her first rate son, gave such an infatuating and irresistible power to their charms that when the toast of Wilkes and Liberty was proposed by a particular Lady the Scotch Gentlemen in general could not possibly avoid showing their approbation by an easy and smiling taciturnity; and the same infatuation unavoidably led them to swallow, in the sweet and irresistible vehicle of love, that bitter pill of 45.
Thus our Berwick Ladies, even on the borders of Scotland, have the courage and resolution to make the most public declaration of their attachment to Mr. Wilkes, and to the celebrated Number 45.
What sub-type of article is it?
Political
Royal Event
What keywords are associated?
Berwick
King's Birthday
Wilkes And Liberty
Celebration
What entities or persons were involved?
Mr. Wilkes
The King
Where did it happen?
Berwick
Foreign News Details
Primary Location
Berwick
Event Date
June 2
Key Persons
Mr. Wilkes
The King