The Virginia Gazette

Extract of a letter from Berwick, June 28.

"The 23d 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 vollies; after which the King and several other toasts were drank, with three cheers, and the glass thrown in the air, while the military band of musick 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 publick declaration of their attachment to Mr. Wilkes, and to the celebrated Number 45."