obverse, and one-sixth less gold than the coins with King Louis XV's image. October 17 – The Commonwealth of Virginia stops the importation of new African slaves by declaring that "No persons shall henceforth be slaves within this commonwealth, except such as were so on the seventeenth day of October, 1785, and the descendants of the females of them." October 18 – Benjamin Franklin takes office as the new President of the Supreme Council of Pennsylvania, at the time the equivalent of a republic as one of the 13 independent governments of the United States of America under the Articles of Confederation. November 23 – John Hancock of Massachusetts, the former President of the Continental Congress, is selected as the new President of the Congress of the Confederation, but is unable to take office because of illness. November 28 – The Treaty of Hopewell is signed between the United States of America and the Cherokee Nation. December 11 – An edict is issued limiting Masonic lodges throughout the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Joseph II. With the exception of Vienna, Budapest and Prague, no Empire province may have more than one lodge. Date unknown The University of New Brunswick is founded in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Coal gas is first used for illumination. Louis XVI of France signs a law that a handkerchief must be square. The British government establishes a permanent land force in the Eastern Caribbean, based in Barbados. Belfast Academy (later Belfast Royal Academy) is founded by Rev. Dr James Crombie in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi publishes Letters on the Teachings of Spinoza, and starts the Pantheism controversy. Napoleon Bonaparte becomes a lieutenant in the French artillery. Cabinet des Modes, the first fashion magazine, is published in France. Mozart's "Haydn" String Quartets are published, as is his collaboration with Salieri and Cornetti, Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia. Charles Adams, John Adams’ son and John Quincy Adams’s brother enters Harvard in August, at age 15. A few months later, he starts to drink often and would get into trouble, and was almost expelled from Harvard when he was caught running naked through the Campus while drunk with other boys. Births January 4 Jacob Grimm, German philologist, folklorist, and writer (d. 1863) Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (d. 1831) January 15 – William Prout English chemist, physician, and natural theologian (d. 1850) January 20 – Theodor Grotthuss,