September 16 – Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams, the new British Minister to Russia, secures an alliance signed by Empress Catherine the Great. The Russian Empire agrees to provide up to 55,000 troops to defend the Electorate of Hanover against invasion by Prussia. At the time, King George II of Great Britain is also the ruler of the German duchy; the Russian troops are provided in return for an annual payment of £600,000. September 18 – Two slaves, Mark and Phyllis, are publicly executed for the poisoning murder of their master, John Codman in front of a large crowd outside the Middlesex County Courthouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Phyllis is burned to death. Mark's execution by hanging is made as an example to other African slaves in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. His body is transported to Charlestown Common in what is now Somerville and displayed on a gibbet for more than 20 years. In 1798, Paul Revere mentions in his memoir that his famous ride of April 18, 1775, started when he first spotted British Army officers at a site "nearly opposite where Mark was hung in chains", I saw two men on Horse back, under a Tree". October–December October 11 – In west Africa, officials of the Dutch West India Company sign a peace agreement with officials of the Ashanti Empire at Elmina p108. In return for an annual tribute in gold, the Ashanti maintain peaceful relations with the Europeans in the Dutch Gold Coast colony and the Dutch maintain their settlement at Fort Coenraadsburg. The area is now part of the Central Region of Ghana. October 12 – Having completed the Expulsion of the Acadians from St. John's Island (now Prince Edward Island), the British colonial Governor of Nova Scotia, Charles Lawrence, issues a proclamation that his office will receive proposals from English settlers "for the peopling and cultivating as well of the lands vacated by the French, as every other part of this valuable province." October 16 – The Penn's Creek massacre is carried out against white settlers who have moved into the Susquehanna Valley in the Pennsylvania colony, in territory also claimed by the Delaware Indians. The Delawares attack the Penn's Creek village, located near what is now Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, and kill 25 of the 26 men, women and children living there. October 17 – The Mount Katla volcano erupts in Iceland and continues ejecting ash for the