of the Belgians) marries Charlotte Augusta, but she dies the next year. May 8 – Divorce is abolished in France by the Chambre introuvable, after having been permitted following the French Revolution. June 4 (N.S.) (May 23 O.S.) – The Governorate of Estonia of the Russian Empire emancipates its peasants from serfdom. June 16 – The Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace is founded in London. June 19 – Battle of Seven Oaks: The Hudson's Bay Company is defeated by the North West Company, near Winnipeg, Canada. July–September July – Lord Byron, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Polidori, gathered at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in a rainy Switzerland, tell each other tales. This gives rise to two classic Gothic narratives: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Polidori's The Vampyre. July 2 – The French passenger ship Medusa runs aground off the coast of Senegal, with 140 lives lost in the botched rescue that takes weeks, leading to a scandal in the French government. July 9 – The United Provinces of South America (today Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia and southern Brazil) declares independence from Spain. August 14 – The United Kingdom formally annexes the Tristan da Cunha archipelago in the southern Atlantic Ocean, ruling it from the Cape Colony. August 12–24 – The Treaty of St. Louis, between the United States and the Council of Three Fires tribes, is signed in St. Louis. August 27 – Bombardment of Algiers: Various European allied ships force Omar Agha, Dey of Algiers to free Christian slaves. September 3 – Pope Pius VII sends a directive to Stanisław Bohusz Siestrzeńcewicz, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Mohilev, advising Siestrzeńcewicz not to continue the Russian Bible Society's plans to circulate the Scriptures written in the Russian language, commenting that "if the Sacred Scriptures were allowed in the vulgar tongue, more detriment than benefit would arise." September 6 – King Louis XVIII dissolves the Chambre introuvable, the legislature that had been elected, after the Second Bourbon Restoration re-established the old monarchy. October–December October 21 – Penang Free School is founded by Rev. Sparke Hutchings, on the island of Penang (in modern-day Malaysia). October 25 –November 6 – 1816 United States presidential election: James Monroe defeats Rufus King. November 10 – The British troop transport Harpooner, returning from Quebec to Britain, is wrecked at Cape Pine on Newfoundland (island) with the loss of 208