The Stranger relates the History of his Life.

IT is now upwards of twenty years since I left my native country. You are too young, Sir, to have obtained much knowledge of mankind; let me warn you from sad experience to be­ware of those passions, which at your years I was unable to resist, and which in the comme [...]ce of the world will find abundant occasion to overcome incan­tious and inexperienced youth. Start not when I tell you, that you see before you [...]e, whom the laws of his country had doomed to expiate his crimes by death; though from the mercy of his prince, that judgment was mitigated in­to a term of transportation some time ago elapsed. This punishment I incur­ed from the commission of a robbery, to which some particular circumstances, joined to the poverty consequent on dissipation and extravagance had tempt­ed me.

The master to whom my service was adjudged in the West-Indies, happened [Page 22] to die [...]oon after my arrival there. I got my freedom, therefore, though it was but to change it for a service as se­vere as my former: I was enlisted in a regiment then stationed in the island, and being considered as a felon, un­worthy of any mild treatment, was constantly exposed to every hardship which the hardest duty, or the most continual exposure to the dangers of the climate could inflict.

Had I revealed my story, and taken advantage of that distinction which my birth and education would have made between the other convicts and me, it is probable I might have prevented most of the evils both of my former and present situation: but I set out from the first with a fixed determina­tion to bear every part of my [...]h­ment which the law allots to the mean­est and most unfriended. All the [...]ve­rities therefore, which were now im­posed upon me, I bore without repine­ing, and from an excellent natural con­stitution, was not only able to over­come them, but they served to render me still more patient of fatigue, and less susceptible of impression from the [Page 23] vicissitudes of the weather; and from a sullen disregard of life, with which the remembrance of better days in­spired me, my soul became as fearless as my body was robust. These quali­ties made me be taken notice of by some of the officers of the regiment▪ and afterwards, when our regiment was ordered to America, and went on some indian expeditions, were still more serviceable, and more attractive of observation.

By these means I began to obliterate the disgrace which my situation at en­listing had fixed upon me, and it still regarded as a russian, I was at least ac­knowledged to be a useful one.

Not long after, on occasion of a piece of service I performed for an officer on an advanced guard, that was attacked by a party of hostile indians, I was promoted to a halbert.

The stigma, however, of my trans­portation was not yet entirely forgot­ten, and by some it was the better re­membered, because of my present ad­vancement. One of those, with whom I was not on good terms, was partic­ularly offended at being commanded, [Page 24] as he termed it, by a jail-bird; and one day, when I was on guard, had drawn on the back of my coat, the picture of a gallows, on which was hung a figure in caricature, with the initials of my name written over it.

This was an affront too gross to be borne; having sought out the man, who did not deny the charge, I challen­ged him to give me satisfaction by fighting me. But this, from the opin­ion conceived of my strength and fer [...]c­ity, he would not accept: on which I gave him so severe a drubbing, that he was unable to mount guard in his turn, and the surgeon reported his life was in danger. For this offence I was tried by a court-martial, and sentenced to re­ceive five hundred lashes, as a punish­ment. When their sentence was com­municated to me, I petitioned that it might be changed into death; but my request was refused.

That very day, therefore▪ I received one hundred lashes, (for the sentence was to be executed at different periods) and next morning was to suffer as ma­ny more. The remainder, however, I resolved, if possible, to escape, by an [Page 25] act of suicide. This I was only preven­ted from putting in execution by the want of opportunity, as I had been stripped of every the smallest weapon of offence, and was bound with ropes to one of the vests of my [...]ed▪ I con­trived, nevertheless about midnight, to reach the fire place with my feet, and having drawn out thence a live em [...] disposed it immediately under the most combustible part of the bed. It had very soon the effect I desired▪ the room was set on f [...]e, and I regained my liber­ty, by the [...]pe [...] ▪ with which I was tied being [...]. At that moment the de­sire of life [...] rekindled by the possibil­ity [...] ▪ The flames bur [...] out fiercely at one side of the house where I [...]y, the attention of the sol­diers, whom the fire had awakened, was principally turned to that quarter, and I had an opportunity of stealing off unperceived at the opposite side. We were then in [...] of wooden huts which had been built for our accom­modation on the outside of one of our frontier forts; so that, [...]hen I had run two or three hundred yards, I found myself in the shelter of a wood, pretty [Page 26] secure from pursuit; but, as there it was impossible for me long to subsist, and I had no chance of escaping detec­tion if I ventured to approach the hab­itations of any of my countrymen, I formed the resolution of endeavoring to join the indians, whose scouting parties I had frequently seen at a small distance from our out posts.

I held therefore in a direction the most probable for falling in with them and a very little after day break disco­vered a party, seated after the manner of their country, in a ring, with the ashes of their newly extinguished fire in the middle. I advanced slowly to the place, which I had almost reached before I was perceived▪ When they discovered me they leaped up on [...] feet, and, seizing their arms, screamed out the war who [...]p, to alarm the dif­ferent small parties near them.

One of them presenting his piece took aim at me, but I fell on my knees and shewed them my defenceless state, holding out my hands as if imploring their mercy and protection Upon this one of the oldest amongst them made a sign to the rest, and advancing [Page 27] towards me, asked me in broken french, mixed with his own language, of which too I understood something, what was my intention, and whence I came? I answered as distinctly as I could to these interrogatories; and showing the sores on my back, which I gave him to und­erstand had been inflicted at the fort, made protestations, both by imperfect language and significant gestures, of my friendship to his countrymen and hatred to my own.

After holding a moment's conver­sation with the rest, he took my hand, and leading me a little forward, placed me in the midst of the party. Some of them examined me attentively, and upon some farther d [...]course together, brought the baggage, with which two prisoners lately made from some ad­verse tribe had been loaded, and put it upon me. This burden, which to any man would have been sufficiently hea­vy, you may believe was much more intolerable to me, whose flesh was yet raw by my whipping; but as I knew that fortitude was an indispensible vir­tue among the indians, I bore it with­out wincing, and we proceeded on the [Page 28] route which the party I had joined were destined to pursue. During the course of our first day's march t [...]y of­ten looked stedfastly in my face [...] see if I showed any signs of unea [...]iness. When they found that I did not, they lightened my load by degrees▪ and at last the senior chief who had first taken notice of me freed me from it altoge­ther, and at the same time chewing some h [...]rbs he found in the woods, ap­plied them to my sores which in a few days were entirely healed. I was then entrusted with a tomahawk, and short­ly after with a gun, to the dexterous use of both which weapons I was fre­quently exercised by the young men of our party, during the remainder of our expedition, which lasted some me [...] during which time I had also become tolerably acquainted with their lan­guage. At the end of this excursion, in which we warred against some other indian nations, they returned to their own country, and were received with all the barbarous demonstrations of joy peculiar to that people.

In a day or two after their arrival, their prisoners were bro't into a large [Page 29] plain, where the kindred of those who had been stain by the nations to which the c [...]ptives belonged, assembled to see them. Each singled out his expiatory prisoner; and, having taken him home to his hut, such as chose that kind of satisfaction, adopted them in place of the relations they had lost; with the rest they returned to their former place of meeting, and began to celebrate the festival of their revenge. You can hard­ly conceived a species of inventive cruelty which they did not inflict on the wretch­es whom fortune had thus put into their power; during the course of which, not a groan escaped from the sufferers; but while the use of their voices remained▪ they sung in their rude, yet forci [...] manner, the g [...]ry of their former victo­ries, and the measure they had received from the death of their foes; conclud­ing always with the hopes of revenge from the surviving warriors of their na­tion.

Nor was it only for the pleasure of the reflection that they coroled thus the triumphs of the past; for I could ob­serve, that, when at any time the rage of their tormentors seemed to subside, [Page 30] the [...] po [...]re [...] f [...]rth those beautiful strains, in order in rekindle their fury, that in­ [...] of pain might not be wanting in the trial of their f [...]rtitude. I perceived the old man when I have before men­tioned, keep his eye fixed upon me du­ring the [...] ▪ and fre­quently, [...]hen an [...] degree of for­bare [...] with that calmness [...] I [...] [...]escribed, he would point with [...] look, to [...], as if he had desired me [...] take a particular notice of his reso­lution.

I d [...] not [...]he [...]fully [...] the meaning of [...] ▪ [...] I afterwards un­derstood it [...] preparatory [...] of what I myself [...]word to endure▪ for the next morning upon the last surviving prisoner had expired, I was seized by three or four indians, who [...] me of w [...]at little cloaths I had, [...] me in a hor [...]zontal posture, be­tween the branches of two large trees▪ [...] had [...] the ground, and after [...] had [...] round me▪ [...] of a barbaroes [...]o [...]l, they [...] to react upon me nearly the [...] they had been engaged in the day before.

[Page 31]After each of a certain select num­ber had stuck his knife into my body, though they carefully avoided any mor­tal wound they rubbed it over, bleed­ing as it was with gunpowder, the salts of which gave me the most exquisite pain. Nor did the ingenuity of these [...]ri [...]ed tormentors stop here. They afterwards laid quantities of gun­powder on different parts of my body and set [...] to them, by which I was burnt in some places to the [...].

But I see you [...]udier at the horrid recital▪ Suffice it to say, that these, and some other such experiments of wanton cruelty, I bore▪ with that pa­tience, with which nothing [...] a life of hardship, and a certain ob [...]c [...] of spirit, proceeding from [...] contempt of existence, could have endowed me.

After this [...] was over, I was loosed from my bonds, and set in the middle if a circle who showed the cry of victory, and my aged friend brought me a bowl of water, mixed with some spirit [...], for drink. He took me then home to his hut, and laid [...]pplica­tions of different simples to my mangled body.

[Page 32]When I was so well recovered as to be able to walk abroad, he called to­gether certain elders of his tribe, and, acknowledging me for his son, gave me a name, and fastened round my neck a belt of wampum.

"It is thus, said [...]e, that the valiant are tried, and thus are they rewarded▪ for how shouldst thou be as one of [...] the soul [...]ere as the [...] little [...] worthy to [...]t the [...]chet with the Cherok [...]es, to whom so [...] in­tolerable then the stab of the knife, or the burning of the fire."

A continuation of the stranger's story.

IN this society I lived, till about a year and a half ago; and it may seem extraordinary to declare, yet it i [...] certainly true, that during the life of the old man who had adopted me, ev­en had there been no legal restraint on my return to my native country, scarce any inducement could have tempted me to have left the nation to which he be­longed; except perhaps the desire of visiting a parent and a sister whom I had left in England, sunk beneath that ignom [...]y which the son and the broth­er had drawn on his guiltless con [...] ­ions. When we consider the perfect freedom subsisting in this rude and am­ple [...]e [...] of society, where rule is only acknowledged for the purpose of im­mediate utility to those who obey and ceases whenever that purpose of subor­dination is accomplished; where great­ness cannot use oppression, nor wealth create envy; where the desires are na­tive to the heart, and the langour of satiety is unknown; where, if there is [Page 34] no refined sensation of delight, there is also no ideal source of calamity; we shall the less wonder at the inhabit­ants feeling no regret for the want of those delicate pleasures of which a more polished people is possessed.

Certain it is, that I am far from be­ing a single instance, of one who had even obtained maturity in Europe, and yet [...] his mind to accommodated▪ by the habit of a few years, to [...] manners▪ as to leave that country with regret▪ The death of my parent by adoption loosened, indeed, my attach­ment to it; that event happened a short time before my departure from Amer­ica.

"The composure with which the old man met his dissolution, would have done honor to the firmest philosopher of antiquity. When he found himself near his end, he called me to him, to deliver some final instructions respect­ing my carriage to his countrymen. He observed, at the close of his discourse, that I remained so much of the Europe­an, at to shed some tears while he de­livered it.

[Page 34] "In those tears" said he, there is no wis­dom, for there is no use. I have heard, that in your country, men prepare for death, by thinking on it while they live; this also is folly, because it loses the good, by an­ticipating the evil. We do otherwise, my son, as our fathers have better instructed us, and take from the evil by reflecting on the good▪ I have lived a thousand moons, without captivity and without disgrace: In my youth I did not fly in battle, and in age the tribes listened while I spake. If I live in another land after death, I shall think of these things with pleasure if the present is our only life to have done thus is to have used it well. You have sometimes told me of your countrymen's account of a land of souls; but you were a young man when you came among us, and the cunning amongst them may have deceived you, for the children of the french king call them­selves after the same God that the English do; yet their discourses concerning him cannot be true, because they are opposite one to another. Each says that God shall burn the other with fire, which could not happen if both were his children.

Besides, neither of them act as the sons of truth, but us the sons of deceit; they say [Page 36] their God heareth all things, yet do they break the promises which they have called upon him to hear; but we know that the spirit within us listeneth, and what we have said in its hearing that we do.

If in another country the soul liveth, this witness shall live with it; whom it hath here reproached, it shall there dis­quiet; whom it hath here honored, it shall there reward.

Live therefore my son as your father hath lived, and die as he dieth, fearless of death.

With such sentiments the old man resigned his breath, and I blushed for the life of Christians, while I heard them.

I was now become an independent member of the community, and my behaviour had been such, that I suc­ceeded to the condition of my father, with the respect of a people, amongst whom honour is attainable only by merit. But his death had dissolved that tie, which gratitude, and indeed affection for the old man had on my heart; and the scene of his death na­turally awakened in me the rememb­rance of a father in England, whose [Page 37] age might now be helpless, and call for the aid of a long lost son to so­lace and support it. This idea, once roused, became every day more pow­erful; and at last I resolved to com­municate it to the tribe, and tell them my purpose of returning home.

"They heard me without surprise or emotion; as indeed it is their great characteristic not to be easily awaken­ed to either.

"You return," said one of the elders, "to a people who sell affection to their brethren for money; take therefore with you some of the commodities which their traders value. Strength, agility, and fortitude are sufficient to us, but with them they are of little use; he who posses­ses wealth, having no need of virtue, a­mongst the wealthy it will not [...] found.

"The last your father taught you, and amongst us you have practised; the first he had not to leave, [...] have we to bestow; but take as many [...]e [...]e [...]-skins as you can carry on your journey, that you may reach that parent whom, you tell us, you go to cherish▪"

"I returned thanks to the old man for his council, and to the whole tribe [Page 38] for their kindness; and having, accor­ding to his advice, taken a few of the furs they offered me, I resumed the tattered remains of the European dress which I had on when I escaped from the sort, and took the nearest road to one of our back settlements, which I reached with­out any accident, by the assistance of an Indian who had long shown a parti­cular attachment to me, and who now attended me on my way. "Yonder smoak," said my conductor, "rises from the dwellings of your countrymen. You now return to a world which I have heard you describe as full of calamity; but the soul you possess is the soul of a man. Re­member that to fortitude there is no sting in adversity, and in death no evil to the val­iant."

When he left me, I stood some minutes, looking back, on one hand to the wilds I had passed, and on the o­ther, to the cultivation which Europe­an industry had formed; and it may surprise you to hear, that though there wanted not some rekindling attachment to a people amongst whom my first breath had been drawn, and my youth spent, yet my imagination drew, on [Page 39] this side, fraud, hypocrisy, and sordid baseness, while on that seemed to preside honesty, truth, and savage nobleness of soul.

"When I appeared at the door of one of the houses in the settlement that was nearest me, I was immediately ac­costed by its master, who, judging from the bundle of furs which I carried, that I had been tra [...]ing among the Indians, asked me, with much kindness, to take up my lodging with him. Of this of­fer I was very glad to accept, though I found a scarcity of words to thank my countryman for his favor; as, from want of use my remembrance of the English language had been so much ef­faced, as not only to repress fluency, but even to prevent an ordinary com­mand of expression; and I was more especially at a loss for ceremonial phraseology, that department of lan­guage being unknown in the country whence I was just returned. My land­lord was not a little astonished, when I could at last make shift to inform him of my having passed so many years among the Indians.

[Page 40]He asked a thousand questions about customs which never existed, and told a multitude of things, of which all the time I had lived in that country I had never drea [...]ed the possibility. In­deed, from the superiority of his ex­pression, joined to that fund of suppo­sed knowledge which it served to com­municate, a by-stander would have been led to imagine that he was describing, to some ignorant guest, a country with whose manners he had been long con­versant, and amongst whose inhabit­ants he had passed the greatest part of his life.

At length, however, his discourse cen­tered upon the fur trade, and natural­ly glided from that to an offer of pur­chasing my beaver skins. These things, I was informed by my courteous enter­tainer, had fallen so much in their price of late, that the traders could hardly defray their journey in procuring them; that himself had lost by some late bar­gains in that way; but that, to oblige a stranger, the singularity of whose adventures had interested him in his be­half, he would give me the highest price at which he had heard of their being sold [Page 41] for a long time past. This I [...]ented without [...], as I had neither lan­g [...]ge [...] for hagg [...]: and having [...] as [...] me to [...] part▪ I proceeded [...] my jour­ney, [...] by an [...] of [...], who was [...] from an an [...]al [...] to a [...] on the back [...] which he [...] purchased [...], who [...] upon▪

He seemed to be [...] and, [...] my former [...], that I [...] several years among the [...] all the [...] with [...] their country [...] as he was less [...] of his [...] knowledge in the [...] ▪ I was the [...] i [...] [...] a g [...]a [...] [...] made himself [...] some of my [...] [Page 42] regiment in which I had served, down to the day on which I delivered my reci­tal.

When I mentioned my having sold my beaver-skins for a certain sum, he started aside, and then lifting up his eyes in an ejaculatory manner, express­ed his astonishment how a Christian could be guilty of such monstrous dis­honesty, which he said, was no hefter than one would have expected in a sa­vage▪ for that my [...] were worth three times the money. I smiled at his [...] of comparative morality, and [...] the intelligence with a calm­ness th [...] seemed to more his admira­tion [...]e thanked God that all were not so ready to take advantage of ig­norance or misfortune▪ and [...] my hand, begged me to make [...] at Willemb [...]rg my own▪ [...] as I could procure my passage to England.

Conclusion of the stranger's story.

"PURSUANT to this friendly [...]vita­tion, I accompanied him to his [...] on our arrival at this place, my landlord behaved to me in a most friendly manner, and furnished me of [...] own accord, with linnen and wearing a [...]arel several ar [...] of which the [...] necessaries in the [...] society of those amongst wh [...] I now [...], my idea of [...] simpli­city ma [...]e [...]e consider super [...].

"During this time I frequently at­tended him at [...] store, while he was receiving consignments of goods [...] and assisted him and his servant in the dispo­sal and a [...]ortment of them. At first he received this assistance as a favour; but I could observe that he soon began to [...] as a matter of right and called me to bear a hand, as be [...] in a manner rather too per­ [...] [...] my pride to [...] to.

At last, when [...] me with some [...] of [...] [...]lity, I [...] him I [...] not consider myself his [Page 44] dependant, any farther than gratitude for his favors demanded. Upon which he let me know, that he looked upon me as his servent▪ and that, if I did not immediately obey his command▪ he would find a way to be revenged of me. This declaration heightened my resentment and confirmed my refusal.

I desired him to give me an account of what money he had expended, in those articles with which he had suppli­ed me, that I might pay him out of the small sum I had in my possession, and if that was not sufficient, I would rath­er fell my new habiliments, and return to my rags, than be indebted for a far­thing to his generosity. He answered, that he would clear accounts with me by and by. He did so, by making oath before a magistrate, that I was a de­serter from his majesty's service, and according to my own confession, had associated with the savages, enemies of the province.

As I could deny neither of those charges, I was thrown into prison, where I should have been in danger of starving, had not the curiosity of some of the town folks induced them to visit [Page 45] me, when they commonly contribute [...] some trifle towards my support till at length, partly, I suppose, from the a­batement of my accuser's anger, and partly from the flagrancy of detaining me in pri [...] without any provision for my maintenance, I was suffered to be en­larged▪ and a vessel being the [...] ready to sail for England, several of whose hands had deserted her the master a­greed to take me on board for the con­sideration of my working the voyage. For the indeed I was not in the [...] qualified as to s [...]ill; but my strength and perseverance made up, in some ope­rations, for the want of it.

"As this was before the end of the war, the ship in which I failed was taken by a French privateer, who carried her into Brest. This, to me, who had already anticipated my arrival at home, to comfort the declining age of a parent, was the most mortifying accident of any I had hitherto met with▪ but the captain and some passengers who were aboard of us, seemed to make light of their misfortune. The ship was insured, so that in property the owners could suffer little; as for our­selves [Page 46] said they, the French are the politest ene­mies in the world, and till we are ex­changed, will treat us with that civil demeanor, so peculiar to their nation. We are not (addressing themselves to me) among savages, as you were.

How it fared with them I know not, but I and other inferior members of the crew were thurst into a dungeon, dark, damp, and loathsome▪ where from the number confined in it, and the [...] want of proper circulation, the air became putrid in the most hor­rible degree; and the allowance of our provision was not equal to two pence a day.

To hard living I could well enough submit, who had been frequently ac­customed among the Cherokees, to sub­sist three or four days on a stalk of ind­ian corn, moistened in the first brook I lighted on; but the want of air and ex­ercise I could not so well endure. I lost the use of my limbs and lay motion­less on my back in a corner of the hole we were confined in, covered with ver­min, and supported in that wretched state, only by the infrequent humanity of some sailor, who crammed my mouth [Page 47] with a bit of his coarse brown bread, softened with stinking water. The na­tural vigour of my constitution howev­er; bore up against this complicated mi­sery, till upon the conclusion of the peace, when we regained our liberty, I had not strength to enjoy it; & after my companions were gone, was obliged to crawl several weeks about the streets of Brest, where the charity of some well disposed Frenchmen bestowed now and then a trifle, on the pauvre sauvage, as I was called, till I recovered the exer­cise of my limb [...], and was able to work my passage in a dutch merchantship bound to England. The mate of this vessel happened to be a scotchman; who hearing me speak the language of Bri­tain, and having enquired into the particulars of my story, humanely at­tached himself to my service, and made my situation much more comfortable than any I had for some time experi­enced. We sailed from Brest with a fair wind but had not been long at sea till it shifted, and blew pretty fresh at East, so that we were kept for several days beating up channel; at the end of which it encreased to so violent a de­gree [Page 48] that it was impossible for us to hold a course, and the ship was suffered to scud before the storm. At the close of the second day the wind suddenly chop­ped about in a westerly point, though visibly without any abatement of [...] violence, and very soon after day break of the third we were driving on the south west craft of England right [...] leeward. The consternation of the crew became now so great that if any expedient had remained to save us, it would have scarce allowed them to p [...] it in practice. The mate, who seemed to be the ablest sailor on board, exhort­ed them at least to endeavor running the ship into a bay, which opened a little on our starboard quarter, where the shore was flat and sandy: comfort­ing them with the reflection, that they should at least be cast on friendly ground and not among savages. His advice and encouragement had the desired effect; and notwithstanding the perils with which I was surrounded, I looked with a gleam of satisfaction on the coast of my native land, which for so many years I had not seen. Unfortunately a ridge of rocks ran almost across the ba­bason [Page 49] into which, with infinite labor, we were directing our course; and the ship struck upon them, about the dis­tance of half a league from the shore. All was now uproar and confusion. The long boat was launched by some of the crew, who, with the captain, got im­mediately into her, and, brandishing their long knives, threatened with in­stant death any who should attempt to follow them, as she was already load­ed beyond her burden

"Indeed there remained in the ship at this time only two sailors, the mate, and myself; the first were washed overboard while they h [...]ng on the ship's side at­tempting to leap into the boat, and we saw them no more; nor had their hard hearted companions a better rate; they had scarcely rowed a cable's length from the ship, when the boat overset, and every one on board her perished.

"There now remained only my friend the mate, and I, who consulting a moment together, agreed to keep by the ship till she should split, and endea­vor to save ourselves on some broken plank which the storm might drive on shore.

[Page 50]"We had just time to come to this re­solution, when, by the violence of a wave that broke over the ship, her main-mast went by the board, and we were swept off the deek at the same instant. My companion could not swim; but I had been taught that art by an Indian friend to the greatest degree of expert­ness.

"I was more uneasy about the hon­est Scotchman's fate than my own, and quitting the mast, of which I had caught hold in its fall, swam to the place where he first rose to the surface, and, catch­ing him by the hair, held his head tole­rably above water, till he was able so far to recollect himself, as to cling by a part of the shrouds of our floating main-mast, to which I bore him. In our passage to the shore on this slender float, he was several times obliged to quit his hold, from his strength being ex­hausted; but I was always so fortunate as to be able to replace him in his former situation, till, at last, we were thrown upon the beach, near to the bottom of that bay at the mouth of which our ship had struck.

[Page 51]"I was not so much spent by my fa­tigue, but that I was able to draw the mate safe out of the water▪ and, advan­cing to a crowd of people whom I saw assembled near us, began to e [...]treat their assistance for him in very pathetic terms; when, to my utter astonish­ment, one of them struck at me with a bl [...]dgeon, while another making up to my fellow sufferer, would have beat out his brains with a stone, if I had not run up nimbly behind him, and dashed it from his uplifted hand. This man happened to be armed with a hanger which he instantly drew, and made a fu­rious blow at my head. I parried his blow with my arm, and at the same time seizing his wrist, gave it so sudden a wrench, that the weapon dropped to the ground. I instantly possessed myself of it, and stood astride my companion with the aspect of an angry lioness guarding her young from the hunter. The appearance of strength and fierceness which my figure exhibited, kept my enemies a little at bay, when fortunately we saw advancing a body of soldiers, headed by an officer, whom a gentleman of huma­nity in the neighborhood had prevailed [Page 52] upon to march to the place for the pre­servation of any of the crew whom the storm might spare, or any part of the cargo that might chance to be thrown on shore.

"At sight of this detatchment the crowd dispersed, and left me master of the field.

"The officer very humanely took charge of my companion and me, brought us to his quarters in the neigh­borhood, and accommodated me with these very cloths which I now have on. From him I learned that those English­men, who (as our mate by the way of comfort observed) were not savages, had the idea transmitted them from their fathers, that all wrecks became their property by the immediate hand of God; and, as in their apprehension that denomination belonged only to ships from which there landed no liv­ing thing, their hostile endeavors a­gainst the Scotchman's life and mine proceeded from a desire of bringing our vessel into that supposed condition.

After having weathered so many succes­sive storms, I am at last arrived near the place of my nativity; fain would I hope [Page 53] that a parent and a sister, whose tender remembrance mixed with that of happier days, now rushes on my soul, are yet alive to pardon the wanderings of my youth, and receive me, after those hardships to which its ungoverned passions have [...]u [...]e [...] [...]. Like the prodigal son I bring no worldly wealth along with me; but I return with a mind conscious of its former errors, and seeking that peace which they destroyed.— To have used prosperity well is the first fa­vored lot of heaven; the next is his whom adversity both not smitten in vain▪

Bolton and his companion meet with an un­common adventure.

WHEN the stranger had finished his narration▪ Bolton expressed in very strong terms, his compassion for the hardships he had suffered.

"I do not wish," said he, "to be the prophet of evil; but If your expectations of the comfort your native country is to af­ford you be disappointed, it will give me the truest pleasure to shelter a head on which so many vicissitudes have beat, under th [...] roof of which Providence, has made [...]e master."

He was interrupted by the trampling of horses at a distance. His fears, wakeful at this time, were immediately roused; the stranger observed his confu­sion.

"You seem uneasy, Sir, said he, but they are not the retreats of houseless pov­erty, like this, that violence and rapine are wont to attack."

"You mistake (answered Harry, who was now standing at the door of the chapel) the ground of my alarm; at pre­sent [Page 55] I have a particular reason for my fears, which is nearer to me than my own personal safety."

He listened—the noise grew fainter; but he marked by the light of the moon, which now shone out again, the direc­tion whence it seemed to proceed, which was over an open part of the common.

"They are gone this way," he cried, with an eagerness of look, grasping one of the knotty branches which the soldier's fire had spared. "If there is danger in your ways said his companion, "you shall not meet it alone."

They sallied forth together, but had not proceeded above a quarter of a mile, when they perceived at a dis­tance, the twinkling of lights in mo­tion; their pace was quickened at the sight; but in a few minutes those were extinguished, the moon was darkened by another cloud, and the wind began to howl again. They ad­vanced, however, on the line in which they imagined the lights to have appea­red, when, in one of the pauses of the storm, they heard shrieks▪ in a female voice, that seemed to issue from some place but a little way off.

[Page 56]They rushed forward in the direc­tion of the sound till they were stopped by a pretty high wall. Having made a shift to scramble over this, they found themselves in the garden belong­ing to a low built house, from one of the windows of which they saw the glimmer of a candle through the open­ings of the shutters. But the voice had failed, and all was silent within. Bol­ton knocked at the door but received no answer, when suddenly the screaming was repeated with more violence than ever.

He and his companion now threw themselves with such force against the door, as to burst it open. They rush­ed into the room whence the noise pro­ceeded; when the first object that pre­sented itself to Bolton was Miss Sindal on her knees, her cloths torn, and her hair dishevelled, with two servants hol­ding her arms, imploring mercy of Sir Thomas, who was calling out in a furi­ous tone, "Damn your pity, rascals, carry her to bed by force."

"Turn, villain," cried Harry, "turn and defend yourself."

[Page 57]Sindal started at the well known voice, and pulling out a pistol, fired it within a few feet of the other's face; he missed, and Bolton pushed forward to close with him, when one of the servants, quitting Miss Sindal, threw himself be­tween him and his master, and made a blow at his head with the but end of a hunting whip; this Harry catched on his stick, and in return levelled the fellow with the ground. His master now fired another pistol, which would have probably taken more effect than the former, had not Bolton's now ac­quaintance struck up the muzzle just as it went off, the ball going through a window at Harry's back,

The baronet had his sword now drawn in the other hand, and, chang­ing the object of his attack, he made a furious pass at the soldier, who parried it with his hanger.

At the second lounge Sir Thomas's vi­olence threw him on the point of his adversary's weapon, which entered his body just below the breast. He stag­gered a few paces backwards, and, clap­ping one hand on the place, leaned with the other on a table that stood behind [Page 58] him, and cried out, that he was a dead man.

"My God!" exclaimed the stranger, "are not you Sir Thomas Sindal?" "Sir Thomas Sindal!" cried a woman, who entered half dressed, with the mistress of the house.

"It is, it is Sir Thomas Sindal," said the land-lady, "for God's sake, do his honor no hurt."

"I hope," said the other, with a look of earnest wildness, "you have not been a bed with that young lady?"—She wait­ed not a reply—"for as sure as there is a God in heaven, she is your own daughter."

Her hearers stood aghast as she spoke! —Sindal stared wildly for a moment, then, giving a deep groan, fell sense­less at the feet of the soldier, who had sprang forward to support him.

What assistance the amazement of those about him could allow, he receiv­ed; and, in a short time, began to re­cover; but as he revived, his wound bled with more violence than before. A servant was instantly dispatched for a surgeon; in the mean time the soldier procured some lint, and gave it a tem­porary dressing.

[Page 59]He was now raised from the ground, and supported in an elbow chair. He bent his eyes fixedly on the woman— Speak," said he, "while I have life to hear thee."

On the faces of her audience sat as­tonishment, suspense, and expectation; and a chilly silence prevailed, while she delivered the following recital.

A prosecution of the discovery mentioned in the last chapter.

"I HAVE been a wicked woman— May God and this lady forgive me! But Heaven is my witness, that I was thus far on my way to confess all to your honor, (turning to Sir Thomas Sindal) that I might have peace in my mind before I died.

"You well remember, Sir, that this young lady's mother was delivered of her at the house of one of your tenants where a Mr. Camplin (I think that was his name) brought her for that purpose. I was intrusted with the charge of her as her nurse, along with some trinkets, such as young children are in use to have, and a considerable sum of money to provide any other necessaries she should want.

At that very time I had been drawn in to associate with a band of pilfering vagrants, whose stolen goods I had re­cived into my house, and helped to dis­pose of.

[Page 61]"Fearing therefore that I might one day be brought to an account for my past offences, if I remained where I was, and having at the same time the temptation of such a booty before me, I formed a scheme for making off with the money and trinkets I had got from Mr. Camplin; it was, to make things ap­pear as if my charge and I had been lost in crossing the river, which then hap­pened to be in flood. For that pur­pose, I daubed my own cloak and the infant's wrapper with mud and sleech, and left them close to the overflow of the stream, a little below the common ford.

"With shame I confess it, I was more than once tempted to drown the child, that she might not be a burden to me in my flight; but she looked so innocent and sweet, while she clasped my fingers in her little hand, that I had not the heart to execute my pur­pose.

"Having endeavored in this manner to account for my disappearing, so as to prevent all farther inquiry, I joined a party of those wretches whose associate I had some time been, and left that part [Page 62] of the country altogether. By their as­sistance too, I was put on a method of disguising my face so much, that had a­ny of my acquaintance met me, of which there was very little chance, it would have been scarce possible for them to recollect it. My booty was put into the common stock, and the child was found useful to raise compassion when we went a begging, which was one part of our occupation.

"After I had continued in this socie­ty the best part of a year, during which time we met with various turns of for­tune, a scheme was formed by the re­maining part of us (for several of my companions had been banished, or con­fined to hard labor in the interval) to break into the house of a wealths far­mer, who, we understood, had a few days before received a large sum of mo­ney on a bargain for the lease of an es­tate, which the proprietor had redee­med.

"Our project was executed with suc­cess; but a quarrel arising about the distribution of the spoil, one of the gang deserted, and informed a neigh­boring justice of the whole transaction, [Page 63] and the places of our retreat. I hap­pened to be a fortune-telling in this gentleman's house, when his informer came to make the discovery; and, be­ing closeted with one of the maid serv­ants, overheard him inquiring for the justice, and desiring to have some con­versation with him in private I im­mediately suspected his design, and hav­ing got out of the house, eluded pur­suit by my knowledge in the bye paths and private roads of the country.

"It immediately occured to me to disburden myself of the child▪ as she not only retarded my flight, but was a mark by which I might be discovered. But, abandoned as I had then become, I found myself attached to the child by that sort of affection which women conceive for the infants they suckle. I would not, therefore, expose the child in any of those unfrequented places through which I passed in my flight, where her death must have been the certain consequence, and two or three times, when I would have dropped her at some farmer's door, I was prevented by the fear of discove­ry.

[Page 64]"At last, I happened to meet with your honor. You may recollect, Sir, that the same night on which this lady, then an infant, was found, a beggar asked a [...]ms of you at a farrier's door, where you stopped to have one of your horse's [...] fastened. I was that beg­gar; and, hearing from a boy who held your horse, that your name was Sir Thomas Sindal, and that you were re­turning to a hunting seat you had in the neighborhood, I left the infant on a narrow part of the road a little way before you, where it was impossible you could miss of finding her, and stood at the back of a hedge to observe your behaviour when you came up.

"I saw you make your servant pick up the child, and place her on the fad­ble before him. Then having, as I thought, sufficiently provided for her, by thus throwing her under the protec­tion of her father, I made off as fast as I could, and continued my flight, until I imagined I was out of the reach of de­tection.

"But being sometime after appre­hended on suspicion, and not being a­ble to give a good account of myself, I [Page 65] was advertised in the papers and discov­ered to be an accomplice in the robbery I have mentioned, for which some of the gang had been already condemned and executed.

I was tried for the crime and cast for transportation. Before I was put on board the ship that was to carry me and several others abroad, I wrote a few lines to your honor, acquainting you of the circumstances of my behaviour to­wards you daughter; but this I suppose, as it was entrusted to the boy that used to go on errands for the prisoners, you never received. Not long ago I return­ed from transportation, and betook myself to my old course of life again, but I happened to be seized with the small pox, that raged in a village I was passing through, and partly from the violence of the distemper, partly from want of proper attendance in the first stages of it, was brought so low, that the physician whose humani­ty had induced him to attend upon me, utterly despaired of my recovery. And I found that the terrors of death on a sick bed, had more effect on my con­science, [Page 66] than all the hardships I had heretofore undergone.

Under these impressions I began to look back with the keenest remorse on a life so spent as mine had been. It pleased God, however, that I should recover, and have since endeavored to make some reparation for my past of­fences, by my penitence.

"Among other things, I often reflec­ted on what I had done with regard to the child; and being some days ago ac­cidentally near Sindal park, I went thi­ther, and tried to learn something of what had befallen her.

"I understood, from some of the neighbors, that a young lady had been brought up from her infancy with her aunt, and was said to be the daughter of a friend of yours, who had commit­ted her to your care at his death. But upon enquiring into the time of her be­ing brought to your house, I was per­suaded that she must be the same I had conjectured, imputing the story of her being another's, to your desire of con­cealing that she was yours, which I im­agined you had learned from the letter I wrote before my transportation; till [Page 67] meeting, at a house of entertainment▪ with a servant of your honor's, he in­formed me, in the course of our conver­sation, that it was reported you were going to be married to the young lady who had lived so long in your family.

On hearing this I was confounded, and did not know what to think; but, when I began to fear that my letter had never reached you, I trembled at the thought of what my wickedness may occasion, and could have no ease in my mind till I should set off for Bilswood to confess the whole affair to your honor.

"I was to-night overtaken by the storm near this house, and prevailed on the landlady, though it seemed much against her inclination, to permit me to take up my quarters here.

"About half an hour ago I was wak­ed with the shrieks of some person in distress, and upon asking the landlady, who lay in the same room, what was the matter, she bid me be quiet and say nothing; for it was only a worthy gen­tleman of her acquaintance, who had overtaken a young girl, a foundling, he had bred up, that had stolen a sum of money from his house, and ran away [Page 68] with one of his footmen. At the word foundling, I felt a kind of something I cannot describe, and I was terified when I overheard some part of your discourse, and guessed what your intentions were. I rose therefore, in spite of the landla­dy▪ and had got thus far dressed, when we heard the door burst open, and pre­sently a noise of fighting above stairs. Upon this we ran up together, and to what has happened since, this company has been witness."

Miss Sindal discovers another relation.

IT is not easy to describe the sensations of Sindal or Lucy, when the secret of her birth was unfolded. In the coun­tenance of the last were mingled the indication of fear and pity, joy and won­der; while her father turned upon her an eye of tenderness chastened with shame.

"Oh! thou injured innocence! said he, for I know not how to call thee, child, canst thou forgive those—Good God! Bolton, from what hast thou saved me!

Lucy was now kneeling at his feet. "Talk not, Sir," said she, "of the errors of the past; methinks I look on it as some horrid dream, which it dizzies my head to recollect. My father! Gracious God! have I a father?—I cannot speak; but there are a thousand things that beat here! Is there another parent to whom I should also kneel?"

Sir Thomas cast up a look to heaven and his groans stopped, for a while, his utterance.

[Page 70]"Oh! Harriet! if thou art an angel of mercy, look down and forgive the wretch that murdered thee!"

"Harriet!" exclaimed the soldier, starting at the sound, "what Harriet? what Harriet? Sindal looked earnest­ly in his face—"Oh! heavens!" he cri­ed, "art thou—sure thou art Annesly? Look not, look not on me—thy sister—but I shall not live for thy upbraidings—thy sis­ter was the mother of my child!—Thy fa­ther—to what does this moment of reflec­tion reduce me!—thy father fell with his daughter, victims of that villany which o­vercame her innocence!"

Annesly looked sternly upon him, and anger for a moment inflamed his cheeks, but it gave way [...]o softer feelings.— "What both! both!"—and he burst in­to tears.

Bolton now stepped up to his new acquired friend. "I am" said he, "com­paratively but a spectator of this fateful scene; let me endeavor to comfort the dis­tress of the innocent, and alleviate the pangs of the guilty. In Sir Thomas Sin­dal's present situation resentment would be injustice. See here, my friend, (pointing [Page 71] to Lucy) a mediatri [...], who forgets the man in the father."

Annesly gazed upon her. "She is, she is," he cried, "the daughter of my Har­riet; that eye, that lip, that look of sor­row!"

He [...]lung himself on her neck; Bol­ton looked on them enraptured; and even the langor of Sindal [...] was cros­sed with a gleam of momentary plea­sure.

Sir Thomas's servant now arrived accompanied by a surgeon, who, upon examining and dressing his wound, was of opinion, that in itself it had not the appearance of imminent danger, but that from the state of his pulse he was apprehensive of a supervening fever. He ordered him to be put to bed, and his room to be kept as quiet as possible. As this gentleman was an acquaintance of Bolton's, the latter informed him of the state in which Sir Thomas's mind must be from the discoveries that the preced­ing hour had made to him. Upon which the surgeon begged that he might for the present, avoid seeing Miss Sindal or Mr. Annesly, or talking with any one on the subject of those discoveries; but [Page 72] he could not prevent the intrusion of thought; and not many hours after, his patient fell into a [...]oving [...]ort of slum­ber, in which he would often start, and m [...]tter the words Harriet, Lucy, Mur­der, and Incest!

Bolton and Lucy now enjoyed one of th [...]se luxurious interviews, which ab­sence, and hardships during that absence, pro [...]e to souls formed for each other. She related to him all her past distres­ses.

When she came to the close of her reci­tal, the idea of that relation in which she stood to him for whom these outra­ges were suffered, stopped her tongue; she blushed and faultered.

"This story," said she, I will now for­ever forget, except to remember that grat­itude which I owe to you." During the vicisitudes of her narration he had clasped her hand with a fearful earnest­ness, as if he had shared the dangers she related, he pressed it to his lips. "A­midst my Lucy's present momentous con­cerns, I would not intrude my own, but I am selfish in the little services she a [...] ­knowledges; I look for a return." She blushed again: "I have but little art," [Page 73] said she, "and cannot disguise my senti­ments; my Henry will trust them on a subject, which at present I know his del­icacy will forbear."

Annesly now entered the room, and Bolton communicated the trust he was possessed of in his behalf, offering to put him in immediate possession of the sum which Mr. Rawlinson had bequea­thed to [...] management, and which that gentleman had more than doubled since the time it had been left by An­nesly's unfortunate father.

"I know not," said Annesly, "how to talk of those matters, unacquainted as I have been with the manners of polished and commercial nations.

"When I have any particular destina­tion for money, I will demand your assist­ance; in the mean time, consider me as a m [...]or, and use the trust already reposed in you for my advantage, and the advantage of those whom misfortune has allied to me."

Sir Thomas's situation. The expression of his penitence.

NEXT morning▪ Sindal, by the ad­vice of his surgeon was removed in a l [...]tter to his own house, where he was soon after attended by an eminent physician in aid of that gentleman's a­bilities.

Pursuant to his earnest encreaties, he was accompanied thither by Annesly and Bolton. Lucy, having obtained leave of his medical attendants, watch­ed her father in the character of a nurse.

Sir Thomas seemed to feel a sort of Melancholly satisfaction in having the company of those he had injured assem­bled under his roof.

He confessed the plans of seduction by which he triumphed over the vir­tue of Annesley, and the honor of his sister; and acknowledged the just re­tribution of heaven, in commissioning the hand of the injured, to avenge it­self, a parent and a sister, by cut­ing [Page 75] off their assassin in the midst of his days.

In vain were all attempts to per­suade him he might recover being told that in the punishments of the divin­ity there was no idea of vengeance; and that the infliction of what we term evil, serves equally the purpose of uni­versal benignity, with the dispensation of good.

"I feel," he replied, "the force of that observation; the pain of this wound; the presentiment of death which it instills; the horror with which the recollection of m [...] incest [...]ous passion strikes me;—all these are in the catalogue of my blessings. They indeed take from me the world; but they give me myself."

A visit from his physician interrupted their discourse; that gentleman did not prognostic [...]e so fatally for his pa­tient; he found the frequency of his pulse considerably abated, and express­ed his hopes, that the succeeding night his rest would be better than it had been. In this he was not mistaken; and the next morning the doctor con­tinued to think Sir Thomas fast mend­ing; [Page 76] but himself persisted in the be­lief that he should not recover.

For several days, however, he appear­ed rather to gain ground than to lose it; but afterwards he was seized with hectic fits at stated intervals, and when they left him, he complained of a uni­versal weakness and depression.

During all this time, Lucy was seld­om away from his bed side: From her presence he derived peculiar pleasure; and sometimes, when he was so low as to be scarce able to speak; would mut­ter out blessings on her head, calling her his saint, his guardian angel.

After he had exhausted all the pow­ers of medicine, under the direction of some of the ablest of the faculty, they acknowledged all further assistance to be vain, and one of them warned him, in a friendly manner, of his approaching end.

He received this information with the utmost composure, as an event he had expected from the beginning, thanked the physician for his candor, and desired that his friends might be summoned around him, while he had [Page 77] yet strength enough to bid them a­dieu.

When he saw them assembled, he de­livered into Bolton's hands [...] paper, which he told him was his wi [...] ▪

"To this," said he, "I would not have any of those privy, who are interested in its bequests; and therefore had it executed at the beginning of my illness, without their anticipation."

"You will find yourself, my dear Harry, master of my fortune, under a condition, which, I believe you will not esteem a hard­ship."

"Give me your hand; let me join it to my Lucy's;—there! if Heaven receives the prayer of a penitent, it will pour its richest blessings upon you."

"There are a few provisions in that pa­per, which Mr. Bolton, I know, will find a pleasure in fulfilling. Of what I have bequeathed to you, Mrs. Wistanly, the contentment you enjoy in your present situa­tion makes you independent; but I intend it as an evidence of my consciousness of your deserving."

"My much injured friend, for he was once my friend, (addressing himself to Annesly,) will accept of the memorial I [Page 78] have left him. Give me your hand, Sir; receive my forgiveness for that wound which the arm of Providence made me provoke from yours; and when you look on a parent's and a sister's tomb, spare the memory of him whose death shall then have expi [...]ted the wrongs he did you!

Tears were the only answer he re­ceived. He paused a moment; then looking round with something in his eye more elevated and solemn, "I have now," said he, "discharged the world. Mine has been called a life of pleasure; had I breath, I could tell you how false the title is."

"Alas! I knew not how to live. Mer­ciful God! I thank thee—thou hast taught me how to die."

At the close of this discourse, his strength, which he ha [...] exerted to the utmost, seemed altogether spent; and he sunk down in the bed, in a state so like death, that for some time his attendants imagined him to have actually expired. When he did revive, his speech appeared to be lost; he could just make a feeble sign for a cordial that stood on the table near his bed: He [Page 79] put it to his lips, then laid his head on the pillow, as if resigning himself to his fate.

Lucy was too tender to bear the scene▪ her friend, Mrs. Wistanly, led her al­most fainting out of the room. "That grief, my dear Miss Sindal," said she, "is too amiable to be blamed▪ but your father suggested a conso [...]ion which your piety will allow. Of those who have led his life, how few have closed it like him!"