every night presented before his eyes, whether sleeping or waking, his murdered friend, he felt tenfold the punishment which by flight he had vainly hoped to escape.

After twenty years residence, or rather wandering abroad through most parts of Europe, (for his mind was not quiet enough to let him live long in the same place,) he resolved to return back into England. He changed his name, and as time and change of climate had altered his person, he doubted not but he might, in some retired part of the country, wear out the remainder of his days, and perhaps recover that peace of mind which he had there left behind him.

But public justice, though slow, at last overtook him; for the very evening that he landed in a wherry at Queen-Hithe Stairs, as he was walking up Cheapside in order to get into a coach, just in the dusk, and by the very door of his murdered friend, he heard a voice 66 cry stop him, stop him, there he is." On this he ran as fast as he was able, and soon found himself followed by a great mob. He was soon overtaken and seized : on which he cried out with extreme terror, " I confess the fact; I am the man that did it."

The mob hereupon said, as he had confessed the crime, they would immediately proceed to execution, and after they had made him refund the stolen goods, they would give him the discipline of pumping, dragging him through the kennel and the like. On this he said he had stolen nothing, for though he had murdered Mr. L. yet he had no intention of robbing his house.

By this unexpected answer the mob found themselves mistaken for they were pursuing a pick-pocket, and seeing this man run hard, they concluded him to be the pick-pocket: and now they were for letting him go as a person distracted, that knew not what he said. One man, however, who had long lived in that neighbourhood, and heard of the murder of Mr. L. so long ago, desired the strange gentleman might be examined before a magistrate. He was accordingly carried before the Lord Mayor, who took his confession of the fact, for which he was soon after hanged. He declared at the gallows, that disgraceful as his punishment was, yet the day of his execution was the happiest he had known since he committed that horrid, treacherous, and inhuman act, the murder of a friend who loved him, and to whom he had the highest obligations.

MASSACRE OF MISS M'CREA.

The story of this unfortunate young lady is well known, nor should I mention it now, but for the fact, that the place of her murder was pointed out to us, near Fort Edward.

We saw, and conversed with a person, who was acquainted with her, and with her family; they resided in the village of Fort Edward.

It seems she was betrothed to a Mr. Jones, an American refugee, who was with Burgoyne's army, and being anxious to obtain possession of his expected bride, he despatched a party of Indians to escort her to the British army. Where were his affections and his gallantry, that he did not go himself, or at least that he did not accompany his savage emissaries !

Sorely against the wishes and remonstrances of her friends, she committed herself to the care of these fiends ;-strange infatuation in her lover, to solicit such a confidence-stranger presumption in her, to yield to his wishes; what treatment had she not a right to expect from such guardians!

The party set forward, and she on horseback; they had proceeded not more than half a mile from Fort Edward, when they arrived at a spring, and halted to drink. The impatient lover had, in the mean time, despatched a second party of Indians on the same errand; they came, at the unfortunate moment, to the same spring, and a collision immediately ensued, as to the promised reward.*

Both parties were now attacked by the whites, and at the end of the conflict, the unhappy young woman was found tomahawked, scalped, and (as is said,) tied fast to a pine tree, just by the spring. Tradition reports, that the Indians divided the scalp, and that each party carried half of it to the ago nized lover.

This beautiful spring, which still flows limpid and cool, from a bank near the road side, and this fatal tree we saw. The tree which is a large and ancient pine, " fit for the mast of some tall ammiral," is wounded, in many places, by the balls of the whites, fired at the Indians; they have been dug out as far as they could be reached, but others still remain in this ancient tree, which seems a striking emblem of wounded innocence, and the trunk, twisted off at a considerable elevation, by some violent wind, that has left only a few mutilated branches, is a happy, although painful memorial of the fate of Jenne M'Crea.t

Her name is inscribed on the tree, with the date, 1777,

*Which is said to have been a barrel of rum.

and

+ General Hoyt of Deerfield, informs me, that the received accounts of the circumstances attending the murder of Miss M'Crea, are in some particulars incorrect; he states, that he has ascertained, that she was not murdered at this spring, but in the road, at a little distance from it.

no traveller passes this spot, without spending a plaintive moment in contemplating the untimely fate of youth and loveli

ness.

The murder of Miss M'Crea, (a deed of such atrocity and cruelty as scarcely to admit of aggravation,) occurring as it did, at the moment when General Burgoyne, whose army was then at Fort Anne, was bringing with him to the invasion of the American States, hordes of savages, "those hell-hounds of war," whose known and established modes of warfare, were those of promiscuous massacre,† electrified the whole continent, and indeed, the civilized world, producing an universal burst of horror and indignation. General Gates did not fail to profit by the circumstance, and in a severe, but too personal remonstrance, which he addressed to General Burgoyne, charged him with the guilt of the murder, and with that of many other similar atrocities. His real guilt, or that of his government, was, in employing the savages at all in the war; in other respects, he appears to have had no concern with the transaction; in his reply to General Gates, he thus vindicates himself: "In regard to Miss M'Crea, her fall wanted not the tragic display you have laboured to give it, to make it as sincerely lamented and abhorred by me, as it can be by the tenderest of her friends. The fact was no premeditated barbarity. On the contrary, two chiefs who had brought her off, for the purpose of security, not of violence to her person, disputed which should be her guard, and in a fit of savage passion, in one from whose hands she was snatched, the unhappy woman became the victim. Upon the first intelligence of this event, I obliged the Indians to deliver the murderer into' my hands, and though, to have punished him by our laws, or

*Lord Chatham.

It is true, that General Burgoyne, in his celebrated speech to the Indians, at the river Boquet, at the opening of the campaign, (June 24, 1777,) reprobated such proceedings, and bound the savages, (whom, however, he called "brothers" and "friends,") down to European rules of warfare; but who would expect, that a fine speech, and a few rhetorical flourishes, even if sanctioned by rewards and punishments in prospect, would restrain the habitual, I had almost said, the innate ferocity of an American barbarian. All that happened, might, therefore, have been anticipated, and had General Burgoyne's army continued to be successful, the savages, instead of deserting him, as they did, in the hour "of his utmost need," would have spread murder and desolation every where, in spite of speeches, rules, or remonstrances.

The French, the English, and the Americans, are, all chargeable with a common guilt, differing, however, in degree, in employing the savages in the various wars on this continent.

principles of justice, would have been, perhaps, unprecedented, he certainly should have suffered an ignominious death, had I not been convinced by my circumstances and observation, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that a pardon, under the terms which I presented, and they accepted, would be more efficacious than an execution, to prevent similar mischiefs."

A POLITE ROBBERY.

Mons. Du Vall, who had been a French footman, and was much admired by the ladies, but had now turned highwayman, in company with four others of the same profession, overtook a coach on Turnham-green, in England, which they had beset over night, having intelligence that there was a booty of four hundred pounds in it.

In the coach were a knight, his lady, and only one maidservant, who perceiving five horsemen making up to them, presently imagined they were beset; and they were confirmed in their opinion, by seeing them whisper to one another, and riding backwards and forward. But as there was no way of escaping, the lady, to show she was not afraid, and to insinuate she had nothing to lose, takes a flageolet out of her pocket and plays.

Du Vall, who amongst his accomplishments of dancing, singing, &c. delighted in that instrument, takes the hint, and tuning his own flageolet excellently well, approaches the side of the coach in that posture; and addressing himself to the knight, Sir, says he, your lady plays charmingly ; and I doubt not but that she dances as well will you please to walk out of the coach, and let me have the honour to dance one minuet with her on the green? The knight replied, I dare not deny any thing to one of your quality and good nature; you seem a gentleman, and your request is very reasonable; and ordered the footman to open the door. Du Vall leaped lightly off his horse, and handed the lady out of the coach.

They danced; and though in boots and riding dress, Du Vall performed wonders, both in footing and singing. And when the dancing was over, he handed the lady into the coach again but stopped the knight as he followed his lady, telling him, he had forgot to pay the music. No, I have not, replies the knight and putting his hand under the seat of the coach, pulls out a hundred pounds bag, and delivers it to him. Du Vall took it with a good grace, and courteously answered, Sir, you are liberal, and shall have no cause to repent your being so; this liberality of yours shall excuse you the other 300%. and civilly took his leave.

THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF EUGENE ARAM, WHO WAS EXECUTED IN YORKSHIRE, FOR MURDER; TOgether wiTA THE INGENIOUS DEFENCE WHICH HE MADE ON HIS TRIAL.

The murder for which Aram suffered, and his whole history, is so uncommon, that our readers will be equally pleased and astonished with a full and explicit relation of it.

One of the ancestors of this offender had been high sheriff of Yorkshire, in the reign of king Edward the third; but the family having been gradually reduced, Aram's father was but in a low station of life: the son, however, was sent to a school near Rippon, where he perfected himself in writing and arithmetic, and then went to London, to officiate as clerk to a merchant.

After a residence of two years in town, he was seized with the small-pox, which left him in so weak a condition, that he went back to Yorkshire for the recovery of his health.

On his recovery, he found it necessary to do something for immediate subsistence; and accordingly engaged himself as usher to a boarding-school; but, not having been taught the learned languages in his youth, he was obliged to supply by industry what he had failed of through neglect: so that teaching the scholars only writing and arithmetic at first, he employed all his leisure hours in the most intense study, till he became an excellent Greek and Latin scholar in the progress to which acquirements, he owed much to the help of a most extraordinary memory.

In the year 1734, he engaged to officiate as steward of an estate belonging to Mr. Norton, of Knaresborough; and, while in this station, he acquired a competent knowledge of the Hebrew. At this period he married; but was far from being happy in the matrimonial connexion.

We now proceed to relate the circumstances which led to the commission of the crime which cost Aram his life. Daniel Clarke, a shoe-maker, at Knaresborough, after being married a few days, circulated a report that his wife was entitled to a considerable fortune, which he should soon receive. Hereupon Aram, and Richard Houseman, conceiving hopes of making advantage of this circumstance, persuaded Clarke to make an ostentatious show of his own riches, to induce his wife's relations to give him that fortune of which he had boasted. There was sagacity, if not honesty, in this advice; for the world in general are more free to assist persons in affluence than those in distress.

Clarke was easily induced to comply with a hint so agreeable to his own desires; on which he borrowed and bought on