NARROW ESCAPE OF A SWISS SOLDIER.

Ar the dreadful epoch of the affair of Nanci, during the French Revolution, twenty-two soldiers of the regiment of Chateau Vieux were condemned to condign punishment. As the fatal procession was passing through a narrow street, one of the soldiers condemned, contrived, amidst the press, to slip unobserved into a passage, the door of which was open. It was the house of his mistress. Conceive her transport to find her lover in her arms, at the moment she was bewailing his death. One victim at the place of execution was found wanting. Search was every where made for the fugitive, but in vain. It was renewed with all the keenness and sagacity of blood-hounds; but the destined object of vengeance cluded the utmost penetration and diligence of his pursuers. He was all this time confined in a corn loft, where he had been secreted by his mistress, and where she had found means to nourish him for three months, unknown to her parents. A rich farmer of Basle, who had heard nothing of his son since the carnage of Nanci, and the horrible execution of the Swiss, could no longer resist his uneasiness, and the anxiety he felt to be certain of his fate. For this purpose he undertook a journey to Nanci: but though his concern excited pity, and his inquiries interested all to whom they were addressed, there were none who could afford him the desired intelligence. At last he learned with transport, that his son had escaped the fate of his companions, and was directed by a soldier to the house of his mistress, as a place where it was probable he might get further information. He repaired immediately to the house, but the girl pretended entire ignorance, and notwithstanding the particulars of his family, which he mentioned in their conversation, she preserved the most cautious silence. She promised, however, to make inquiry, and desired him to return in an hour. The soldier immediately recognized his father in the stranger, from the description given by his Antoinette. The farmer returned to a minute, and son and father flew into each other's arms with all the ardor which such a meeting might be sup posed to produce. As soon as the first transports were over,

the father joined the hands of the young couple, pronouncing over them a paternal benediction: "You have preserved his life," said he to her, "the only recompense I can offer you, is himself."

HEROIC RESOLUTION OF LADY HARRIET ACKLAND.

LADY HARRIET ACKLAND had accompanied her husband to Canada, in the beginning of the year 1776. In the course of that campaign, she traversed a vast space of country, in different extremities of the season, and with difficulties that an European traveller will not easily conceive, to attend in a poor hut in Chambly upon his sick bed. In the opening of the campaign, in 1777, she was restrained from offering herself to a share of the fatigue and hazard expected before Ticonderoga, by the positive injunctions of her husband. The day after the conquest of that place, he was badly wounded, and she crossed Lake Champlain to join him.

As soon as he recovered, Lady Harriet proceeded to follow his fortunes through the campaign, and at Fort Edward, or at the next camp, she acquired a two-wheel tumbril, which had been constructed by the artificers of the artillery, something similar to the carriage used for the mail on the great roads in England. Major Ackland commanded the British grenadiers, which were attached to Frazer's corps; and consequently were always the most advanced post of the army. Their situations were often so alert, that no person slept out of their clothes. In one of these situations, a tent, in which the Major and Lady Harriet were asleep, suddenly took fire. An orderly sergeant of grenadiers, with great hazard of suffocation, dragged out the first person he caught hold of. It proved to be the Major. It happened, at the same instant, she had, unknowing what she did, and perhaps not perfectly awake, providentially made her escape, by creeping under the walls of the back part of the tent. The first object she saw on the recovery of her senses, was the Major on the other side, and in the same instant again in the fire in search of her. The sergeant again saved him, but not

without the Major being severely burned in the face, and in different parts of the body. Every thing they had with them in the tent was consumed.

This accident happened a little before the army passed Hudson river. It neither altered the resolution, nor the cheerfulness of Lady Harriet; and she continued her progress, a partaker of the fatigues of the advanced corps. The next call upon her fortitude was of a different nature, and more distressful, as of longer suspense. On the march of the 19th of September, the grenadiers being liable to action at every step, she had been directed by the Major to follow the route of the artillery and baggage, which was not exposed. At the time the action began, she found herself near a small uninhabited hut, where she alighted. When it was found the action was becoming general and bloody, the surgeons of the hospital took possession of the same place, as the most convenient for the first care of the wounded. Thus was this lady, in hearing of one continual fire of cannon and musketry, for four hours together, with the presumption, from the post of her husband with the grenadiers, that he was in the most exposed part of the action. She had three female companions, the baroness of Reidesel, and the wives of two British officers, Major Harnage, and Lieut. Reynell; but in the event their presence served but little for comfort, Major Harnage was soon brought to the surgeons very badly wounded; and a little after came intelligence that Lieut. Reynell was shot dead. Imagination will want no helps to figure the state of the whole group.

From the date of that action to the 7th of October, Lady Harriet, with her usual serenity, stood prepared for new trials; and it was her lot, that their severity increased with their numbers. She was again exposed to the hearing of the whole action, and at last received the shock of her individual misfortune, mixed with the intelligence of the general calamity, that the troops were defeated, and that Major Ackland, desperately wounded, was a prisoner.

The day of the 8th was passed by Lady Harriet and her companions in inexpressible anxiety; not a tent, not a shed was standing, except what belonged to the hospital; their refuge was among the wounded and dying.

The night of the Sth the army retreated, and at day break

on the 9th reached very advantageous ground. A halt was necessary to refresh the troops, and to give time to the batteaux, loaded with provisions, to come abreast.

When the army was on the point of moving after the halt, I received a message from Lady Harriet, submitting to my decision a proposal, of passing to the camp of the enemy, 1 and requesting General Gates' permission to attend her husband. Lady Harriet expressed an earnest solicitude to execute her intention, if not interfering with my designs.

Though I was ready to believe, for I had experienced that patience and fortitude, in a supreme degree, were to be found, as well as every other virtue, under the most tender forms, I was astonished at the proposal. After so long an agitation of the spirits, exhausted not only for want of rest, but the absolute want of food, drenched in rain for twelve hours together, that a woman should be capable of such an undertaking as delivering herself to the enemy, probably in the night; and uncertain of what hands she might fall into, appeared an effort above human nature. The assistance I was enabled to give was small indeed; I had not even a cup of wine to offer her; but I was told she had found, from some kind and unfortunate hand, a little rum and dirty water. All I could furnish her, was an open boat and a few lines written upon dirty and wet paper to General Gates, recom mending her to his protection.

Mr. Brudenell, the chaplain to the artillery, the same gentlemen that had officiated so signally at General Frazer's funeral, readily undertook to accompany her, and with one female servant, and the Major's valet de chambre, who had a ball which he had received in the late action then in his shoulder, she rowed down the river to meet the enemy. But her distresses were not yet at an end. The night was advanced before the boat reached the enemy's out-posts, and the sentinel would not let it pass, nor even come on shore. In vain Mr. Brudenell offered the flag of truce, and represented the state of the extraordinary passenger. The guard, apprehensive of treachery, and punctilious to his orders, threatened to fire into the boat if it stirred before day-light. Her anxiety and suffering were thus protracted through seven or eight dark and cold hours; and her reflections upon that first reception could not give her very encouraging ideas

of the treatment she was afterwards to expect. But it is due to justice at the close of this adventure to say, that she was received and accommodated by General Gates, with all the humanity and respect that her rank, her merits, and her fortunes deserved.

Let such as are affected by these circumstances of alarm, hardship and danger, recollect, that the subject of them was a woman, of the most tender and delicate frame; of the gentlest manners; habituated to all the soft elegances, and refined enjoyments, that attend high birth and fortune; and far advanced in a state in which the tender cares, always due to the sex, becomes indispensably necessary. Her mind alone was formed for such trials.-General Burgoyne's Narrative.

DREADFUL EFFECTS OF BLOOD-MONEY.

THE reward of forty pounds on conviction of felony, though originally intended to promote vigilance in the officers of justice, has been frequently perverted to the most diabolical purposes. Individuals have not only been seduced to commit crimes, in order that the informer might obtain the price of blood, but the criminal records of this country afford many melancholy instances in which innocent men have been convicted on the perjured evidence of conspirators.

Blood-money and its perversions, are not, however, of modern date; they seem to have been well understood as long ago as the reign of Edward the Third, when an appeal of murder was made a source of profit. The preamble of a statute enacted in the reign of that monarch, states, in substance, that it was the acknowledged practice of officers of justice, to compel their prisoners, by cruel treatment, to challenge innocent persons with the perpetration of heavy crimes, with a view to the extortion of ransom money from them, under the dread of punishment; and that the statute was framed for the correction of so enormous an evil.

The following tragic and horrible crime affords a most