The Percy Anecdotes: |
'BY the hand of a soldier I will undertake it.'
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
AT the siege of Tortona, the commander of the army which lay before the town ordered Carew, an Irish officer in the service of Naples, to advance with a detachment to a particular post. Having given his orders, he whispered Carew, 'Sir, I know you to be a gallant man
I have therefore put you upon this duty. I tell you in confidence, it is certain death to you all. I place you there to make the enemy spring a mine below you.' Carew made a bow to the general, and then led on his men in silence to the dreadful post. He there stood with an undaunted countenance: and having called to one of his soldiers for a draught of wine, 'Here,' said he, 'I drink to all those who bravely fall in battle.' Fortunately at that instant Tortona capitulated: and Carew escaped that destruction which he had so nobly displayed his readiness to encounter at the call of honour.
At the battle of Nieuport in the year 1600 Prince Maurice sent away his ships, that there might be no means of retreat for his troops: in leading them to engage he said 'My friends, you have Nieuport behind you which is in possession of the enemy, the sea on your left; a river on the right; and the enemy in front: there is no other way for you to pass, but over the bodies of these men.' By this heroic resolution he gained a battle which saved the republic, and did himself the highest honour.
Let Him that Loves Me, Follow Me.
'Armies of fearful harts will scorn to yield, If lions be their captains in the field.' ALLEYN.
Francis I. of France had not reached his twentieth year, when he was present at the celebrated battle of Marignan, which lasted two days. The Marshal de Trivulce, who had been in eighteen pitched battles, said, that those were the play of infants: but that this of Marignan was the combat of giants. Francis performed on this occasion prodigies of velour; he fought less as a king than as a soldier. Having perceived his standard-bearer surrounded by the enemy, he precipitated himself to his assistance in the midst of lances and halberts. He was presently surrounded, his horse pierced with several wounds; and his casque despoiled of its plumes. He must have been inevitably overwhelmed, if a body of troops detached from the allies had not hastened to his succour. Francis hazarded this battle against the advice of his generals, and cut short all remonstrance by the celebrated expression, which became afterwards proverbial, 'Let him that loves me, follow me.'
At the siege of Mons during the glorious career of Marlborough, the Duke of Argyle joined an attacking corps when it was on the point of shrinking from the contest; and pushing among them, open-breasted, he exclaimed, 'You see, brothers, I have no concealed armour; I am equally exposed with you; I require none to go where I shall refuse to venture. Remember you fight for the liberties of Europe, and the glory of your nation, which shall never suffer by my behaviour; and I hope the character of a Briton is as dear to every one of you.' This spirit animated the soldiers; the assault was made, and the work was carried.
In the memorable reign of Edward III. when feats of valorous enterprise were so frequent, the Earl of Derby, one of the bravest warriors of the age, was sent with an army to France. Count de Lisle, the French commander, had ordered twelve thousand men to assemble secretly in the neighbourhood of Auberoche; and immediately invested the place. With four engines they threw showers within the walls, and forced the garrison to take shelter under ground. The Earl of Derby, with three hundred men-at-arms, and six hundred archers, advanced through byeways to its relief. At supper time they burst into the French camp: the general and principal officers killed or taken at table, and the archers with their arrows instantly dispersed every small body of the enemy as soon as it was formed. The news had now reached the other half of the besieging army and the conquerors had still to conted against an enemy six times their number. The victory was secured by the garrison from the castle, who in the heat of the contest charged the rear of the French. Of the twelve thousand men, very few escaped. Nine earls and viscounts were made prisoners, nor was there a man-at-arms among the English, who did not return with two or three barons, knights, or esquires, as his share of the captives.
When Edward III. made his first expedition against the Scots, and had proceeded as far as Durham, and was for several days unable to find them, he offered a free pardon, and a -reward of £100 for life, to any person who would bring him intelligence of the Scots. The first account which he did receive of them was in a way little expected. While the two armies were laying on opposite sides of the river Wear, in the middle of the night an alarm was created by shouts of 'A Douglas! a Douglas! die, ye English thieves.' That gallant chieftain had passed the river at a distance with two hundred followers, and entering the rear of the camp, galloped towards the king's tent, the cords of which he cut with his own hand. He killed about three hundred men, and then effected his retreat in safety.
Shere Afgun, or the Overthrower of the Lion, so dignified from his having in his youth killed a lion with his own hands, was born of noble parents in Turcomania. He first served with uncommon renown under Shaw Ismael, the third of the Sufveye line, and afterwards with increasing reputation in the wars of the Emperor Akbar of India. He distinguished himself in a particular manner under Khan Khanan, at the taking of Suid, by exhibiting prodigies of personal strength and velour Preferments were heaped upon him, and he was in high esteem at court during the life of Akbar, who loved in others that daring intrepidity for which he himself was renowned.
When at the height of his reputation, Shere married Mher ul Nissa, or the Sun of Women, the daughter of Chaja Niass, the high treasurer of the empire. This lady, who excelled in beauty all the damsels of the East, had captivated the heart of Selim, the prince royal; and the prince had even gone so far as to apply to his father, Akbar, for permission to espouse her; but the emperor, aware that she had been betrothed to Shere, sternly refused to commit a piece of injustice, though in favour of the heir to his throne. The prince retired abashed, and Mher ul Nissa became the wife of Shere.
Akbar died, and Selim ascended the throne. The passion for Mher ul Nissa, which he had repressed from respect to his father, now returned with redoubled violence. He was afraid to go so far against the current of popular opinion, as openly to deprive Shere of his wife, but he resolved to leave no base act untried to get his rival out of the way, when he reckoned upon his triumph being secure. The first plot which he laid against the life of the brave Shere, was distinguished for the depth of its perfidy. He appointed a day for hunting, and ordered the haunt of an enormous tiger to be explored. News was soon brought that a tiger of immense size was discovered in the forest Nidabari. This savage, it was said, had carried off many of the largest oxen from the neighbouring villages. The emperor directed thither his march, attended by Shere Afgun and all his principal officers, with their train of dependents. Having, according to the custom of the Mogul Tartars, surrounded the ground for many miles, they began to move towards the centre on all sides. The tiger was roused his roaring was heard in all quarters, and the emperor hastened to the place
The nobility being assembled, the emperor called aloud, 'Who among you will advance singly, to attack this tiger?' They looked on one another in silence; then all turned their eyes on Shere Afgun. He seemed not to understand their meaning. At length three Omrahs started forth from the circle; and sacrificing fear to shame, fell at the emperor's feet, and begged permission to try singly their strength against the formidable animal. The pride of Shere Afgun rose. He had imagined that none durst attempt a deed so dangerous. He hoped that after the refusal of the nobles the honour of the enterprise would devolve of course on his hands. But three had offered themselves for the combat, and they were bound in honour to insist on their prior right Afraid of losing his former renown, Shere Afgun began thus in the presence: 'To attack an animal with weapons, is both unmanly and unfair. God has given to man limbs and sinews, as well as to tigers; he has added reason to the former, to conduct his strength.' The other Omrahs objected in vain, 'that all men were inferior to the tiger in strength, and that he could be overcome only by steel.' 'I will convince you of your mistake,' Shere Afgun replied; and throwing down his sword and shield, prepared to advance unarmed.
Although the emperor was in secret pleased with a proposal full of danger to Shere, he made a show of dissuading him from the enterprise. Shere was determined. The monarch with feigned reluctance yielded. Men knew not whether they ought most to admire the courage of the man, or to exclaim against the folly of the deed. Astonishment was painted on every face: every tongue was silent. Writers give a particular, but incredible, detail of the battle between Shere Afgun and the tiger. This much is certain, that after a long and obstinate struggle, Shere prevailed; and though mangled with wounds himself, laid at last the savage dead at his feet. The thousands who were eye-witnesses of-the action, were almost afraid to vouch for the truth of the exploit with their concurring testimony. The fame of Shere was increased, and the designs of the emperor failed for the moment. But the determined hate of the latter stopped not here, other plans of destruction were contrived by his parasites against the unfortunate Shere; and to one of these he at last fell a victim.
He had retired from the capital of Bengal to Burdwan. He hoped to live here in security and safety with his beloved Mher ul Nissa. He was deceived. The Subahdar of Bengal had received his government, for the purpose of removing the unfortunate Shere, and he was not unmindful of the condition. Settling the affairs of his government at Rajeinabel. which was at that time the capital of Bengal, he resolved with a great retinue to make the tour of the dependent provinces In this route he came to Burdwan. He made no secret to his principal officers, that he had the emperor's orders for despatching Shere. That devoted amyr hearing that the Subahdar was entering the town in which he resided, mounted his horse, and with two servants only went to pay his respects. The Subahdar received Shere with affected politeness. They rode for some time side by side, and their conversation turned upon indifferent affairs. The Subahdar suddenly stopped, he ordered his elephant of state to be brought; which he mounted, under a presence of appearing with becoming pomp in the city of Burdwan. Shere stood still while the Subahdar was ascending, and one of the pikemen pretending that Shere was in the way, struck his horse, and began to drive him before him. Shere was enraged at the affront, he knew that the pikeman durst not have used this freedom without his master's orders, he saw plainly that there was a design laid against his life. Turning therefore round upon the pikeman, he threatened him with instant death. The man fell on the ground, and begged for mercy. Swords were drawn. Shere had no time to lose; he spurred his horse up to the elephant on which the Subahdar was mounted, and having broken down the ambhary, or castle, cut him in two: and thus the treacherous Cuttub became the victim of his own zeal to please the emperor. Shere did not rest here: he turned his sword on the other officers. The first that fell by his hands was Aba Khan, a native of Cashmire who was an amyr of five thousand horse. Four other nobles shared the same fate: death attended every blow from the hand of Shere. The remaining chiefs were at once astonished and frightened, they Red to a distance, and formed a circle around him. Some began to gall him with arrows; others to fire with their muskets. His horse at length having been shot with a ball in the forehead, fell under him. The unfortunate Shere, reduced to the last extremity, began to upbraid them with cowardice. He invited them severally to single combat, but he begged-in vain. He had already received some wounds; he plainly saw his approaching fate. Turning his face towards Mecca, he took up some dust with his hand, and for *ant of water, threw it by way of ablution upon his head. He then stood up, seemingly unconcerned. Six balls entered his body in different places before he fell. His enemies had scarcely courage to come near till they saw him in the last agonies of death. They praised his velour to the skies; though in adding to his reputation, they took away exceedingly from their own.
Who that pities the fall of the brave and unfortunate Shere can help feeling doubly sorry, when they learn that the woman whose beauty was his ruin, had not a tear to shed to his memory? The officer who succeeded the deceased Subahdar in the command of the troops, hastened to the house of Shere, afraid that Mher ul Nissa, in her first paroxysms of grief, might make away with herself The lady, however, bore her misfortune with more fortitude and resignation. She showed no willingness whatever to follow the fashion of her countrywomen on such tragical occasions; she even pretended, in vindication of her apparent insensibility, that she was acting in obedience to the injunction of her deceased lord. She alleged that Shere, foreseeing his own fall from the machinations of the emperor, had conjured her to yield to the desires of the monarch without hesitation. The reasons which she said he gave, were as feeble as the fact itself was improbable - he was afraid that his own exploits would sink into oblivion, without they were connected with the remarkable event of giving an empress to India.
Empress, the faithless widow became; and for many years, under the celebrated name of Noor Jehan, she, conjointly with Selim, ruled the empire of India. A circumstance so uncommon in an Asiatic government is thus recorded on the coin of that period 'By order of the Emperor Jehangire, gold acquired a hundred times additional value by the name of the Empress Noor Jehan' ( Light of the World).
'--A commander must Use pretty cheats; dark stratagems devise.' ALLEYN'S CRESSEY.
Philip of Macedon won Prinassus by the following stratagem. He attempted first to undermine the city, but found the ground so rocky as to resist his most vigorous and repeated attempts. He still however persevered and commanded his pioneers to make a more than ordinary bustle and noise below ground. In the night he caused earth to be secretly brought from a distance, and raised enormous mounds at the entrance of the mine, in order to inspire the besieged with the belief that the work went forward with astonishing rapidity, At length he informed the townsmen that two acres of their wall were undermined, and stood upon wooden props, to which if he set fire and entered by a breach, they might expect no mercy. The Prinassians were deceived, and surrendered at discretion to an enemy, who could not with his utmost exertions have taken the town by real force.
The Romans beaten by Porsenna, King of the Etrurians, fled in disorder to Rome, with the enemy close at their heels. When they reached a bridge over the Tiber, which gave them an open entrance into Rome, the Etrurians pressed so hard on them, that there was the most imminent danger of both friend and foe entering the sacred city together. One man alone of all the Romans conceived the possibility of stemming the tide of pursuit, and discarding all considerations of personal hazard, he nobly resolved to devote himself to the glorious achievement. He turned round on the pursuing host as they were entering on the bridge, and with his single arm maintained the pass against them; he fought with incomparable skill and velour, laid several of the enemy dead at his feet, and wounded many more. Meanwhile his countrymen were actively employed in cutting down the wooden bridge behind him; and keeping up the fight till he saw this accomplished, he then leaped into the Tiber, armed as he was, and swam in safety to the opposite bank, having only received one wound in his thigh from an Etrurian javelin. The name of this patriot and hero was Horatius Cocles. The consul Poplicola, in gratitude for the service he had performed, proposed to the Roman people, that each of them should give him as much as would maintain him for a day, and that he should besides have as much of the public lands as he could compass in one day with a plough. Not only were these rewards cordially granted him, but a statue was ordered to be erected to his honour in the Temple of Vulcan.
An instance of daring enterprise somewhat similar to the preceding, but differing in its result to the individual, occurred at the bridge of Inspruck in the Tyrol, during the late war. Steep rocks, fringed with brushwood, rose above the bridge on the southern side, which the Tyrolese occupied. From these rocks they kept up an irregular fire on the French infantry, who were endeavouring to make their way through the defile; and so great was the slaughter, that in a very short time the road was literally blocked up with dead bodies. In this emergency an officer of the Bavarian dragoons volunteered to gallop over the bridge with his squadron, and dispossess the peasantry who occupied the cliffs. The Tyrolese, perceiving the cavalry winding up the ascent, set fire to the bridge, and, in a very short time, the flames spread rapidly along the fir beams on which it was supported.
Not deterred, however, by this circumstance, nor by the dreadful fire which the peasantry directed towards this point, the brave horseman pressed forward, and spurring his horse with much difficulty over the dead bodies of his comrades, dashed into the midst of the flames. The eyes of both armies were anxiously turned upon this brave man, and the hoofs of his horse were just touching the rocks on the opposite side, when the burning rafter broke, and he was precipitated from an immense height into the: torrent beneath. A momentary pause, and a cessation from firing ensued, till the heavy splash in the deep ravine below announced his fate, and instantly a loud shout from the whole Tyrolese army re-echoed through the impending rocks, announced to the neighbouring valleys, that the French army was stopped at the important defile.
When the Austrians abandoned the Tyrol to the merciless invasion of the French in 1809, Speckbacher and Hofer, the two leaders of the Tyrolese, retired to their respective valleys, and roused the peasantry to a continuance of the war by their eloquence and their example. Speckbacher undertook himself to convey the intelligence of the ardour which prevailed in his valleys across the Inn, that was then occupied by the French troops. He set out accordingly, accompanied by his tried friends, George Loppell and Simon Lechner, and endeavoured to penetrate across that part of the valley which seemed most weakly guarded
But in the middle of the night, while they were treading softly through a broken tract of rocks and underwood, they came upon a detachment of one hundred Bavarian dragoons. They had gone too far to recede . but nevertheless they hesitated for a moment before they ventured to attack their opponents, who were leaning on their arms round a blazing fire, with their horses standing on the outside of the circle. Being determined, however, to risk everything rather than abandon their purpose, they levelled their rifles, and by the first discharge killed and wounded several of the enemy. During the confusion which ensued upon this unexpected attack, they loaded their pieces, and hastily mounting the cliffs, fired again before their numbers were perceived. The Bavarians, conceiving that they were beset by a large body of the peasantry, fled in all directions, and Speckbacher, with his brave associates, succeeded in penetrating before morning to the outposts of their countrymen.
When the Persians under the generals of Darius had assembled a great army, and taken post on the banks of the Granicus, Alexander the Great was under the necessity of engaging them in the very position they had selected, in order to open his way into Asia.
Many of his officers were apprehensive of the depth of the river and the rough and uneven banks on the other side. Others thought that a proper regard should be paid to a tradition with respect to the time: for the kings of Macedon never were acccustomed to march out to war in the month of Daisius. Alexander cured them of this superstition, by ordering that month to be called the second Artemisius; and when at last Parmenius objected to his attempting a passage so late in the day, he exclaimed, 'The Hellespont would blush, if after having passed it, I should be afraid of the Granicus.' He immediately threw himself into the stream with thirteen troops of horse, and in spite of the enemy's arrows and of the rapidity of the river, which often bore him down or covered him with its waves, he persevered with undaunted resolution till he gained the opposite bank, which was extremely slippery and dangerous. He now was compelled to an engagement with the enemy under great disadvantages, as they attacked his men as fast as they came over, before he had time to form them. The Persian troops charged with great fury: numbers pressed hard on Alexander, whom they distinguished by his buckler and his cret; his cuirass was pierced by a javelin at the joint, and two officers of greet distinction, Rhoesaces and Spithridates, attacked him at once. One of them cut off his crest with a battle-axe, and was going to repeat the stroke, when the celebrated Clitus prevented him by running him through the body with his spear. Alexander despatched the other.
While the cavalry was fighting with so much fury, the Macedonian phalanx passed the river, and joined in the conflict. The enemy did not make much longer resistance but soon fled, all but the Grecian mercenaries, who making a stand upon an eminence, desired Alexander to give his word of honour, that they should be spared. Alexander however, instead of giving them quarter, advanced to attack them, had his horse killed under him, and in this rencontre lost more men than in all the rest of the battle.
The Persian army is said to have consisted of 600,000 men, while that of the Macedonians did not exceed 30,000. The Persians lost in the battle 20,000 foot, and 2500 horse; whereas Alexander had no more than thirty-four men killed. To do honour to their memory, he erected a statue to each of them in brass, the workmanship of Lysippus; and that the Greeks might have their share in the glory of the day, he sent them presents of the spoil. To the Athenians in particular he sent three hundred bucklers. Upon the rest of the spoils he put this pompous inscription, Won by Alexander the son of Philip and the Greeks (excepting the Lacedemonians) over the Barbarians of Asia.
The Passage of the Somme, by Edward III. was a feat of gallant enterprise. The English marched at midnight, and arriving before the water was sufficiently low, had the mortification to behold, a little after sunrise, the opposite bank lined with twelve thousand men under the command of Godemar du Fay. In this distressing situation they waited for some hours. About ten o'clock it was reported that the tide was out: Edward gave the word of command in the name of God and St. George; and the men at arms plunged into the river. About the middle they were met by the French cavalry, but the English fought with the courage of despair and the enemy were routed with the loss of two thousand men
Xenophon accompanied Cyrus, the younger, in the expedition against his brother Artaxerxes, King of Persia. In the army of Cyrus, Xenophon showed that he was a true disciple of Socrates and that he had been educated in the warlike city of Athens. After (he decisive battle in the plains of Cunaxa, and the fall of young Cyrus, the prudence and vigour of his mind were called conspicuously into action. The ten thousand Greeks who had followed the standard of an ambitious prince were now at a distance of above six hundred leagues from their native home, in a hostile country, and surrounded on every side by a victorious enemy, without money, without provisions, and without a leader. Xenophon was selected among the officers to superintend the retreat of his countrymen, and though he was often opposed by malevolence and envy, yet his persuasive eloquence and unceasing activity convinced the Greeks of the justness of their choice, and that no general could extricate them from every difficulty better than the disciple of Socrates. To every danger he rose superior; across rapid rivers, through vast deserts, and over lofty mountains exposed continually to the attacks of a vigilant enemy; without any other resources than his own prudence and the devotion of his troops; he succeeded at last, after a perilous march of two hundred and fifteen days, in restoring his countrymen to their native home.
Capture of the Island of Sark.
Sir Walter Raleigh relates that the island of Sark, adjoining to Guernsey, was surprised by the French, and could never have been recovered from them by force, being inaccessible on all sides, and having plenty of corn and cattle upon it to feed its defenders. In the reign of Queen Mary, however, an ingenious gentleman of the Netherlands succeeded in restoring it to the English Crown, by the following happy expedient: - 'With one ship of a small burden,' says Sir Walter, 'he anchored in the roads, pretended that his supercargo had died on board, and besought the French, who were only about thirty in number, to permit that the deceased should be buried in, hallowed ground, in the chapel of the isle, offering a present to the French of such commodities as were on board. The French consented, upon the express condition that the captain and his mourners should come on shore without any weapon, not even so much as a knife. Matters being thus far arranged, the Flemings put a coffin into their boat, not filled with a dead carcase, but with swords, targets, and harquebuses. The French received them at their landing; and after searching them every one, so narrowly, that they could not hide a penknife, gave them leave with great difficulty, to draw their coffin up the rocks. Meantime some of the French took the Flemish boat, and rowed on board the ship to fetch the commodities promised, and what else they chose. But to their great surprise, on boarding the ship, they were seized and put in irons. The Flemings had by this time carried their coffin to the chapel; shutting the door of which they armed themselves with weapons from the coffin, and sallied forth on the few remaining French who ran to the cliffs, and called to their companions on board to hasten to their aid. But seeing the boat return filled with Flemings, they gave up all idea of resistance, and yielded up themselves and the place.'
Polybius, in his seventh book, gives a remarkable account of the capture of Sardis. This town had been blockaded two years by Antiochus the Great, when Lagoras of Crete suggested the idea of carrying it by scaling a wall, built on the top of a rock extremely high and steep, at the bottom of which the people threw down the carcasses of their dead horses. Lagoras asked for two officers to assist him in the scheme. The three waited one dark night, and took fifteen of the stoutest and bravest men of the army to carry the ladders and scale the walls; with thirty more to lay in ambush in the ditch and assist them. Lagoras and his party scaled the rock, and reached the nearest gate, and let in an army of two thousand men, who took the town in an instant
During the time that the English army was encamped before Fort Borgie, in the East Indies, one Strahan, a common sailor belonging to the Kent, one of the ships in Admiral Watson's fleet, having been rather elated with grog, strayed by himself towards the fort in the night, and imperceptibly got under the walls. Being advanced thus far without interruption, he determined to scale the breach that had been made by the cannon of the ships, and having luckily got upon the bastion, he there discovered several Moors sitting on a platform, at whom he flourished his cutlass and fired his pistol; and then after having given three loud huzzas, cried out, 'The place is mine.' The Moorish soldiers immediately attacked him: he defended himself with incomparable resolution; but in the rencontre had the misfortune to have the blade of his cutlass broken about a foot from the hilt. This misfortune, however, did not happen till he was on the point of being supported by two or three other sailors, who had accidentally straggled to the same part of the fort. On hearing Strahan's huzzas, they immediately ascended the breach, and echoing the triumphant sound, roused the whole army, who presently fell on pell mell, without orders and without discipline, following the example of the sailors. This attack, though made in such confusion, was attended with no other ill consequences but the death of Captain Campbell. Captain Coote commanded the fort for that night, and at daylight saluted the admiral.
Strahan, the hero of this adventurous action was brought before Admiral Watson, who, notwithstanding the success that attended it, thought it necessary to show himself displeased with a measure in which the want of all discipline so notoriously appeared; he therefore angrily asked Strahan what he had been doing? The poor fellow, after making a bow, scratching his head with one hand, and twirling his hat upon the other, replied, 'Why, to be sure, your honour, it was I who took the fort . but I hope there was no harm in it.' The admiral, with difficulty, was prevented from smiling at the simplicity of Strahan's answer, and the whole company were exceedingly diverted with his awkward appearance and his language in recounting the several particulars of his daring exploit. The admiral expatiated on the fatal consequences that might have attended his irregular conduct, and then, with a severe rebuke, dismissed him, hinting that he should be punished for his temerity. Strahan, amazed to find himself blamed where he expected praise, had no sooner gone from the admiral's cabin than he muttered, 'If I am flogged for this here action, I'll never take another fort as long as I live.' Poor Strahan received the admiral's pardon, but not being qualified, as we are told, for any higher function than that of a common sailor, he served in that capacity in all Admiral Pococke's engagements; and after receiving a severe wound, became a pensioner on the chest at Chatham. He was living in 1773, and acting as a sailor in one of the guard ships at Portsmouth.
When besieging Jerusalem, the Emperor Titus encouraged his soldiers to attack a wall of the tower Antonia; but dismayed at the greatness of the danger, all declined. At last, a Syrian, named Sabinus, remarkable for strength and courage, but of so small stature that he was deemed unfit to appear in the ranks, volunteered to make the assault, and was joined by eleven more, who were emulous of his heroic daring.
'This man,' says Josephus, 'holding his shield in his left hand above his head, and with his drawn sword in his right, approached the wall about the sixth hour of the day. On every side the Jews threw darts and stones at him, which struck to the ground some of his associates; but Sabinus himself reached the top of the wall in safety, and put the Jews to flight. In the moment of victory he was, however, levelled to the ground by a huge stone; on perceiving which the Jews rushed upon him in every direction; and though he long and nobly defended himself, even in that unfavourable posture, he fell at last a sacrifice to his impetuosity and courage.'
More Romans having, in the meantime, ascended the wall, the Jews were compelled to retire into the Inner Temple, where they sustained the combat from the ninth hour of the night to the seventh hour of the following day, when the Romans were ultimately forced to retreat. Julian, a Centurion, who was standing at Titus's side, beholding this disaster, instantly leaped down from the wall on which he stood, and attacking with his single arm the pursuing foe, he filled them with such sudden astonishment as if some more than mortal being had descended in the midst of them to decide the combat, that they instantly fell back on all sides, and many in the confusion were trodden under foot by their terrified companions. The brave Centurion, however, having his shoes covered with nails, his feet slipped when running upon the pavement, and his armour in the fall making a noise, his enemies turned round, and before he could recover himself, pierced him to death with their spears.
Columbus, after his discovery of America was persecuted by the envy of the Spanish courtiers, for the honours which were heaped upon him by the sovereign; and once at table, when all decorum was banished in the heat of wine, they murmured loudly at the caresses he received, having (as they said), with mere animal resolution, pushed his voyage a few leagues beyond what anyone had chanced to have done before. Columbus heard them with great patience and taking an egg from the dish, proposed that they should exhibit their ingenuity by making it stand on an end. It went all round, but no one succeeded. 'Give it me, gentlemen,' said Columbus, who then took it, and breaking it at one of the ends, it stood at once. They all cried out, 'Why, I could have done that.' 'Yes, if the thought had struck you,' replied Columbus, 'and if the thought had struck you, you might have discovered America.'
After the death of Montezuma, the Mexicans took possession of a high tower in the great temple which overlooked the Spanish quarters and placing there a garrison of their principal warriors, not a Spaniard could stir without being exposed to their missile weapons. From this post it was necessary to dislodge them at any risk. Juan de Escobat thrice made the attempt, but was repulsed. Ferdinando Cortes, sensible that not only the reputation, but the safety of his army depended on the success of this assault, ordered a buckler to be tied to his arm, as he could not manage it with his wounded hand, and rushed with his drawn sword into the thickest of the combatants. Encouraged by the presence of their general, the Spaniards returned to the charge with such vigour that they gradually forced their way up the steps, and drove the Mexicans to the platform at the top of the tower. There a dreadful carnage began, when two young Mexicans of high rank, observing Cortes as he animated his soldiers by his voice and example, resolved to sacrifice their own lives in order to cut off the author of all the calamities which desolated their country. They approached him in a suppliant posture, as if they had intended to lay down their arms, and seizing him in a moment, hurried him towards the walls, over which they threw themselves headlong, in hopes of dragging him along to be dashed to pieces by the same fall. But Cortes, by his strength and agility, broke loose from their grasp, and the gallant youths perished in this generous, though unsuccessful attempt to save their country.
In the year 776, on the death of Premislaus, or Lescus I., King of Poland, the people, to determine who should succeed, appointed a race, and declared whoever won it should be king. On this, one of the candidates secretly strewed iron hooks - in certain parts of the course, by which on the day of competition, the horses of ail the other candidates were lamed, while he, knowing how to avoid them, came first to the goal. The fraud, however being discovered, he was killed on the spot, and a poor fellow called Lescus, who had run the race on foot, being next to the impostor, the people saluted him prince. It is said that he always kept his mean clothes, to remind him of his humble origin. The throne descended to his son and grandson, when a new election taking place in 820, the Poles exalted to the royal dignity Piastus, a wheelwright.
'This is the only witchcraft I have used.' SHAKSPEARE
Pliny tells us of one Cressin who so tilled and manured a piece of ground, that yielded him fruits in abundance, while the lands around him remained extremely poor and barren. His simple neighbours could not account for this wonderful difference on any other supposition than that of his working by enchantment, and they actually proceeded to arraign him for his supposed sorcery, before the justiceseat. 'How is it,' said they, 'unless it be that he enchants us, that he can contrive to draw such a revenue from his inheritance, while we, with equal lands, are wretched and miserable?' Cressin was his own advocate: his case was one which required not either ability to expound, or language to recommend. 'Behold,' said he 'this comely damsel, she is my daughter my fellow-labourer; behold, too, these implements of husbandry, these carts, and these oxen. Go with me, moreover, to my fields and behold there how they are tilled, how manured, how weeded, how watered, how fenced in! And when,' added he, raising his voice, 'you have beheld all these things, you will have beheld all the art, the charms, the magic, which Cressin has used!'
The judges pronounced his acquittal, passing a high eulogium on that industry and good husbandry which had so innocently made him an object of suspicion and envy to his neighbours.
In the year 1647, there lived at Naples a poor fisherboy of the name of Tomaso Anello, vulgarly corrupted into Massaniello. He was clad in the meanest attire, went about barefoot, and gained a scanty livelihood by angling for fish, and hawking them about for sale. Who could have imagined that in this poor abject fisher-boy, the populace were to find the being destined to lead them on to one of the most extraordinary revolutions recorded in history? Yet so it was. No monarch ever had the glory of rising so suddenly to so lofty a pitch of power as the barefooted Massaniello. Naples, the metropolis of many fertile provinces, the queen of many noble cities, the resort of princes, of cavaliers, and of heroes. Naples, inhabited by more than six hundred thousand souls abounding in all kinds of resources, glorying in its strength. This proud city saw itself forced, in one short day, to yield to one of its meanest sons such obedience as in all its history it had never before shown to the mightiest of its liege sovereigns. In a few hours the fisher lad was at the head of one hundred and fifty thousand men; in a few hours there was no will in Naples but his, and, in a few hours it was freed from ail sorts of taxes, and restored to all its ancient privileges. The fishing wand was exchanged for the truncheon of command, the sea-boy's jacket for cloth of silver and gold. He made the town be entrenched; he placed sentinels to guard it against danger from without, and he established a system of police within, which awed the worst banditti in the world unto fear Armies passed in review before him; even fleets owned his sway. He dispensed punishments and rewards with the like liberal hand: the bad he kept in awe: the disaffected he paralysed: the wavering he resolved by his exhortations; the bold were encouraged by his incitements: the valiant made more valiant by his approbation.
Obeyed in whatever he commanded, gratified in whatever he desired, successful in whatever he attempted, never was there a chief more absolute, never was an absolute chief for a time more powerful. He ordered that all the nobles and cavaliers should deliver up their arms to such officers as he should give commission to receive them. The order was obeyed. He ordered that men of all ranks should go without cloaks, or gowns, or wide cassocks, or any other sort of loose dress, under which arms might be concealed; nay, that even the women, for the same reason, should throw aside their farthingales, and tuck up their gowns somewhat high. The order changed in an instant the whole fashions of the people, not even the proudest and the fairest of Naples' daughters daring to dispute in the least the pleasure of the people's idol. Nor was it over the high and noble alone that he exercised this unlimited ascendancy. The 'fierce democracy' were as acquiescent as the titled few. On one occasion, when the people in vast numbers were assembled, he commanded, with a loud voice, that everyone present should, under pain of rebellion and death, retire to his home. The multitude instantly dispersed. On another, he put his finger on his mouth to command silence, in a moment every voice was hushed.
The reign of this prodigy of power was indeed short, lasting only from the 7th to the 16th of July, 1647, when he perished, the victim of another revolution in affairs. It was a reign marked too with many atrocious excesses, and with some traits of indescribable personal folly; yet as long as it is not an everyday event for a fisher-boy to become a king, the story of Massaniello of Naples must be regarded with equal wonder and admiration, as exhibiting all astonishing instance of the genius to command existing in one of the humblest situations of life, and asserting its ascendancy with a rapidity of enterprise to which there is no parallel in history.
Magdalene de Saint Nectaire, the widow of Gui de Saint Exaperi, was a Protestant and distinguished herself very much in the civil wars of France. After her husband's death, she retired to her chateau at Miremont, in the Limousin, where, with sixty young gentlemen, she used to make excursions upon the Catholic armies in the neighbourhood. In the year 1575, M. Montel, governor of the province, having had his detachments often defeated by this extraordinary lady, took the resolution to besiege her in her chateau with fifteen hundred foot and fifty horse. She sallied out upon him, and defeated his troops. On returning, however, to her chateau, and finding it in the possession of the enemy, she galloped to a neighbouring town, Turenne, to procure a reinforcement for her little army. Montel watched for her in a defile, but his troops were defeated, and himself mortally wounded.
In the eleventh year of the Hegira, the Mahommedan Arabians carried the success of their arms so far, as to lay siege to the famous and populous city of Damascus. The Grecian emperor, Heraclius, made however such preparations for its relief, that the Arabians were shortly induced to raise the siege. The inhabitants of Damascus were so elated at the departure of the enemy, that they despatched a strong force to harass them in their retreat. This force fell with great fury on the rear guard of the Mahommedan army, and succeeded in carrying off all their women, children, and treasure. The Christian officers having divided the women and booty among them, retired to their tents to take a tattle refreshment. In the meantime the prisoners, who were all placed in one tent, discoursed on the extraordinary allotment which had been just made of them in their own presence. One of the chief women, named Caulah, addressed her fellow prisoners in the following terms: 'What think you of the wretched fate we are threatened with? Shall we suffer ourselves to be given up to these infidels? Ah! why shall we not rather choose to die, than become the slaves of such idolaters?'
'Alas! what can we do?' answered Offeirah, another of the prisoners. 'We are quite defenseless, and have no hopes of getting arms into our possession.'
'How!' replied the bold Caulah, briskly; 'what prevents us from seizing the pickets of the tents, and making use of them to repel these infidels? Come, let us forthwith take up the only weapons we can procure. Let us stand close to each other, and dispose ourselves in a circle, that we may make head on all sides. Perhaps heaven will assist us to beat our enemies; but if our prayers are not heard, we shall however die nobly.'
The prisoners unanimously came into Caulah's design: they instantly tore up the pickets of the tents, and made ready to repel all who should dare to attack them.
A Grecian soldier was the first that felt their fury. Not imagining that these women could seriously think of defending themselves, he jeered them for their display of resistance; but, to his misfortune, having approached too near them, Caulah gave him a blow with her picket which laid him lifeless at her feet.
Some comrades of the unfortunate soldier, in order to revenge his death, fell on the women sword in hand; but were repulsed with a velour which filled them with astonishment and shame.
The noise of the affray brought the Grecian general and his officers out of their tents: the general ordered a party of horse to surround the Amazonian band, and feign an attack, with a view of intimidating them. The first that advanced, however, fell victims to their fury: they smote the horses on their fore legs, and the greater part of them either falling or rearing on end, threw their riders, who perished under the hands of these heroines. The general, transported with passion at the spectacle, ordered his men to dismount, and attack them sword in hand. He set the example himself, alighted from his horse, and advanced in order to give the first blow. The women stood the attack with the bravery of the most intrepid soldiers. The Greeks, ashamed of meeting with a repulse, returned to the charge, and would doubtless have cut the gallant band in pieces; when all at once a great noise was heard in the camp. It was the noise of a large detachment of Arabians, who had made a forced march, in the hopes of retaking the prisoners and booty. I he Grecians were now doubly attacked; and after losing their general, who was transfixed with a lance by the brother of Caulah, they were finally obliged to abandon in disgrace the field where they had pitched their tents as conquerors.
When the dispute arose concerning the succession to the Dukedom of Bretagne, in the middle of the fourteenth century, the interests of John de Montfort were supported by the courage and perseverance of his wife, Jane, sister to the Earl of Flanders. As soon as she heard of her husband's captivity, she presented her infant son to the citizens and garrison of Rennes, and exhorted them to defend the cause of the child, the only male issue, besides his father, of their ancient princes. During the winter, she retired to the fortress of Hennebon; and in the spring, when Charles de Blois, with a numerous army, invested the fortress, the heroine on horseback, and in armour, directed and encouraged the garrison. On one occasion during an assault, she sallied out at the opposite gate, set the camp of the besiegers on fire, retired to the neighbouring castle of Aurai, and shortly after fought her way back into Hennebon. The same lady afterwards, with a small force of archers and men at arms, besieged and took the city of Vannes.
When the Mahommedan army was besieging Aleppo, during the reign of Caliph Omar, they lay a long time before the place without being able to force the walls, from their great strength. A man, whose name was Dames, of gigantic stature and remarkable cunning, requested of the commander, Abu Obediah, the assistance of thirty other men; which being granted, he then requested the commander to raise the siege, and to remove with his army to about a league's distance.
In the night Dames went out several times, and brought in five or six of the besieged.
He afterwards takes from his knapsack a goat's skin, with which he covered his back and shoulders; took a dry crust in his hand, crept as near to the castle as he could; if he heard any noise, or suspected any person to be near, to prevent being discovered he made such a noise with his crust, as a dog makes that is gnawing a bone. The rest of his company came after some time, skulking, and often creeping along, at other times walking. About sunrise, he sent to his commander to send him some horse, when they came to the castle, they found it inaccessible. However, Dames was resolved to leave nothing untried and before the next night surveyed the walls, and having found a place where he thought he could easiest get up, he sat down upon the ground, ordered another to sit on his shoulders, and so on, until seven of them had got on each other's shoulders, the uppermost then stood up, as did the rest; till at length Dames himself stood up, and bore the weight of the whole. The man who was uppermost reached by this means the battlement, where he found a watchman drunk and asleep whom he seized and bound hand and foot. Dames and his. whole party then got quietly up, and thus eventually gained the city.
During the war which Edward III. maintained in Scotland, part of the English army, led on by Montague, besieged Dunbar, which the Countess of March, commonly called Black Agnes, defended with uncommon courage and obstinacy. This extraordinary woman exhibited her scornful levity towards the besiegers, by ordering her waiting maids to brush from the walls the dust produced by their battering engines, and this in sight of the English; and when a tremendous warlike engine, called a sow, approached the walls, the countess called out, 'Montague, beware! your sow shall soon cast her pigs:' which she verified, for an immense mass of rock, thrown from a lofty tower, accompanied her threat, and crushed the ponderous missile, and the besiegers which it contained.
Avilda, daughter of the King of Gothland, contrary to the manner and disposition of her sex, exercised the profession of piracy, and was scouring the seas with a powerful fleet while a sovereign was offering sacrifices to her beauty at the shrine of love. King Sigar perceiving that this masculine lady was not to be gained by the usual arts of lovers, took the extraordinary resolution of addressing her in a mode more agreeable to her humour. He fitted out a fleet, went in quest of her, engaged her in a furious battle, which continued two days without intermission, and thus gained possession of a heart to be conquered only by velour.
That hazardous undertaking, as Dr. Robertson has justly termed a voyage down the river Maragnon, to which ambition prompted Orrellana, and to which the love of science led M. Condamine, was undertaken in the year 1769 by Madame Godin des Odonais from conjugal affection. The narrative of the hardships which she suffered, of the dangers to which she was exposed, is a singular and affecting story, exhibiting in her conduct a striking picture of the fortitude which distinguishes one sex, mingled with the sensibility and tenderness of the other.
On the 1st of October, 1769, Madame Godin departed from Riobamba, the place of her residence, for Laguna, on her way to France to join her husband, accompanied by her brothers, Sieur R. a physician, and his servant; her faithful negro, and three female Indian domestics; together with an escort of thirty-one Indians to carry herself and her baggage, the road being impassable even for mules. Scarcely had Madame Godin reached Canclos, when the Indians deserted her, but she still determined to brave every danger. There remained only two Indians in the village who had escaped the small-pox which lately raged there. They had no canoe, but they offered to construct one, and to conduct her to the mission of Andoas, about twelve days' journey lower on the river Bobanaza, a distance of about one hundred and fifty leagues. Madame G. paid them in advance; and the canoe being finished the party quitted, Canclos. Having sailed two days, they stopped to pass the night on shore. Next morning the two Indians disappeared: they were now not only obliged toproceed without a pilot, but the canoe began to leak, which obliged them to land, and erect a temporary hut, within five or six days' journey from Andoas, to which place Sieur R. proceeded with his servant, assuring Madame Godin and her brothers, that in less than fifteen days they should have a canoe and Indians. After waiting twenty-five days in the utmost anxiety, and losing all hope of relief from that quarter, they made a raft, upon which they placed all their provisions and effects, and proceeded slowly down the river; but the raft striking against a tree, the whole party were plunged into the river; happily, however, no one perished. They now resolved to pursue the banks of the river on foot. What an enterprise! The borders of this river are covered with a wood, rendered impervious to the rays of the sun by the herbs, brambles, and shrubs that creep up the trunks, and blend with the branches of the trees. Taking all their provisions, they commenced their melancholy journey: but observing that following the course of the river considerably lengthened their route, they entered into the wood, and in a few days lost their way. Though now destitute of provisions, oppressed with thirst, and their feet sorely wounded with briars and thorns, they continued to push forward through immeasurable wilds and gloomy forests, drawing refreshment from the berries and wild fruits they were able to collect. At length, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, their strength failed them; down they sunk, helpless and forlorn. Here they waited impatient for death to relieve them from their misery. In four days they all successively expired, except Madame Godin, who continued stretched beside her brothels, and the corses of her companions, for forty-eight hours, deprived of the use of all her faculties. At last Providence gave her strength and courage to quit the melancholy scene, and attempt to pursue her journey. She was now without stockings, bare-footed, and almost naked; two cloaks, which had been torn to rags by the briars, afforded her but a scanty covering. Having cut off the soles of her brother's shoes, she fastened them to her feet, and took her lonely way. The second day of her journey she found water, and the day following, some wild fruit and green eggs; but so much was her throat contracted by the privation of nutriment, that she could hardly swallow such a sufficiency of the sustenance which chance presented to her, as would support her emaciated frame. On the ninth day she reached the borders of Bobanaza, where she fortunately met two Indians, who conveyed her in a canoe to Andoas; thence she proceeded to Laguna; and there procured a passage for France; where she at last arrived in safety and-found in the approving smiles of that husband for whom she had undertaken so dangerous an enterprise, an ample consolation for all the toils and hardships she had undergone.
The hero of this little narrative was a Hottentot, of the name of Von Wyhk, and we give the story of his perilous and fearful shot in his own words: 'It is now,' said he, 'more than two years since in the very place where we stand I ventured to take one of the most daring shots that ever was hazarded; my wife was sitting in the house near the door, the children were playing about her. I was without, near the house, busied in doing something to a waggon, when suddenly, though it was mid-day, an enormous lion appeared, came up, and laid himself quietly down in-the shade upon the very threshold of the door. My wife, either frozen with fear, or aware of the danger attending any attempt to fly, remained motionless in her place, while the children took refuge in her lap. The cry they uttered attracted my attention, and I hastened towards the door; but my astonishment may be well conceived, when I found an entrance barred in such a manner. Although the animal had not seen me, escape, unarmed as I was, appeared impossible. Yet I glided gently, scarcely knowing what I meant to do, to the side of the house, up to the window of my chamber, where he knew my loaded gun was standing. By a happy chance, I had set it in a corner close by the window, so that I could reach it with my hand; for, as you may perceive, the opening is too small to admit of my having got in; and still more fortunately, the door of the room was open, so that I could see the whole danger of the scene. The lion was beginning to move, perhaps with the intention of making a spring, there was no longer any time to think: I called softly to the mother not to be afraid, and invoking the name of the Lord, fired my piece. The ball passed directly over my boy's head, and lodged in the forehead of the lion immediately above his eyes, which shot forth as it were sparks of fire, and stretched him on the ground, so that he never stirred more.'
When Sir Richard Arkwright went first to Manchester, he hired himself to a petty barber; but being remarkably frugal, he saved money out of a very scanty income. With these savings he took a cellar, and commenced business; at the cellar head he displayed this inscription: 'Subterranean shaving with keen razors, for one penny.' The novelty had a very successful effect, for he soon had plenty of customers, so much so, that several brother tonsors, who before had demanded twopence a piece for shaving, were obliged to reduce their terms. They also styled themselves subterranean shavers, although they all lived and worked above ground. Upon this, Arkwright determined on a still farther reduction, and shaved for a halfpenny. A neighbouring cobbler one day descended the original subterranean tonsor's steps in order to be shaved. The fellow had a remarkably strong, rough beard. Arkwright beginning to lather him, said he hoped he would give him another halfpenny, for his beard was so strong it might spoil his razor. The cobbler declared he would not. Arkwright then shaved him for the halfpenny, and immediately gave him two pair of shoes to mend. This was the basis of Arkwright's extraordinary fortune: for the cobbler, struck with this unexpected favour, introduced him to the inspection of a cotton machine invented by his particular friend. The plan of this Arkwright got possession of: and it gradually led him to the dignity of knighthood, and the accumulation of half a million of money.
We extract the following interesting narrative from a private letter from India: 'For some days before our arrival at A - , we had intelligence of an immense wild male elephant being in a large grass swamp within five miles of us. He had inhabited the swamp for years, and was the terror of the surrounding villagers, many of whom he had killed: he had only one tusk: and there was not a village for many miles round, that did not know the Burrah ek durt ke Hathee, or the large one-toothed elephant: and one of our party, Colonel S-- , had the year before been charged, and his elephant put to the right-about by this famous fellow. We determined to go in pursuit of him; and accordingly, on the third day after our arrival, started in the morning, mustering between private and government elephants, thirty-two, but seven of them only with sportsmen on their backs. As we knew that in the event of the wild one charging, he would probably turn against the male elephants, the drivers of two or three of the largest were armed with spears. On our way to the swamp, we shot a great quantity of different sorts of game that got up before the line of elephants, and had hardly entered the swamp, when, in consequence of one of the party firing at a partridge, we saw the great object of our expedition; the wild elephant got up out of some long grass, about two hundred and fifty yards before us, when he stood staring at us and flapping his huge ears. We immediately made a line of the elephants with the sportsmen in the centre, and went strait up to him, until within a hundred and thirty yards, when fearing he was going to turn from us, all the party gave him a volley, some of us firing two, three, and four barrels. He then turned round, and made for the middle of the swamp. The chace now commenced, and after following him upwards of a mile, with our elephants up to their bellies in mud, we succeeded in turning him to the edge of the swamp, where he allowed us to get within eighty yards of him, when we gave him another volley in his full front; on which he made a grand charge at us, but fortunately only grazed one of the pad elephants. He then again made for the middle of the swamp, throwing up blood and water from his trunk, and making a terrible noise, which clearly showed that he had been severely wounded. We followed him, and were obliged to swim our elephants through a piece of deep stagnant water, occasionally giving shot; when making a stop in some very high grass, he allowed us again to come within sixty yards, and got another volley, on which he made a second charge more furious than the first, but was prevented making it good by some shots fired when very close to us, which stunned and fortunately turned him. He then made for the edge of the swamp, again swimming a piece of water, through which we followed with considerable difficulty, in consequence of our pads and howdahs having become much heavier, from the soaking they had got twice before: we were up to the middle in the howdahs, and one of the elephants fairly turned over, and threw the rider and his guns into the water., He was taken off by one of the pad elephants, but his three guns went to the bottom. This accident took up some time, during which the wild elephant had made his way to the edge of the swamp, and stood perfectly still, looking at us, and trumpeting with his trunk. As soon as we got all to rights, we again advanced with the elephants in the form of a crescent, in the full expectation of a desperate charge; nor were we mistaken. The animal now allowed us to come within forty yards of him, when we took a very deliberate aim at his head, and on receiving this fire, he made a most furious charge in the act of which, and when within ten yards of some of us, he received his mortal wound, and fell as dead as a stone. Mr.B -- , a civilian, has the credit of giving him his death wound, which, on examination, proved to be a small ball from a Joe Manton's gun over the left eye, for this was the only one of thirty-one that he had received in the head, which was found to have entered the brain. When down, he measured in height twelve feet four inches; in length, from the root of the tail to the top of the head, sixteen feet; and ten feet round the neck. He had upwards of eighty balls in his head and body. His only remaining tusk, when taken out, weighed thirty-six pounds, and when compared with tame ones, was considered small for the size of the animal. After he fell a number of the villagers came about us, and were rejoiced at the death of their formidable enemy, and assured us, that during the last four or five years he had killed nearly fifty men. Indeed, the knowledge of the mischief he had occasioned, was the only thing which could reconcile us to the death of so noble an animal. Colonel S -- , an old and very keen Indian sportsman, declared, that he had never seen or heard of anything equal to this day's sport.'
For many centuries the rugged flanks and deep gorges of Mount Pilatus were covered by impenetrable forests: lofty precipices encircled them on all sides. Even the daring hunters were scarcely able to reach them, and the inhabitants of the valley never conceived the idea of disturbing them with the axe. These immense forests were therefore allowed to grow and perish, the most intelligent and skilful considering it quite impracticable to avail themselves of such inaccessible stores.
In November, 1816, Mr. John Rulph, of Reutingen, in Switzerland, and three Swiss gentlemen, entertaining more sanguine hopes, drew up a plan of a slide founded on trigonometrical measurements; and having purchased a certain extent of the forests from the Commune of Alpnach for six thousand crowns, began the construction of it.
The slide of Alpnach is formed of about twenty-five thousand large pine trees deprived of their bark, and united together without the aid of iron. It occupied about one hundred and sixty workmen during eighteen months and cost nearly one hundred thousand francs (£4166). It is about three leagues, or forty-four thousand English feet long, and terminates in the lake of Lucerne. It has the form of a trough about six feet broad, and from three to six deep. Its bottom is formed of three trees, the middle one of which has a groove cut out in the direction of its length for receiving small rills of water, for the purpose of diminishing the friction. The whole of the slide is sustained by about two | thousand supports, and, in many places, is attached in a very ingenious manner to the rugged precipices of granite. The direction of the slide is sometimes straight and sometimes zig-zag, with an inclination of from 10 degrees to 18 degrees: it is often carried along the sides of precipitous rocks, and sometimes over their summit; occasionally it goes under ground, and at others over the deep gorges by scaffoldings one hundred and twenty feet high.
Before any step could be taken in its erection, it was necessary to cut several thousand trees to obtain a passage through the impenetrable thickets; and as the workmen advanced, men were posted at certain distances in order to point out the road for their return. Mr. Rulph was often obliged to be suspended by cords, in order to descend precipices many hundred feet high to give directions having scarcely two good carpenters among them all the rest having been hired as occasion offered. All difficulties being at length surmounted, the larger pines, which were about one hundred feet long, and ten inches thick at their smaller extremity, ran through the space of three leagues, or nearly nine miles, in two minutes and a half, and during their descent appeared to be only a few feet in length. The arrangements were extremely simple Men were posted at regular distances along the slide; and as soon as everything was ready, the man at the bottom called out to the next one above him, 'Lachez' (let go:) the cry was repeated and reached the top of the slide in three minutes . the man at the top of the slide then cried out to the one below, 'Il vient,' (it comes;) as soon as the tree had reached the bottom and plunged into the lake, the cry of 'Lachez' was repeated as before. By these means a tree descended every five or six minutes.
When a tree, by accident, escaped from the trough of the slide, it often penetrated by its thickest extremity from eighteen to twenty-four feet into the earth; and if it struck another tree, it cleft it with the rapidity of lightning.
Such is a brief account of a work undertaken and executed by a single individual, and which has excited the wonder and astonishment of everyone who has seen it.
We regret to add, that this magnificent structure no longer exists, and scarcely a tree is to be seen on the flanks of Mount Pilatus. Political events having taken away the demand for timber, and another market having been found, the operation of cutting and transporting the trees necessarily ceased.
Hannibal's Passage over the Alps.
The passage of Hannibal over the Alps in Italy, has always been considered as one of the greatest achievements that an enterprising commander ever accomplished. To attempt to transport an army of twelve thousand men, at an inclement season of the year, over mountains hitherto considered as impassable, could only have suggested itself to a mind which no danger or difficulty could appal.
In the first part of the ascent, Hannibal was led by some hostages, which the treacherous Gauls had given him as pledges of their pacific disposition. For two days these hostages marched at the head of the army . but when it had got into a hollow way, overlooked by steep and craggy rocks, faithless to their engagement, they in concert with others of their countrymen, who had lain concealed fell suddenly upon the troops in front, flank and rear. The greatest number attacked the rear; and the army would have been utterly destroyed, says Polybius, if Hannibal, who all along retained some doubts of these barbarians, had not taken his precautions to guard against them, by placing his baggage and his cavalry in the van, and his heavy armed infantry in the rear guard, who received the shots of the enemy. Notwithstanding this, he lost a great number of men, horses, an; beasts of burden: for the Gauls having possessed themselves of the cliffs, rolled upon the Carthaginians huge stones, which occasioned exceeding terror among them. Hannibal was obliged, with one half of his army, to remain all night in the open air, upon a rock, to defend the horses and beasts of carriage as they filed along through the straight below. The next day, the enemy having retired Hannibal rejoined his horse and baggage, and continued his march. At length, after nine days, from the commencement of the ascent, he gained the summit of the mountains. Here he stayed two days, that those of his men who with infinite toil had climbed to this height, might take breath; and that his sick and wounded, who were still behind, and moving slowly on, might have time to crawl up. While the troops continued here, they had the agreeable surprise of seeing many of the horses and beasts of burden which had fallen in the way, or had by fear been driven out of it, and were thought lost, arrive safely at the camp, having followed the track of the army
It was now the end of autumn, and abundance of newlyfallen snow covered the top of the mountain.- Hannibal perceiving his soldiers to be extremely discouraged by the sufferings they had already undergone, and by the apprehension of those that were to come called them together, and led them to a convenient spot for taking an extensive view of the plains below. 'There,' said he, 'cast your eyes over those large and fruitful countries. The Gauls who inhabit them are our friends. They are waiting for us, ready and impatient to join us. You have scaled not only the rampart of Italy, but the walls of Rome itself. What remains is all smoothness and descent. One battle gained, or two at most, and the capital of Italy will be ours.'
The next day he broke up his camp, and began to descend. The way was so steep and slippery in most places, that the soldiers could neither keep on their feet, nor recover themselves when they slipped; and the ground being covered with snow, it was difficult to keep the right path, while if they missed it, they fell down frightful precipices, or were swallowed up in depths of snow. The soldiers bore all these dangers and difficulties with great fortitude; but at length they came to a place much worse than any they had before met with, and which quite took away their courage. The path, for about a furlong and a half, naturally very steep and craggy, was rendered much more so by the late falling of a great quantity of earth, so that neither elephants nor horses could pass. Here, therefore, their progress was arrested, when Hannibal wondering at this sudden halt, ran to the place, and having viewed it, plainly saw there was no possibility of advancing further that way. His first thought was to try another route, was found equally impracticable, for though the newly-fallen snow yielded good footing for the soldiers and horses that marched foremost, yet, when it had been so trampled upon that the feet of those who followed came to the hard snow and ice under it, they could not keep their feet, but were often lost in pits and precipices. It was necessary therefore to seek some other expedient.
Hannibal next caused all the snow to be removed that lay upon the ground near the entrance of the first way, and there pitched his camp. He then gave orders to cut out a winding path in the rock itself; and this work was carried on with such diligence and vigour, that at the end of one day, the beasts of burden and the horses were able to descend without much difficulty. He immediately sent them forward, and removing his camp to a place that was free from snow, put them to pasture. It now remained to enlarge the way that the elephants might pass. This task was assigned to the Numidians, and it took up so much time, that Hannibal did not arrive with his whole army in the plains below, on the confines of Insubria, till four days after he began to descend. He had been fifteen days in passing the Alps.
Livy tells us, that Hannibal softened the rock by pouring vinegar upon it, after it had first been made hot under flaming piles of huge trees. M. Rollin credits this story, and quotes Pliny to prove that vinegar has the force to break stones and rocks. That this story is fabulous few will doubt; for not to mention the difficulty of procuring vinegar in sufficient quantity, a better authority than Livy, Polybius, assures us that Hannibal had no wood to make a fire with; that there was not a tree in the place where he then was, nor near it.
Colonel Capper, in his Journal of the Passage to India, through Egypt, and across the Great Desert, relates the following interesting anecdote: 'January 24th, in the morning, Captain Twyss came and told us he should salt for Bassora the next day. He had six English passengers with him that were going over the Desert, also M. Borel de Bourg, the French officer, who had been plundered and wounded in the Desert. M. Borel wishing to hear the latest news from Europe, and, perhaps, being desirous of conversing with a person who had lately travelled the same route as himself, came and spent the evening with me at the broker's house. I told him that I was no stranger to what had befallen him in the Desert, and easily prevailed upon him to give me an account of his adventures.
'The particulars of the business upon which he was sent, he of course concealed; but, in general terms, he informed me, that soon after the engagement between the two fleets near Brest, in July, 1788, Monsieur Sartine, his friend and patron, ordered him to carry dispatches over land to India. I think he said he left Marseilles on the third of August; but owing to the stupidity of the captain of the vessel, and to contrary winds, he did not arrive at Latchiea before the end of the month, whence he immediately proceeded to Aleppo. The French consul could not collect more than twenty-five guards to attend him across the Desert, with whom, on the 14th of September, he commenced his journey. He met with no serious molestation until he was within fifteen days of Bassora, when, early one morning, he perceived himself followed by a party of about thirty Arabs, mounted on camels, who soon overtook him. As they approached, he, by his interpreter, desired them either to advance or halt, or to remove to the right or left of him, for he chose to travel by himself They answered, that they should not interfere with him, and went forward at a brisk rate. M. Borel's people then suspected them of some hostile design, and told him to be upon his guard. In the evening, between four and five o'clock, he observed them halted, and drawn up, as if to oppose him; and in a few minutes, three other parties, consisting also of about thirty each, appeared in sight in opposite directions, seemingly inclined to surround him. From these appearances naturally concluding their intentions to be hostile, and of consequence, his situation desperate, he thought only of selling his life as dear as possible. He was armed with a double-barrelled fuzee, a pair of pistols, and a sabre. As he kept marching on, he first fell in with the party in the front, who fired at him, which he returned as soon as he came within musket shot of them, and killed the Sheick. When he had discharged his firearms, before he could load them again, several of the Arabs broke in from different sides, and cut him down. Stunned with the violence of the blow, he knew nothing of what passed afterwards, until about an hour before day-break next morning, when he found himself entirely naked on the ground, a quantity of blood near him, and part of the flesh of his head hanging upon his cheek. In a few minutes he recollected what had passed; but as he could feel no fracture nor contusion in the skull, he began to hope that his wounds were not mortal. This, however, was only a transient gleam of hope, for it immediately occurred to him, that without clothes or even food, he was likely to suffer a much more painful death. The first objects which attracted his attention when he began to look about him, were those who had been killed on both sides in the action; but, at the distance of a few hundred yards, he soon afterwards perceived a great number of Arabs seated round a large fire. These he naturally supposed were his enemies; he nevertheless determined to go to them, in hopes either to prevail upon them to spare his life, or else to provoke them to put an immediate end to his miseries. Whilst he was thinking in what manner, without the assistance of language, he should be able to excite their compassion, and to soften their resentment against him for the death of their companions, which he had heard that people seldom forgive, it occurred to him that they paid great respect to old age; and also, that they seldom destroy those who supplicate for mercy, whence he concluded, that if he should throw himself upon the protection of the oldest person among them, he might probably be saved. In order to approach them unperceived, he crept towards them upon his hands and knees; and when arrived within a few paces of their circle having singled out one who had the most venerable appearance, he sprang over the head of one of the circle, and threw himself into the arms of him whom he had selected as his protector. The whole party were at first astonished, not having the least notion. of his being alive; but when their surprise subsided, a debate arose, whether or not they should allow him to live. One of them, who had probably lost a friend or relation, drew his sword in a great rage, and was going to put him to death; but his protector stood up with great zeal in his defence, and would not suffer him to be injured; in consequence of which his adversary immediately mounted his camel and, with a few followers, went off. The Sheick, for so he happened to be, perceiving Monsieur Borel entirely without clothes, presented him with his abbe, or outer cloak invited him to approach the fire, and gave him coffee and a pipe; which an Arab, when he is not on the march, has always prepared. The people finding Monsieur Borel did not understand Arabic, enquired for his interpreter who was found asleep, and slightly wounded.
'The first demand the Arabs made, was for his money and jewels, which, they observed, Europeans always have in great abundance but which are concealed in private drawers that none except themselves can discover. He assured them these opinions were erroneous with respect to him, for that he was not a rich merchant, but only a young soldier of fortune employed to carry orders from his government in Europe, to their settlements in India, but if they would convey him to Graine, a place near Bassora, on the sea coast, on their arrival there, and on the receipt of his papers, he would engage to pay them two hundred sequins, about one hundred pounds sterling. After a few minutes' consultation with each other, they acceded to his proposals, returned him his oldest Arabian dress, and during the rest of his journey treated him with kindness and attention.'
Julius Caesar was on one occasion obliged by a sudden eruption of the enemy into Alexandria, to fly for safety to his ships. He leaped into a boat, but was followed by such numbers of his men, that the boat was in danger of sinking. Caesar immediately threw himself into the sea, and swam to one of his ships at a considerable distance, cutting the waters with one arm, and holding his writings with the other above water, to preserve them from injury: drawing at the same time his general's coat after him with his teeth, that the enemy might not have to boast the possession of so honourable a spoil.
In the year 1759, the Mikmak Indians, who inhabited the province of Nova Scotia, committed great barbarities upon the then recently settled colony of Chedebuctow. All the English residents whom they could lay hands on, were tormented according to their savage customs. Some of the tribes, on a particular night, having defeated the militia party of Captain Pike (whom they scalped and tomahawked), assembled with the prisoners they had made on the Dartmouth shore, and there began their horrid rites in view of the opposite town of Halifax. The victims were successively stretched in their frames, called squares, stuck full of lighted pine splinters, and thus miserably destroyed. One of the prisoners, of the name of Wheeler, had already suffered greatly by their cruelty, and was nearly half scalped. Whilst he waited his own turn of death, with the execution of his companions before his eyes, he determined to make an effort to avoid their fate, and desired permission to draw on one side, avowing a cause of urgent necessity. This being a request that the savages never refuse, an Indian was appointed to guard him. The bleeding and almost naked sufferer having concealed a knife, diverted the attention of the Indian, and plunged it into his body. This being done, he hastened into the adjoining woods, wildly flying through such thickets, as in that country are scarcely penetrable except by Indians. His escape soon dispersed his exasperated enemies and their dogs in various directions after him. Exhausted as he was with pain and fatigue, he still contrived to keep them at a distance, being aided by the darkness of the night. He had gone several leagues, when he came to the mouth of the inlet to the sea, known by the name of Coleharbour. Over the entrance to this inlet runs a bar, with, at all times, a dangerous surf, which at this moment was increased by the commencement of a heavy gale. The raging of the sea was prodigious: his pursuers gained upon him. The unhappy fugitive was hemmed in. With the mingled energy of hope and despair, he threw himself into the surf, and most miraculously reached the opposite shore while some of his enemies perished in attempting to follow him. He lay for a long time on the beach, almost dead with fatigue and loss of blood. His courage however soon revived, and he persevered through the woods towards Lauren's Town Fort, commanded by Lieut. Newton, of the 46th regiment. Daylight discovered itself, when Wheeler came up to the pickets of the Block House, and at the same instant, some of his pursuers made their appearance at an opposite point, having vainly taken a circuitous route to intercept their intended victim.
Earl Howe, when not more than eighteen years of age, was lieutenant of a sloop of war. An English merchantman had been captured at the Dutch settlement of Eustatia, by a French privateer, under the guns and protection of the governor. Lieutenant Howe, at his own earnest request, was sent with orders to claim her for the owners. This demand not being complied with, he desired leave to go with the boats and attempt cutting her out of the harbour. The captain represented the danger of so adventurous a step; and added, that he had not sufficient interest to support him in England, on a representation of the breach of neutrality. The lieutenant then requested that he would quit the ship for a short time, and leave the command to him. This being done, the gallant lieutenant went with the boats, cut out the vessel, and restored it to the proprietors.
In 1775, Lord Hawke gave the following seamanlike testimony to the merit of Lord Howe, in the House of Lords. 'I advised his majesty,' said he, 'to make the promotion (to be Vice-Admiral of the Blue). I have tried my Lord Howe on important occasions, he never asked me how he was to execute any service, but always went and performed it.'
While the British army was laying at Agoada, near Goa, in the East Indies, in 1800, a report was one morning brought to the cantonments, that a large Cheetur had been seen on the rocks near the sea. About nine o'clock, a number of horses and men assembled at the spot where it was said to have been seen, when, after some search, the animal was discovered to be in the recess of an immense rock, dogs were sent in, in the hope of starting him, but without effect, having returned with several wounds.
Finding it impossible to dislodge the animal by such means, Lieutenant Evan Davies, of the 7th regiment, attempted to enter the den, but was obliged to return, finding the passage extremely narrow and dark. He attempted it, however, a second time, with a pick-axe in his hand, with which he removed some obstructions that were in the way. Having proceeded a few yards, he heard a noise, which he conceived to be that of the animal. He then returned, and communicated with Lieutenant Threw, of the artillery, who also went in the same distance, and was of a similar opinion. What course to pursue was doubtful; some proposed to blow up the rock, others smoking him out. At length a port-fire was tied to the end of a bamboo, and introduced into a small crevice which led towards the den. Lieut. Davies went on his hands and knees down the narrow passage which led to it; and, by the light of his torch, he was enabled to discover the animal. Having returned, he said he could kill him with a pistol; which, being procured, he again entered the cave and fired but without success, owing to the awkward situation in which he was placed, with his left hand only at liberty. He next went with a musket and bayonet, and wounded the animal in the loins, but he was obliged to retreat as quick as the narrow passage would allow, the tiger having rushed forward, and forced the musket back towards the mouth of the den. Lieut. Davies next procured a rifle, with which he again forced his way into the cave, and taking a deliberate aim at the tiger's head, fired, and put an end to its existence. The gallant officer afterwards fastened a strong rope round the neck of the tiger, by which he was dragged out, to the no small satisfaction of a numerous crowd of spectators. The animal measured seven feet in length.
When Nelson was second lieutenant on board the Lowestoffe, they came up with an American letter of marque. The first lieutenant was ordered to board her, and immediately went below to put on his hanger; but it was mislaid, and could not immediately be found. In the meantime Captain Locker came on deck, and extremely anxious that the prize should be instantly taken in charge, as he apprehended it must otherwise founder, he exclaimed, 'Have I no officer in the ship will board the prize?' Lieutenant Nelson, with his usual goodness of heart, still waited for the return of his superior officer, but on hearing the master volunteer his services, immediately hastened to the gangway, and getting into the boat, said, 'It is my turn now; if I come back, it is yours.' The opportunity did not occur to the master, as Nelson took possession of the prize.
At the siege of one of the forts of Tippoo Sultan, the breach was found practicable, and the storming party ordered for two o'clock in the morning. General Meadows determined to be one of it, but when he came to the breach, finding it impossible to get up without assistance he called out to the soldiers, 'Bravo, my fine fellows, well done; but is there none of you that can stop to help up your little general?' 'Oh!' replied an Irish grenadier, 'is it you, general? then, by the powers, we'll not go without you. I'll help you up, let what will come of it!' And he was as good as his word.
The same general, with a small army, was once surrounded by a superior force, in the Coimbator country, and all his communications cut off. Colonel, afterwards General, Sir John Floyd, was despatched in quest of him, and so arduous was the enterprise, that actually passed three days without eating. He at length met two native horsemen of General Meadows' body-guard, from whom he received such information of the general's situation, as enabled him to join him at Velladi. The meeting of these officers may well be conceived, after each had foreboded the worst fate for the other: General Meadows flew into Floyd's arms, and exclaimed, with his usual wit and spirit, 'My dear colonel, ours is the feat, and mine the defeat.'
General Meadows gave out in general orders, that the word difficulty was unknown in the military dictionary, and among such troops as he then had the honour to command. He did but justice to his gallant comrades; for led on by the brave Floyd, they cut their way through Tippoo's grand army, and before their swords all difficulties vanished.
At the siege of Pondicherry, Major Rennel, then a midshipman, discovered the first symptoms of his enterprising genius. Some sloops of war belonging to the enemy having moored beyond reach of our guns in shallow water, Mr. Rennel requested of the captain of his ship the use of a boat; which, as the night was far advanced, was at first refused, but the young midshipman repeating his importunity, and being a great favourite, the commander at length consented. Mr. Rennel accordingly departed, no one knew whither, and accompanied, according to his desire, by only a single sailor. After some interval he returned, and eagerly informed the captain that having observed the tide was unusually high, he thought that there might be sufficient depth of water to reach the sloops of the enemy; and that he had borrowed the boat to make the experiment, which had fully answered his conjecture. Having implored his superior officer to lose no time in availing himself of this discovery, the former complied, and the attempt was crowned with success.
On the 25th of April, 1784, M. Guyton de Morveau, accompanied by the President Virly, ascended from Dijon in a balloon, which he himself had constructed, and repeated the experiment on the 12th of June following, with a view of ascertaining the possibility of directing aerostatic machines by an apparatus of his own contrivance.
When Prince Henry of Prussia passed through Dijon, he begged Guyton to tell him frankly what had been his sensations during the ascent. 'We felt as tranquil,' answered the philosopher, 'as when sitting in our cabinets.' The prince thought he knew mankind too well to believe this assertion, and quitted the room with some tokens of displeasure at what he considered as ostentatious fortitude: but he was soon reconciled when Guyton explained the difference between the sensations experienced in the case in question, which were the effect of personal resolution, and of the confidence placed in the means of safety, and those he felt in looking down from a high steeple, when his head invariably became giddy, and he trembled for his existence.
'Thus did of old the adventurous Cretan dare, With wings not given to man attempt the air.'
Knolles, in his history of the Turks, gives the following relation, ludicrous enough in everything but the termination, of an attempt of flying made at Constantinople about the year 1147, during the visit of Clisasthlan the Turkish sultan, to Emanuel the Greek emperor.
'Amongst the quaint devices of many for solemnizing of so great a triumph, there was an active Turk, who had openly given it out, that against an appointed time he would from the top of a high tower in the tilt yard, fly the space of a furlong; the report whereof had filled the city with a wonderful expectation of so strange a novelty. The time prefixed being come, and the people without number assembled, the Turk, according to his promise, upon the top of a high tower showed himself, girt in a long and large white garment, gathered into many plaits and foldings, made on purpose for the gathering of the wind; wherewith the foolish man had vainly persuaded himself to have hovered in the air, as do birds upon their wings, or to have guided himself, as are ships with their sails. Standing thus hovering a great while, as ready to take his flight, the beholders still laughing, and crying out, 'Fly, Turk, fly! How long shall we expect thy flight?' The emperor in the meantime still kept dissuading from so desperate an attempt; and the sultan, betwixt fear and hope, hanging in doubtful suspense what might happen to his countryman. The Turk, after he had a great while hovered with his arms abroad (the better to have gathered the wind, as birds do with their wings), and long deluded the expectation of the beholders, at length finding the wind fit, as he thought, for his purpose, committed himself with his vain hope into the air, but instead of mounting aloft, this foolish Icarus came tumbling down with such violence, that he broke his neck, his arms his legs, with almost all the bones of his body.'
A similar attempt is related in Scottish history to have been made from the battle. meets of Stirling Castle; but the adventurer in that instance was less unfortunate; he fell upon a dunghill.
More recently, a Saxon clergyman, enlightened doubtless by the aids of modern Sciences, is said to have actually succeeded in accomplishing the apparently chimerical project. In the foreign journals of 1817, there was the following announcement: 'FLYING MACHINE A clergyman in Lower Saxony has been so happy as to succeed in accomplishing the invention of an airship. The machine is built of light wood, it is made to float in the air, chiefly by means of the constant action of a large pair of bellows of a peculiar construction, which occupies in the front the position of the lungs and the neck of a bird on the wing. The wings on both sides are directed by thin cords. The height to which a farmer's boy (ten or twelve years of age) whom the inventor has instructed in the management of it, has hitherto ascended with it, is not considerable, because his attention has been more directed to give a progressive than an ascending motion to this machine.'
It is related in Speed's history, that the Castle of Alnwick being besieged by Malcolm, King of the Scots, and in imminent danger of falling into his hands, a young English gentleman rode forth from the town, holding a bunch of keys suspended from the end of a small spear, which he carried in his hand. His appearance with such a token of submission was exultingly hailed in the enemy's camp, and on being introduced to the Scottish sovereign, he lowered the lance, as if, intending to make his majesty-a tender of the keys of the castle; when all of a sudden he made such a home thrust at Malcolm, that running the spear into his eye, he laid him dead on the spot. Amidst the momentary astonishment and confusion which this daring action occasioned, he found an opportunity to remount his horse, and favoured by its swiftness, escaped back to Alnwick Castle in safety. 'And from this desperate action,' says Speed, 'came the name of Percy,' or Pierce-eye.
All this is very curious, but unfortunately for the credit of Speed in this instance, it happens to be nothing more than a witty fable; nor is there anything so highly honourable in the story as to make a Percy regret that it should be so. It is true that a disaster of the kind here described is said to have happened to King Malcolm III. in the year 1093; but the officer that slew him was, according to the ancient chronicle of Alnwick Abbey, in the Harleian MSS. at the British Museum No. 692, named Hammond, and had no connexion or affinity with the Percy family, which had not the least interest in Northumberland till near two hundred years after, in the reign of King Edward II. The Percy family, so renowned not only in the annals of England, but also in the history of Europe is descended from one of the Roman chieftains, who came over with William the Conqueror in the year 1066. This family has preserved the memory of their ancestors for two centuries earlier, deriving their descent from Mainfred, a Danish chieftain, who made irruptions into France before the year 886, which was the era of Rollo's expedition that ended in the conquest and peopling of Normandy in 912. The grandson of Mainfred like other Roman families, derived his name from his principal residence in France. In Lower Normandy, are three towns, or villages, of the name of Percy, the chief of which is situated near Villedieu, in the district of St. Lo, and from these it was that the family took the name of DE PERCY.
Fuller, in his 'Worthies,' gives the following account of Sir Walter Raleigh's first rise in life.
'This Captain Raleigh,' he says, 'coming out of Ireland into the English court in good habit (his clothes being then a considerable part of his estate) found the queen walking till meeting with a dirty place, she seemed to scruple going over it. Presently Raleigh cast and spread his new plush cloak on the ground? whereupon the queen trod gently, rewarding him afterwards with many suits for his so free and seasonable tender of so fair a foot-cloth.
'An advantageous admittance into the first notice of a prince, is more than half a degree of preferment. When Sir Walter found some hopes of the queen's favour reflecting on him he wrote on a glass window obvious to the queen's eye:-
"Fain would I climb, but fear I to fall."
'Her majesty, either espying or being showed it, did under-write -
"If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all."
'How great a person in that court this knight did afterwards prove to be, is scarcely unknown to any.'
A minstrel called Blondel, who owed his fortune to Richard Coeur de Lion, animated with tenderness towards his illustrious master (who on his return from the crusades had been imprisoned by the emperor), was resolved to go over the world, until he had discovered the destiny of this prince. He had already traversed Europe, and was returning through Germany, when at Lintz, in Austria he learnt that there was near that city, at the entrance of a forest, a strong and ancient castle, in which there was a prisoner who was guarded with great care. A secret impulse persuaded Blondel that this prisoner was Richard: he went immediately to the castle, the sight of which made him tremble; he got acquainted with a peasant who often went there to carry provisions, and questioned him; but the man was ignorant of the name and quality of the prisoner. He could only inform him, that he was watched with the most exact attention, and was suffered to have no communication with any one but the keeper of the castle and his servants. He told him that this castle was a horrid abode, that the staircase and the apartments were black with age, and so dark, that at noon-day it was necessary to have lighted flambeaux to find the way along them. He added, that the prisoner had no other amusement than looking over the country through a small grated window, which served also for the light that glimmered into his apartments.
Blondel listened with eager attention, and meditated several ways of coming at the prisoner; but all in vain. At last, when he found that from the height and narrowness of the window he could not get a sight of his dear master, for so he firmly believed him to be, he recollected a French song, the last couplet of which had been composed by Richard, and the first by himself. After he had sung with a loud and harmonious voice the first part, he suddenly stopped and heard a voice which came from the castle window, 'Continue, and finish the song.' Transported with joy, he was now assured it was the king, his master who was confined in this dismal castle. The chronicle adds, that one of the keeper's servants falling sick, Blondel got himself hired in his place; and thus at last obtained personal access to Richard. The nobility of England were informed with all expedition of the situation of their monarch, and he was released from his confinement by the payment of a large ransom; though but for the extraordinary perseverance of the grateful Blondel, he might have wasted out his days in the prison to which he had been treacherously consigned.
In this celebrated battle, so glorious to the British arms, the Prince of Orange was the most daring of all the commanders engaged in the dreadful conflict. He led on the first nine battalions under a tremendous shower of grape and musketry. He had scarcely advanced a few paces, when the brave Oxenstiern was killed by his side, and several aides-decamp and attendants successively dropped as he advanced. His own horse being killed, he rushed forward on foot; and as he passed the opening of the great flanking battery, whole ranks were swept away; yet he reached the entrenchment, and waving his hat, in an instant the breastwork was forced at the point of the bayonet by the Dutch guards and highlanders. But before they could deploy, they were driven from the post by an impetuous charge from the troops of the French left, who had been rallied by Marshal Boufflers. At this moment the corps under Dohna moved gallantly against the battery on the road, penetrated into the embrasures, and took some colours; but ere they reached the front of the breastwork, were mown down by the battery on the flank. A dreadful carnage took place among all the troops in this concerted attack; Spaar lay dead upon the field of battle; Hamilton was carried off wounded; and the lines beginning to waver, recoiled a few paces. Calling up fresh spirit to recover from this repulse, the heroic Prince of Orange mounted another horse, that was also shot under him; still his energy remained unshaken, on foot he rallied the nearest troops: and seizing a standard from the regiment of Mey, marched almost alone to the entrenchment. He planted the colours upon the bank, and called aloud, 'Follow me, my friends, here is your post!' His gallant troops followed their leader. Again the onset was renewed, but it was no longer possible to force the enemy; for the second line had closed up, and the whole breastwork bristled with bayonets, and blazed with fire. Although again repulsed, the Prince of Orange would not be dissuaded from returning once more to the charge; and at length actually carried the seemingly impregnable entrenchment.
The military life of this great commander was a succession of enterprises. He was always on the offensive, braving every danger, and yet always successful. He commanded at the battle of Rocroi, when he was not more than twenty-one years of age; and by his quickness in perceiving at once both the danger and the remedy, and by an activity which carried him to all places at the very instant when his presence was wanted, he in a manner gained the battle himself. It was Conde who, with the cavalry, attacked and broke the Spanish infantry till then invincible. As strong and as closely united as the -celebrated ancient phalanx, It opened itself with an agility which the phalanx had not, and thus suddenly made way for the discharge of eighteen pieces of cannon that were placed in the midst of it. The Prince of Conde surrounded and attacked it three times; and at length victory decided in his favour.
In the attack on the camp of Merci at Fribourg, the following year, which was renewed three successive days, the prince threw his staff of command into the enemy's trenches, and marched, sword in hand, to regain it at the head of the regiment of Conti. This bold action inspired the troops with ret doubled ardour, and the battle of Fribourg was gained.
In the year 1811, an American sailor of the name of Jonathan Lambert, accompanied by two other Americans, and an English sailor of the name of Thomas Currie, and a boy, a native of Minorca, took possession of the three islands named Tristan d'Acunha, situated midway in the South Atlantic, between the Cape of Good Hope and the Brazil coast. Lambert took possession of the islands in a very formal manner; but after remaining some months, he and the two Americans, under presence of fishing and collecting wrecks, took the boat and left the island. he quitted, he left on the island a document, by which he constituted himself sole monarch of this group of islands. The following is an extract from this curious manifesto: -
'Know all men by these presents, that I, Jonathan Lambert, late of Salem, in the state of Massachusetts, United States of America and citizen thereof, have this fourth day of February, 1811, taken absolute possession of the island of Tristan d'Acunha, so called, viz. the Great Island, and the other two, known by the names of Inaccessible and Nightingale Islands, solely for myself and heirs for ever with the right of conveying the whole, or any part thereof, to one or more persons, by deed of sale, free gift, or otherwise, as I, or they (my heirs) may hereafter think fitting or proper.'
King Jonathan then proceeds to give new names to the islands, which are to be denominated the Islands of Refreshment; fixes the seat of government, and adds:-
'And I do further declare that the cause of the said act set forth in this instrument, originated in the desire and determination of preparing for myself and family a house, where I can enjoy life, without the embarrassments which have hitherto constantly attended me; and procure for us an interest, and property by means of which a competence may be ever secured, and remain, if possible, far removed beyond the reach of chicanery and ordinary misfortunes.'
Few men have been more remarkable than General Putnam for the acts of successful rashness to which a bold and intrepid spirit frequently prompted him.
When he was pursued by General Tyron at the head of fifteen hundred men, his only method of escape was precipitating his horse down the steep declivity of the rock called Horseneck; and as none of his pursuers dared to imitate his example, he escaped.
But an act of still more daring intrepidity was his venturing to clear in a boat the tremendous waterfalls of Hudson's river. This was in the year 1756, when Putnam fought against the French and their allies, the Indians. He was accidentally with a boat and five men on the eastern side of the river, contiguous to these falls. His men, who were on the opposite side, informed him by signal, that a considerable body of savages were advancing to surround him, and there was not a moment to lose. Three modes of conduct were at his option - to remain, fight, and be sacrificed; to attempt to pass to the other side exposed to the full shot of the enemy; or to sail down the waterfalls, with almost a certainty of being overwhelmed. These were the only alternatives. Putnam did not hesitate, and jumped into his boat at the fortunate instant, for one of his companions, who was at a little distance was a victim to the Indians. His enemies soon arrived, and discharged their muskets at the boat before he could get out of their reach. No sooner had he escaped this danger through the rapidity of the current, but death presented itself under a more terrific form. Rocks, whose points projected above the surface of the water; large masses of timber that nearly closed the passage; absorbing gulfs, and rapid descents, for the distance of a quarter of a mile, left him no hope of escape but by a miracle. Putnam however placed himself at the helm, and directed it with the utmost tranquillity. His companions saw him with admiration, terror, and astonishment avoid with the utmost address the rocks and threatening gulfs, which they every instant expected to devour him. He disappeared, rose again, and directing his course across the only passage which he could possibly make he at length gained the even surface of the river that flowed at the bottom of this dreadful cascade. The Indians were no less surprised. This miracle astonished them almost as much as the sight of the first Europeans that approached the banks of this river. They considered Putnam as invulnerable, and they thought that they should offend the Great Spirit if they attempted the life of a man that was so visibly under his immediate protection.
Soon after Mr. Putnam removed to Connecticut, the wolves, then very numerous, broke into his sheepfold, and killed seven fine sheep and goats, besides wounding many lambs and kids. This havoc was committed by a she-wolf, which, with her annual whelps, had several times infested the vicinity. The young were commonly destroyed by the vigilance of the hunters; but the old one was too sagacious to come within gunshot; upon being closely pursued, she would generally fly to the western woods, and return the next winter with another litter of whelps
This wolf at length became such an intolerable nuisance that Mr. Putnam entered into a combination with five of his neighbours to hunt alternately until they could destroy her. Two, by rotation, were to be constantly in pursuit. It was known that, having lost the toes of one foot by a steel trap, she made one track shorter than the other. By this peculiarity the pursuers recognised in a light snow the route of this destructive animal. Having followed her to Connecticut river, and found she had turned back in a direct course towards Pomfret, they immediately returned, and by ten o'clock the next morning the bloodhounds had driven her into a den, about three miles from Mr. Putnam's house. The people soon collected with dogs, guns, straw, fire, and sulphur, to attack the common enemy. With these materials several unsuccessful efforts were made to force her from the den. The dogs came back badly wounded, and refused to return to the charge. The smoke of blazing straw had no effect; nor did the fumes of burnt brimstone with which the cavern was filled, compel the wolf to quit her retire meet. Wearied with such fruitless attempts, which had been continued until ten o'clock at night, Mr. Putnam tried once more to make his dog enter, but in. vain He proposed to his negro servant to go down into the cavern and shoot the wolf, but he declined the hazardous enterprise. Then it was that Mr. Putnam, declaring that he would not have a coward in his family, and angry at the disappointment, resolved himself to destroy the ferocious beast or perish in the attempt. His neighbours strongly remonstrated against the perilous undertaking; but he knowing that wild animals are intimidated by fire, and having provided several slips of birch bark the only combustible material which he could obtain that would afford light in this deep and darksome cave, prepared for his descent. Having divested himself of his coat and waistcoat, and fixed a rope round his body, by which he might, at a concerted signal, be drawn from the cave, he entered head foremost with the blazing torch in his hand.
The aperture of the den, on the east side of a very high ledge of rocks, was about two feet square; thence it descended obliquely fifteen feet; then running horizontally about ten more, it ascended gradually sixteen feet towards its termination. The sides of this subterranean cavity were composed of smooth and solid rocks, which seem to have been driven from each other by some earthquake. The top and bottom were of stone, and the entrance in winter, being covered with ice, exceeding slippery. The cave was in no place high enough for a man to stand upright, nor in any part more than three feet wide.
Having groped his passage to the horizontal part of the den, the most terrifying darkness appeared in front of the dim circle of light afforded by his torch. It was silent as the tomb! None but monsters of the desert had ever before explored this solitary mansion of horror. Mr. Putnam cautiously proceeded onward, came to the ascent, which be mounted on his hands and knees, and then discovered the glaring eyeballs of the wolf, which was sitting at the extremity of the cavern; startled at the sight of the fire, she gnashed her teeth and gave a sullen growl. As soon as he had made the discovery, he gave the signal for pulling him out of the cave. The people at the mouth of the den, who had listened with painful anxiety, hearing the growling of the wolf, and supposing their friend to be in the most imminent danger, drew him forth with such celerity, that his shirt was stripped over his head, and his body much lacerated. After he had adjusted his clothes, and loaded his gun with nine buckshot, with a torch in one hand and his musket in the other, he descended a second time; he approached the wolf nearer than before, who assumed a still more fierce and terrible appearance, howling, rolling her eyes, and gnashing her teeth. At length dropping her head between her legs, she prepared to spring on him. At this critical moment he levelled his piece, and shot her in the head. Stunned with the shock, and nearly suffocated with the smoke, he immediately found himself drawn out of the cave. Having refreshed himself, and permitted the smoke to clear, he entered the cave a third time, when he found the waif was dead; he took hold of her ears, and making the necessary signal, the people above, with no small exultation, drew Mr. Putnam and the wolf both out together.
The character which the Scotch have acquired, beyond almost any other people, for the art of pushing their fortune abroad, was never perhaps more singularly illustrated than by the following anecdote, which Dr. Anderson relates in his 'Bee,' on the authority of a baronet of scientific eminence.
The Russians and Turks in the war of 173,0, having diverted themselves long enough in the contest, agreed to treat of a peace. The commissioners for this purpose were, Marshal General Keith, on the part of Russia; and the Grand Vizier, on that of the Turks. These two personages met, and carried on their negotiations by means of interpreters. When all was concluded, they rose to separate; the marshal made his bow with his hat in his hand, and the vizier his salam with his turban on his head. But when these ceremonies of taking leave were over, the vizier turned suddenly, and coming up to Marshal Keith, took him cordially by the hand, and in the broadest Scotch dialect, declared warmly that it made him 'unco happy to meet a countryman in his exalted station.' Keith stared with astonishment, eager for an explanation of this mystery, when the vizier added, 'Dinna be surprised mon, I'm o' the same country wi' yourself. I mind weel seeing you, and your brother, when boys, passin' by to the school at Kirkaldy; my father, sir, was bellman o' Kirkaldy.'
What more extraordinary can be imagined, than to behold in the plenipotentiaries of two mighty nations, two foreign adventurers, natives of the same mountainous territory; nay, of the very same village! What, indeed, more extraordinary, unless it be the spectacle of a Scotchman turned Turk for the sake of honours, held on the tenure of a caprice from which even Scotch prudence can be no guarantee!
After the battle of Culloden, which terminated all his hopes of success, the Pretender determined to endeavour to effect his escape to France. H