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“Och, d―n the charges-I'll pay all yer charges-ye may stop here and ate and drink like a couple of corporals-but this very day I'll find my way into Scotland."

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"We'll see about that,' replied the man, sulkily. We thought you might have been trusted without the irons, but the gentleman seems anxious for the fetters. Out with them, Tom'-to his companion. "Fetters!' said Jack; to be sure I am anxious for the fetters; and the owld Blacksmith will fix them as tight as a Bishop.'

"Bishop's a rare good 'un, no doubt, sir,' said the man; but we can do that as well.'

"Do that? Do what, ye spalpeens?'

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"Why, splice you, and this here lady together, sir; she's an accom. plice after the act.'

"After what act, ye brute baste? We're not married yet.'

"No, nor won't be this bout. Come, out with the darbies, Tom; we hain't time to be palavering here all day.'

“‘Hark ye, gintlemen,' said Jack, growing more and more enraged and astonished, this window is pretty high, thank God, and will break a gintleman's neck very prettily; so I advise ye to be off, and out of hearing, before I can crack this egg, or, by the poker, your wives may buy their mourning.'

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"Come, come,' replied the man, no ways daunted, we must have no more of your blarney; we are up to all such tricks. You are suspected of stealing Mrs Fusby's property.'

"Is it you they mane, my dear?' said Jack to the lady. 'Ye may go back, my men, as fast as ye plase, and tell the little fat owld woman, the sugar-seller's wife, with my compliments, that Miss Sibilla M'Scrae, of Glen Buckie and Ben Scart, is not her property at all; and is very much obliged to her for her care, but will keep what she has got.' "Will keep what she stole off with ?' “Just so,' said Jack, nodding his head.

"And do you confess,' continued the man, 'that she has got the article with her?'

"Ye may say so, when ye write

VOL. XXXIII. NO. CCIX.

home to yer friends; and a very pretty article too, don't ye think so, my dear?' said Jack, drawing himself up, and looking as pleased as Punch.

"And you won't give it up?' said the man.

"By no manes.'

"Then we must force you.' “Och, must yc?' said Jack; ' and I'm particularly obliged to ye for yer kindness.'

"I now heard a scuffle; and two heavy falls, rapidly succeeding each other, made me recognise Jack's one, two. In a moment I rushed into the room, nearly killed with laughter at all the conversation, and there I found Jack, his nostrils widened with passion, and his whiskers redder than usual, standing over the two unfortunate strangers, who were groaning most piteously on the floor. The moment he saw me, he burst into one of his wildest shouts of joy.

Och, only look here, O'Looney, my darlint; these two gintlemen with the bloody faces are friends of Mr Fusby, and are sent off to stop our journey to Gretna Green.'

"And I'm very glad to hear it, Jack,' said I.

"I call you to witness, sir,' said one of the men, getting up, and putting a handkerchief to his eye; 'we are deforced in the execution of our duty. I order you to assist us in the King's name.'

"Faith will I, willingly,' said I. "Jack upon this was almost choked with passion. He stood and scowled at us all, and then folding his arms across his chest, asked, as quietly as he could-An' tell me now, gintlemen, what it is ye really want?'

"We want possession of your body. This here is our authority,' said the constable.

"My body?-Ye hell-dog, are ye a set of doctors? and do ye think I'm a corpse??

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'No,' said the man, we don't take you for no such thing. It's likely you know more of doctors and corpses nor we do. Ain't you a pottercarrier's boy?'

"Pottercarrier! D'ye mane an apothecary? and do ye take me for his boy? me, me, John O'Farrell, Esquire, that is so soon to be proprietor of seventy-five thousand

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acres of land, besides Lord knows how many lakes and rivers? Och, ye infernal scoundrels, I'll physic ye.'

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"Saying this, he advanced to murder the two men, but I stopt him, and said, Listen to me, Jack; you shall not go to Gretna Green this time. She's nothing but a governess, that taches little girls to spell, and ate bread and butter without dirtying their fingers.'

"Who do ye mane, O'Looney?Miss Sibilla M'Scrae of Glen Buckie and Ben Scart ?'

"Yes, faith do I,' said I, and no other. Ask her.'

"Jack turned round to the lady, and said, 'Pray, madam, do ye tache little girls to ate bread and butter and spell without dirtying their fingers? Are ye not one of the heiresses of all the fine land and water you towld me off?' The lady, though I suppose she felt her position a little uncomfortable, was not very easily frightened, and brazened it as bold as a statue.

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tody, and you too, in spite of your fine talking. She's thought to have stolen Mrs Fusby's shawl last night in the ball room; and by the description, that's it lying on the sofa.'

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"Whew!" said Jack, who now discovered the mistake. Och, I see it all now-this bates Bannagher entirely. Why, ye villains, I took the shawl.'

"And a pretty piece of goods she is,' said Jack, to talk to me of her seventy-five thousand acres of land! Take her, I say.'

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Yes, we'll take her into cus

"I call you to witness, sir, he confesses the robbery,' said the man, addressing himself to me.

"Keep the tongue in your head, ye rapscallion!' continued Jack. How the divil should I know whose shawl it was? I took the first that came. I tell ye, that on the word of a gintleman and an officer'

"O, sir,' said the man, 6 we are all officers here-police-officer, or medical officer, it's all the same, I reckon.'

"I now saw the whole business, and was like to die with laughing at the man continuing to believe Jack the apothecary's apprentice. However, I undertook to be answerable for Jack's appearance, and he and I returned in one chaise to York. The matter was easily explained to Mrs Fusby, and even Miss Sibilla was forgiven. I'm not quite sure what became of her afterwards; but I suppose she eloped with somebody else, for the example of our regiment made a flyaway match indispensable among all ranks of the people. I won my wager off Jack, who told me, that all the way down he had been thinking, that if he made all possible allowances for the number of her sisters-saying even she had seventy-four of them-he would still step into possession of a snug little farm of a thousand acres, besides his share of the four lakes and the river. Now, wasn't that a narrow escape from the blacksmith ?"

"Yes-and now, Colonel," said we all in a breath, "tell us your own adventure?"

Colonel O'Looney sighed, and shook his head. "No, no, my lads, no more stories to-night-I'll keep mine for some other occasion. In the meantime, pass round the bottles, and keep them constantly moving."

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THE FALL OF TURKEY.

THE long duration and sudden fall of the Turkish Empire is one of the most extraordinary and apparently inexplicable phenomena in European history. The decay of the Ottoman power had been constantly the theme of historians; their approaching downfall, the unceasing subject of prophecy for a century; but yet the ancient fabric still held out, and evinced on occasions a degree of vigour which confounded all the machinations of its enemies. For eighty years, the subversion of the empire of Constantinople had been the unceasing object of Moscovite ambition: the genius of Catherine had been incessantly directed to that great object; a Russian prince christened after the last of the Palæologi expressly to receive his throne, but yet the black eagle made little progress towards the Danube; the Mussulman forces arrayed on its banks were still most formidable, and a host arrayed under the banners of the Osmanleys, seemingly capable of making head against the world. For four years, from 1808 to 1812, the Russians waged a desperate war with the Turks; they brought frequently 150,000, sometimes 200,000 men into the field; but at its close they had made no sensible progress in the reduction of the bulwarks of Islamism: two hundred thousand Mussulmans had frequently assembled round the banners of the Prophet; the Danube had been stained with blood, but the hostile armies still contended in doubtful and desperate strife on its shores; and on the glacis of Schumla the Moscovites had sustained a bloodier defeat than they ever received from the genius of Napoleon. In the triumph of the Turks at that prodigious victory, the Vizier wrote exultingly to the Grand Seignior, that such was the multitude of the Infidel heads which he had taken, that they would make a bridge

for the souls of the Faithful from earth to heaven.

But though then so formidable, the Ottoman power has within these twenty years rapidly and irrecoverably declined. The great barrier of Turkey was reached in the first campaign of the next war, the Balkan yielded to Russian genius in the second, and Adrianople, the ancient capital of the Osmanleys, became celebrated for the treaty which sealed for ever the degradation of their race. On all sides the provinces of the Empire have revolted: Greece, through a long and bloody contest, has at length worked out its deliverance from all but its own passions; the ancient war-cry of Byzantium, Victory to the Cross, has been again heard on the Egean Sea;t and the Pacha of Egypt, taking advantage of the weakness consequent on so many reverses, has boldly thrown off the yoke, and advancing from Acre in the path of Napoleon, shewn to the astonished world the justice of that great man's remark, that his defeat by Sir Sidney Smith under its walls made him miss his destiny. The victory of Koniah prostrated the Asiatic power of Turkey; the standards of Mehemet Ali are rapidly approaching the Seraglio; and the discomfited Sultan is driven to take refuge under the suspicious shelter of the Russian legions. Already the advanced guard of Nicholas has passed the Bosphorus; the Moscovite standards are floating at Scutari; and, to the astonishment alike of Europe and Asia, the keys of the Dardanelles, the throne of Constantine, are laid at the feet of the Czar.

The unlooked for rapidity of these events, is not more astonishing than the weakness which the Mussulmans have evinced in their last struggle. The Russians, in the late campaign, never assembled 40,000 men in the field. In the battle of the 11th June,

Travels in Turkey, by F. Slade, Esq. London, 1832.

When the brave Canaris passed under the bows of the Turkish admiral's ship, to which he had grappled the fatal fireship, at Scio, the crew in his boat exclaimed "Victory to the Cross!" the old war-cry of Byzantium,GORDON'S Greek Revolution, i. 274.

which decided the fate of the war, Diebitsch had only 36,000 soldiers under arms; yet this small force routed the Turkish army, and laid open the far-famed passes of the Balkan to the daring genius of its leader. Christendom looked in vain for the mighty host which, at the sight of the holy banner, was wont to assemble round the standard of the Prophet; the ancient courage of the Osmanleys seemed to have perished with their waning fortunes; hardly could the Russian outposts keep pace with them in the rapidity of their flight; and a force, reduced by sickness to twenty thousand men, dictated peace to the Ottomans within twenty hours' march of Constantinople. More lately, the once dreaded throne of Turkey has become a jest to its ancient provinces; the Pasha of Egypt, once the most inconsiderable of its vassals, has compelled the Sublime Porte, the ancient terror of Christendom, to seek for safety in the protection of Infidel battalions; and the throne of Constantine, incapable of self-defence, is ultimately destined to become the prize for which Moscovite ambition and Arabian audacity are to contend on the glittering shores of Scutari.

But if the weakness of the Ottomans is surprising, the supineness of the European powers is not less amazing at this interesting crisis. The power of Russia has long been a subject of alarm to France, and having twice seen the Cossacks at the Tuileries, it is not surprising that they should feel somewhat nervous at every addition to its strength. England, jealous of its maritime superiority, and apprehensive-whether reasonably or not is immaterial-of danger to her Indian possessions, from the growth of Russian power in Asia, has long made it a fixed principle of her policy to coerce the ambitious designs of the Cabinet of St Petersburg, and twice she has saved Turkey from their grasp. When the Russians and Austrians, in 1786, projected an alliance for its partition, and Catherine and Joseph had actually met on the Wolga to arrange its details, Mr Pitt interposed, and by the influence of England prevented the design: and when Diebitsch was in full march for Constantinople, and the insurrection of the Janissaries

only waited for the sight of the Cossacks to break out, and overturn the throne of Mahmoud, the strong arm of Wellington interfered, put a curb in the mouth of Russia, and postponed for a season the fall of the Turkish power. Now, however, every thing is changed;-France and England, occupied with domestic dissensions, are utterly paralysed; they can no longer make a shew of resistance to Moscovite ambition; exclusively occupied in preparing the downfall of her ancient allies, the Dutch and the Portuguese, England has not a thought to bestow on the occupation of the Dardanelles, and the keys of the Levant are, without either observation or regret, passing to the hands of Russia.

These events are so extraordinary, that they almost make the boldest speculator hold his breath. Great as is the change in external events which we daily witness, the alteration in internal feeling is still greater. Changes which would have convulsed England from end to end, dangers which would have thrown European diplomacy into agonies a few years ago, are now regarded with indifference. The progress of Russia through Asia, the capture of Erivan and Erzeroum, the occupation of the Dardanelles, are now as little regarded as if we had no interest in such changes; as if we had no empire in the East threatened by so ambitious a neighbour; no independence at stake in the growth of the Colossus of northern Europe.

The reason is apparent, and it affords the first great and practical proof which England has yet received of the fatal blow, which the recent changes have struck, not only at her internal prosperity, but her external independence. England is now powerless; and, what is worse, the European powers know it. Her Government is so incessantly and exclusively occupied in maintaining its ground against the internal enemies whom the Reform Bill has raised up into appalling strength; the necessity of sacrificing something to the insatiable passions of the Revolutionists is so apparent, that every other object is disregarded: the allies by whose aid they overthrew the constitution, have turned so fiercely upon them, that they are forced to

strain every nerve to resist these do mestic enemies. Who can think of the occupation of Scutari, when the malt tax is threatened with repeal? Who care for the thunders of Nicholas, when the threats of O'Connell are ringing in their ears? The English Government, once so stable and steadfast in its resolutions, when rested on the firm rock of the Aristocracy, has become unstable as water since it was thrown for its support upon the Democracy: its designs are as changeable, its policy as fluctuating, as the volatile and inconsiderate mass from which it sprung; and hence its menaces are disregarded, its ancient relations broken, its old allies disgusted, and the weight of its influence being no longer felt, projects the most threatening to its independence are without hesitation undertaken by other States.

Nor is the supineness and apathy of the nation less important or alarming. It exists to such an extent as clearly to demonstrate, that not only are the days of its glory numbered, but the termination even of its independence may be foreseen at no distant period. Enterprises the most hostile to its interests, conquests the most fatal to its glory, are undertaken by its rivals not only without the disapprobation, but with the cordial support, of the majority of the nation. Portugal, for a century the ally of England, for whose defence hundreds of thousands of Englishmen had died in our own times, has been abandoned without a murmur to the revolutionary_spoliation and propagandist arts of France. Holland, the bulwark of England, for whose protection the great war with France was undertaken, has been assailed by British fleets, and threatened by British power; and the shores of the Scheldt, which beheld the victorious legions of Wellington land to curb the power of Napoleon, have witnessed the union of the Tricolor and British flags, to beat down the independence

The Conservatives, on the other hand, are so utterly desperate in regard to the future prospects of the Empire, from the vacillation and violence of the Democratic party who are installed in sovereignty, that external events, even of the most threatening character, are regarded by them but as dust in the balance, when compared with the domestic calamities which are staring us in the face. What although the ingratitude and tergiversation of England to Holland have deprived us of all respect among foreign States? That evil, great as it is, is nothing to the do

nople, long regarded as the outpost of India against the Russians, is abandoned without regret; and, amdst the strife of internal faction, the fixing of the Moscovite standards on the shores of the Bosphorus, the transference of the finest harbour in the world to a growing maritime

of the Dutch provinces. Constanti-mestic embarrassments which overwhelm the country from the unruly spirit which the Whigs fostered with such sedulous care during the Reform contest. What although the empire of the Mediterranean, and ultimately our Indian possessions, are menaced by the ceaseless growth of Russia; the measures which Go

power, and of the entrepot of Europe and Asia to an already formidable commercial state, is hardly the subject of observation.

The reason cannot be concealed, and is too clearly illustrative of the desperate tendency of the recent changes upon all the classes of the Empire. With the Revolutionists the passion for change has supplanted every other feeling, and the spirit of innovation has extinguished that of patriotism. They no longer league in thought, or word, or wish, exclusively with their own countrymen; they no longer regard the interests and glory of England, as the chief objects of their solicitude; what they look to is the revolutionary party in other States; what they sympathize with, the progress of the Tricolor in overturning other dynasties. The loss of British dominion, the loss of British colonies, the downfall of British power, the decay of British glory, the loss of British independence, is to them a matter of no sort of regret, provided the tricolor is triumphant, and the cause of revolution is making progress in the world. Well and truly did Mr Burke say, that the spirit of patriotism and Jacobinism could not coexist in the same State; and that the greatest national disasters are lightly passed over, provided they bring with them the advance of domestic ambition.

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