thanks of the doctor to his friend who introduced his name to Sir John. The baronet instantly took him into favor. The collegian then, is now a venerable clergyman, and often recounts to the children of his benefactor the horrors of his confinement, and the services their father had rendered him. Several years after the peace of 1783, the commissary, as we shall continue to call him, for so did his acquaintances, although he had served but a short time in that capacity, and many years as a mariner, sailed for St. Petersburgh, for a cargo of hemp and iron,—and has often, in the pride of his heart, stated that the ship he commanded was the first American vessel that gave the starspangled banner to the breeze in St. Petersburgh. The event excited no small degree of attention in Russia; but what gave the commissary the most delight was, to find Sir John Castlehouse there in a diplomatic character. The minister treated his old friend with every mark of attention and affection, and introduced him as his personal benefactor to the Empress Catharine, to whom the story of his fearless philanthropy was made known. She received him graciously, and turning to Sir John, she with some surprise remarked, "This native American looks very much like an Englishman. Are all his seamen of the same complexion? Do they build their own ships, or buy them from the English?" Sir John replied to these questions with a suppressed smile, in a manner quite satisfactory to his friend, and equally astonishing to the Empress. In a few days the Empress sent for the com missary, and offered him a high command in her navy, saying that she had heard from Sir John the history of his naval exploits, which probably had been a little colored by the warmth of friendship. The offer was met with a flow of gratitude, but the purport of his answer was, that having a family in America, he would consult his wife upon the subject on his return home, and if she approved of it, he would accept of her generous offer ;and added also, we think so much of your sex in our country, that it is a maxim with us, that "A man to prosper in any undertaking, must consult his wife." The Empress smiled at the compliment to her sex, and observed, "Then if your wife consents to visit Russia, I may expect your services-the place shall be reserved for you eighteen months." The Empress issued an order to her revenue officers to give the American captain every facility in obtaining his cargo, and fitting his ship for sea, and he found this of no small importance in securing dispatch and in lessening expenses. He now took leave of Sir John, with a presentiment that he should never see him again "'till earth and ocean render up their dead." No class of men indulge these presentiments more than sailors, and in this case it was a true one. Sir John died of the liver complaint in the East Indies, in military command there in 1799. The Calcutta Hucarrah speaks of him in the highest terms as an officer and a gentleman. It was understood that he had made a will, as he was a bachelor; but it was never found. In October, 1826, the commissary made a visit to the It was on the The building city of New-York to examine the old jail. expiration of fifty years from his release. was still standing, unchanged in the slightest degree. On entering within the walls, it is true he did not see prisoners dying with the small-pox, or with festering wounds and mutilated limbs; but, in their stead, there was to be seen a miserable group of poor debtors, half naked, many of them had to sleep on the bare floor, and to depend on accidental charity for subsistence. One of them, had been closely confined six months, because he could not raise fees enough to take advantage of the poor debtor's act. The old gentleman's heart bled to think the wretched place should, after half a century, still be the abode of misery, not by state power, but by individual oppression; but had he lived a few years longer than he did, he would have seen an entire change ;—the dark and awful looking walls become bright and luminous, the iron grates and bars removed, ponderous Ionic columns arise on the front and rear of the building, exhibiting the finest architectural light and shade that can have ever been exhibited in Athens, and the whole edifice devoted to the transactions of Probate business, and the preservation of official records of estates, testate and intestate; and what would have gladdened his heart the more, he would have learnt, that the power of one individual to make a slave of another for a trifling debt had been abolished; and that the reign of those petty tyrants, hucksters and pettifoggers, was nearly over throughout his whole country. THE MANIAC. "There's a daisy; I would give you some violets; but they withered all, when my Duncan died: They say he made a good end." "And will he not come again? And will he not come again? Go to thy death-bed, He never will come again." "I LAST Summer, I took a journey with an old friend, who sometimes was silent and melancholy, and at other times whose voice would flow with the copiousness and sweetness of St. Winifred's well. When melancholy, he might say it was like Jaques's, "compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects; and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my after rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness;" and one indeed who sometimes felt the taunting retort of Rosalind :— fear you have sold your own lands, to see other men's." But however much his experience may have cost him, he was a charming companion; one who had a story for every place, and a moral for every tale. We travelled northward, up the majestic Hudson, to Saratoga, viewed the battle plain, sailed down lake George, and made minute observations on the features of this classic ground; the scene both of success and defeat to England and France; and in which the colonists bore a suffering, and in the end a triumphant part. When we had reached old |