Harper's New Monthly Magazine, February, 1852

Benjamin Franklin entered upon his career as a public man when very near the middle of the active portion of his life. His history, therefore, naturally divides itself into two equal portions, each entirely distinct from the other. Until the age of about thirty-five he was simply a Philadelphia mechanic, discharging his duties, however, in that capacity so gracefully and with such brilliant success, as to invest industry, and frugality, and all the other plain and unpretending virtues of humble life with a sort of poetic charm which has been the means of commending them in the most effectual manner, to millions of his countrymen. At length, having accomplished in this field a work equal to the labor of any ordinary life-time, he was by a sudden shifting of the scene in the drama of his life, as it were, withdrawn from it, at once and entirely, and ushered into a wholly different sphere. During all the latter half of his life he was almost exclusively a public man. He was brought forward by a peculiar combination of circumstances into a most conspicuous position; a position, which not only made him the object of interest and attention to the whole civilized world, but which also invested him with a controlling power in respect to some of the most important events and transactions of modern times. Thus there lived, as it were, two Benjamin Franklins, Benjamin Franklin the honest Philadelphia printer, who quietly prosecuted his trade during the first part of the eighteenth century, setting an example of industry and thrift which was destined afterward to exert an influence over half the world—and Benjamin Franklin the great American statesman, who flourished in the last part of the same century, and occupied himself in building and securing the foundations of what will perhaps prove the greatest political power that any human combination has ever formed. It is this latter history which is to form the subject of the present article.

It is remarkable that the first functions which Franklin fulfilled in public life were of a military character. When he found that his thrift and prosperity as a citizen, and the integrity and good sense which were so conspicuous in his personal character, were giving him a great ascendency among his fellow men, he naturally began to take an interest in the welfare of the community; and when he first began to turn his attention in earnest to this subject, which was about the year 1743, there were two points which seemed to him to demand attention. One was, the want of a college in Philadelphia; the other, the necessity of some means of defense against foreign invasion. Spain had been for some time at war with England, and now France had joined with Spain in prosecuting the war. The English colonies in America were in imminent danger of being attacked by the French forces. The influence of the Friends was, however, predominant in the colonial legislature, and no vote could be obtained there for any military purposes; though the governor, and a very considerable part of the population, were extremely desirous that suitable preparations for defending the city should be made.

There was thus much diversity of sentiment in the public mind, and many conflicting opinions were expressed in private conversation; but every thing was unsettled, and no one could tell what it was best to undertake to do.

Under these circumstances Franklin wrote and published a pamphlet entitled Plain Truth, placing the defenseless condition of the colony in a strong light, and calling upon the people to take measures for averting the danger. This pamphlet produced a great sensation. A meeting of the citizens was convened. An enrollment of the citizens in voluntary companies was proposed and carried by acclamation. Papers were circulated and large numbers of signatures were [pg 290] obtained. The ladies prepared silken banners, embroidering them with suitable devices and presented these banners to the companies that were formed. In a word, the whole city was filled with military enthusiasm. The number of men that were enrolled as the result of this movement was ten thousand.

Illustration: Silken Banners.

Such a case as this is probably wholly without a parallel in the history of the world, when the legislative government of a state being held back by conscientious scruples from adopting military measures for the public defense in a case of imminent danger, the whole community rise voluntarily at the call of a private citizen, to organize and arm themselves under the executive power. There was, it is true, very much in the peculiar circumstances of the occasion to give efficiency to the measures which Franklin adopted, but there are very few men who, even in such circumstances, would have conceived of such a design, or could have accomplished it, if they had made the attempt.

The officers of the Philadelphia regiment, organized from these volunteers, chose Franklin their colonel. He however declined the appointment, considering himself, as he said, not qualified for it. They then appointed another man. Franklin, however, continued to be foremost in all the movements and plans for maturing and carrying into effect the military arrangements that were required.

Among other things, he conceived the idea of constructing a battery on the bank of the river below the town, to defend it from ships that might attempt to come up the river. To construct this battery, and to provide cannon for it, would require a considerable amount of money; and in order to raise the necessary funds, Franklin proposed a public lottery. He considered the emergency of the crisis, as it would seem, a sufficient justification for a resort to such a measure. The lottery was arranged, and the tickets offered for sale. They were taken very fast, for the whole community were deeply interested in the success of the enterprise. The money was thus raised and the battery was erected. The walls of it were made of logs framed together, the space between being filled with earth.

The great difficulty, however, was to obtain cannon for the armament of the battery. The associates succeeded at length in finding a few pieces of old ordnance in Boston which they could buy. These they procured and mounted in their places on the battery. They then sent to England to obtain more; and in the mean time Franklin was dispatched as a commissioner to New York, to attempt to borrow some cannon there, to be used until those which they expected to receive from England should arrive. His application was in the end successful, though the consent of Governor Clinton, to whom the application was made, was gained in a somewhat singular way. “At first,” says Franklin, “he refused us peremptorily; but at dinner with his council, where there was great drinking of Madeira wine, as the custom of the place then was, he softened by degrees, and said he would lend us six. After a few more bumpers he advanced to ten; and at length he very good-naturedly conceded eighteen.”

Illustration: Gun Guard.

The pieces thus borrowed were eighteen pounders, all in excellent order and well mounted on suitable carriages. They were soon transported to Philadelphia and set up in their places on the battery, where they remained while the war lasted. A company was organized to mount guard there by day and night. Franklin himself was one of this guard, and he regularly performed his duty as a common soldier, in rotation with the rest. In fact, one secret of the great ascendency which he acquired at this time over all those who were in any way connected with him, was the unassuming and unpretending spirit which he manifested. He never sought to appropriate to himself the credit of what he did, but always voluntarily assumed his full share of all labors and sacrifices that were required.

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The members of the society of Friends were very numerous in Philadelphia at this time, and they held a controlling influence in the legislature. And inasmuch as the tenets of their society expressly forbade them to engage in war or war-like operations of any kind, no vote could be obtained in the legislature to provide for any military preparations. The Friends, however, were not disposed to insist so tenaciously upon their views as to be unwilling that others should act as they saw fit. It was even thought that many of them were willing to encourage and promote the measures which Franklin was pursuing for the defense of the province, so far as they could do so without directly violating their professed principles by acting personally in furtherance of them.

Various instances occurred of this tacit acquiescence on the part of the Friends in the defensive preparations which were going forward. It was proposed for example that the fire-company which has already been alluded to, should invest their surplus funds in lottery tickets, for the battery. The Friends would not vote for this measure, but a sufficient number of them absented themselves from the meeting to allow the others to carry it. In the legislature moreover, they would sometimes grant money “for the king's use” the tacit understanding being that the funds were to be employed for military purposes. At one time, before the question of appropriating the surplus funds of the fire company was disposed of, Franklin had an idea—which he proposed to one of his friends—of introducing a resolution at a meeting of the company, for purchasing a fire-engine with the money. “And then,” said he, “we will buy a cannon with it, for no one can deny that that is a fire-engine.”

Illustration: Indian Bonfire.

Soon after this Franklin went as a commissioner from the government, to make a treaty with a tribe of Indians at Carlisle, in the interior of Pennsylvania. On the night after the treaty was concluded, a great uproar was heard in the Indian camp, just without the town. The commissioners went to see what was the matter. They found that the Indians had made a great bonfire in the middle of the square around which their tents were pitched, and that all the company, men and women, were around it, shouting, quarreling and fighting. The spectacle of their dark colored bodies, half naked, and seen only by the gloomy light of the fire, running after and beating one another with firebrands, accompanied by the most unearthly yellings, presented a dreadful scene. The frenzy of the people was so great that there was no possibility of restraining it, and the commissioners were obliged to retire and leave the savages to themselves.

Illustration.

After this Franklin returned to Philadelphia and devoted his attention to a variety of plans for the improvement of the city, in all of which his characteristic ingenuity in devising means for the accomplishment of his plans, and his calm and quiet, but efficient energy in carrying them into effect, were as conspicuous as ever. One of the first enterprises in which he engaged was the founding of a hospital for the reception and cure of sick persons. The institution which he was the means of establishing has since become one of the most prominent and useful institutions of the country. He caused a petition to be prepared and presented to the Assembly, asking for a grant from the public funds in aid of this undertaking. The country members were at first opposed to the plan, thinking that it would mainly benefit the city. In order to diminish [pg 292] this opposition, Franklin framed the petition so as not to ask for a direct and absolute grant of the money that was required, but caused a resolve to be drawn up granting the sum of two thousand pounds from the public treasury on condition that the same sum should previously be raised by private subscription. Many of the members were willing to vote for this, who would not have voted for an unconditional donation; and so the vote was passed without much opposition.

After this the private subscriptions went on very prosperously; for each person who was applied to considered the conditional promise of the Assembly as an additional motive to give, since every man's donation would be doubled by the public grant, if the required amount was made up. This consideration had so powerful an influence that the subscriptions soon exceeded the requisite sum. Thus the hospital was founded.

Illustration: Poor Woman.

Franklin interested himself also in introducing plans for paving, sweeping and lighting the streets of the city. Before this time the streets had been kept in very bad condition. This was the case, in fact, at that period, in almost all cities—in those of Europe as well as those of America. In connection with this subject Franklin relates an incident that occurred when he was in London, which illustrates very strikingly both the condition of the cities in those days, and the peculiar traits of Franklin's character. It seems that he found one morning at the door of his lodgings a poor woman sweeping the pavement with a birch broom. She appeared very pale and feeble, as if just recovering from a fit of sickness. “I asked her,” says Franklin, “who employed her to sweep there.” “Nobody,” said she, “but I am poor and in distress, and I sweeps before gentlefolks' doors and hopes they will give me something.”

Instead of driving the poor woman away, Franklin set her at work to sweep the whole street clean, saying that when she had done it he would pay her a shilling. She worked diligently all the morning upon the task which Franklin had assigned her, and at noon came for her shilling. This incident, trifling as it might seem, led Franklin to a long train of reflections and calculations in respect to the sweeping of the streets of cities, and to the formation of plans which were afterward adopted with much success.

In the year 1755, Franklin became connected with the famous expedition of General Braddock in the western part of Pennsylvania, which ended so disastrously. A new war had broken out between the French and the English, and the French, who had long held possession of Canada, and had gradually been extending their posts down into the valley of the Mississippi, at length took possession of the point of confluence of the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers, where Pittsburg now stands. Here they built a fort, which they called Fort Du Quesne. From this fort, as the English allege, the French organized bands of Indians from the tribes which lived in the neighborhood, and made predatory incursions into the English colonies, especially into Pennsylvania. The English government accordingly sent General Braddock at the head of a large force, with instructions to march through the woods, take the fort, and thus put an end to these incursions.

General Braddock landed with his troops at a port in Virginia, and thence marched into Maryland on his way to Pennsylvania. He soon found himself in very serious difficulty, however, from being unable to procure wagons for the transportation of the military stores and other baggage which it was necessary to take with the army in going through such a wilderness as lay between him and fort Du Quesne. He had sent all about the country to procure wagons, but few could be obtained.

In the mean time the Assembly at Philadelphia made arrangements for Franklin to go to Maryland to meet General Braddock on his way, and give him any aid which it might be in his power to render. They were the more inclined to do this from the fact that for some time there had been a good deal of disagreement and contention between the colony of Pennsylvania and the government in England, and they had heard that General Braddock was much prejudiced against the Assembly on that account. They accordingly dispatched Franklin as their agent, to proceed to the camp and assure General Braddock of the desire of the Assembly to co-operate with him by every means in their power.

Franklin found when he reached the camp, that the general was in great trouble and perplexity for want of wagons, and he immediately undertook to procure them for him. He accordingly took a commission from the general for this purpose, and went at once to Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, and there issued circulars which he sent to all the farmers in the country, inviting [pg 293] them to bring their wagons to Lancaster, and offering them advantageous terms for the hire of them. These measures were perfectly successful. The wagons came in, in great numbers, and an abundant supply was speedily obtained. This success was owing partly to Franklin's sagacity in knowing exactly where to send for wagons, and what sort of inducements to offer to the farmers to make them willing to bring them out, and partly to the universal respect and confidence that was felt toward him personally, which led the farmers to come forward readily at his call and on his promise, when they would have been suspicious and distrustful of any offers which Braddock could have made them through any of the English officers under his command. A train of one hundred and fifty wagons, and two hundred and fifty carrying horses were very soon on their way to the camp.

Encouraged by the success of these measures, Franklin conceived of another plan to promote the comfort and welfare of Braddock's army. He procured a grant of money from the Assembly to be applied to purchasing stores for the subaltern officers, who, as he had learned, were very scantily supplied with the articles necessary for their comfort. With this money he purchased a supply of such commodities as he judged would be most useful in camp, such as coffee, tea, sugar, biscuit, butter, cheese, hams, &c., and dividing these stores into parcels, so as to make one for each officer in the army, he placed the parcels upon as many horses, and sent them to the camp. The supply intended for each officer made a load for one horse.

Illustration: Supply Horse.

Notwithstanding all these efforts, however, to promote the success of Braddock's expedition, it was destined, as is well known, to come to a very disastrous end. Braddock allowed himself to fall into an ambuscade. Here he was attacked by the Indians with terrible fury. The men stood their ground as long as possible, but finally were seized with a panic and fled in all directions. The wagoners—men who had come from the Philadelphia farms in charge of the wagons that had been furnished in answer to Franklin's call—in making their escape, took each a horse out of his team, and galloped away, and thus the wagons themselves and all the provisions, ammunition, and military stores of every kind, fell into the hands of the enemy. Braddock himself was wounded, nearly half of the troops were killed, and the whole object of the expedition was completely frustrated. The wounded general was conveyed back about forty miles to the rear, and there, a few days afterward, he died.

Illustration: Braddock's Escape.

Of course a feeling of great alarm was awakened throughout Pennsylvania as the tidings of this disaster were spread abroad. Every one was convinced that some efficient measures must at once he adopted to defend the country from the incursions of the French and Indians on the frontier. There was, however, a very serious difficulty in the way of taking such measures.

This difficulty was, an obstinate quarrel which had existed for a long time between the governor and the Assembly. The governor was appointed in England, and he represented the views and the interests of the English proprietors of the colony. The Assembly were elected by the people of the colony, and of course represented their interests and views. Now the proprietors had instructed the governor to insist that their property should not be subject to taxation; and to refuse his assent to all bills for raising money unless the property of the proprietors should be exempted. On the other hand the colonists maintained that the land belonging to the proprietors was as justly subject to taxation as any other property; and they refused to pass any bills for raising money unless the property of the proprietors was included. Thus nothing could be done.

This dispute had already been long protracted and both parties had become somewhat obstinate in their determination to maintain the ground which they had respectively taken. Even now [pg 294] when the country was in this imminent danger, it was some time before either side would yield, while each charged upon the other the responsibility of refusing to provide the means for the defense of the country.

At length, however, a sort of compromise was made. The proprietors offered to contribute a certain sum toward the public defense, and the Assembly consented to receive the contribution in lieu of a tax, and passed a law for raising money, exempting the proprietors' land from being taxed. The sum of sixty thousand pounds was thus raised, and Franklin was appointed one of the commissioners for disposing of the money.

A law was also enacted for organizing and arming a volunteer militia; and while the companies were forming, the governor persuaded Franklin to take command of the force, and proceed at the head of it to the frontier. Franklin was reluctant to undertake this military business, as his whole life had been devoted to entirely different pursuits. He, however, accepted the appointment, and undertook the defense of the frontier.

There was a settlement of Moravians about fifty or sixty miles from Philadelphia, at Bethlehem, which was then upon the frontier. Bethlehem was the principal settlement of the Moravians, but they had several villages besides. One of these villages, named GnadenhÜtten, had just been destroyed by the Indians, and the whole settlement was in great alarm. Franklin proceeded to Bethlehem with his force, and having made such arrangements and preparations as seemed necessary there, he obtained some wagons for his stores, and set off on a march to GnadenhÜtten. His object was to erect a fort and establish a garrison there.

Illustration.

It was in the dead of winter, and before the column had proceeded many miles a violent storm of rain came on, but there were no habitations along the road, and no places of shelter; so the party were obliged to proceed. They went on toiling heavily through the mud and snow.

They were of course in constant danger of an attack from the Indians, and were the more apprehensive of this from the fact that on such a march they were necessarily in a very defenseless condition. Besides, the rain fell so continually and so abundantly that the men could not keep the locks of their muskets dry. They went on, however, in this way for many hours, but at last they came to the house of a solitary German settler, and here they determined to stop for the night. The whole troop crowded into the house and into the barn, where they lay that night huddled together, and “as wet,” Franklin says, “as water could make them.” The next day, however, was fair, and they proceeded on their march in a somewhat more comfortable manner.

They arrived at length at GnadenhÜtten, where a most melancholy spectacle awaited them. The village was in ruins. The country people of the neighborhood had attempted to give the bodies of the murdered inhabitants a hurried burial; but they had only half performed their work, and the first duty which devolved on Franklin's soldiers was to complete the interment in a proper manner. The next thing to be thought of was to provide some sort of shelter for the soldiers; for they had no tents, and all the houses had been destroyed.

There was a mill near by, around which were several piles of pine boards which the Indians had not destroyed. Franklin set his troops at work to make huts of these boards, and thus in a short time his whole army was comfortably sheltered. All this was done on the day and evening of their arrival, and on the following morning the whole force was employed in commencing operations upon the fort.

The fort was to be built of palisades, and it was marked out of such a size that the circumference was four hundred and fifty-five feet. This would require four hundred and fifty-five palisades; for the palisades were to be formed of logs, of a foot in diameter upon an average, and eighteen feet long. The palisades were to be obtained from the trees in the neighborhood, and these trees were so tall that each tree would make three palisades. The men had seventy axes in all, and the most skillful and able woodmen in the company were immediately set at work to fell the trees. Franklin says that he was surprised to observe how fast these axmen would cut the trees down; and at length he had the curiosity to look at his watch when two men began to cut at a pine. They brought it down in six minutes; and on measuring it, where they had cut it off, Franklin found the diameter of the tree to be fourteen inches.

While the woodmen were cutting the palisades a large number of other laborers were employed in digging a trench all around the circumference [pg 295] of the fort to receive them. This trench was made about three feet deep, and wide enough to receive the large ends of the palisades. As fast as the palisades were cut they were brought to the spot, by means of the wagon wheels which had been separated from the wagon bodies for this purpose. The palisades were set up, close together, in the trench, and the earth was rammed in around them; thus the inclosure of the fort was soon completed.

A platform was then built all around on the inside, for the men to stand upon to fire through the loop holes which were left in the palisades above. There was one swivel gun, which the men had brought with them in one of the wagons. This gun they mounted in one corner of the fort, and as soon as they had mounted it they fired it, in order, as Franklin said, to let the Indians know, if any were within hearing, that they had such artillery.

There were Indians within hearing it seems; several bands were lurking in the neighborhood, secretly watching the movements of Franklin's command. This was found to be the case a short time after the fort was completed, for when Franklin found his army securely posted he sent out a party of scouts to explore the surrounding country to see if any traces of Indians could be found. These men saw no Indians, but they found certain places on the neighboring hills where it was evident that Indians had been lurking to watch the proceedings of the soldiers in building the fort. Franklin's men were much struck with the ingenious contrivance which the Indians had resorted to, in order to escape being observed while thus watching. As it was in the depth of the winter it was absolutely necessary for them to have a fire, and without some special precaution a fire would have betrayed them, by the light which it would emit at night, or the smoke which would rise from it by day. To avoid this, the Indians, they found, had dug holes in the ground, and made their fires in the bottoms of the holes, using charcoal only for fuel, for this would emit no smoke. They obtained the charcoal from the embers, and brands, and burnt ends of logs, which they found in the woods near by. The soldiers found by the marks on the grass around these holes that the Indians had been accustomed to sit around them upon the edges, with their feet below, near the fire.

The building and arming of such a fort, and the other military arrangements which Franklin made on the frontier produced such an impression upon the Indians that they gradually withdrew, leaving that part of the country in a tolerably secure condition. Soon after this Franklin was summoned by the governor to return to Philadelphia, as his presence and counsel were required there. He found on his arrival that he had acquired great fame by the success of his military operations. In fact quite a distinguished honor was paid to him, soon after this time, on the occasion of his going to Virginia on some public business. The officers of the regiment resolved to escort him out of the town, on the morning when he was to commence his journey. He knew nothing of this project until just as he was coming forth, when he found the officers at the door, all mounted and dressed in their uniforms. Franklin says that he was a good deal chagrined at their appearing, as he could not avoid their accompanying him, though if he had known it beforehand he should have prevented it.

Illustration: Departure.

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While Franklin was thus acquiring some considerable military renown in America, he was becoming quite celebrated as a philosopher on the continent of Europe. It seems that some years before, the library society of Philadelphia had received some articles of electrical apparatus from England, and Franklin had performed certain experiments with them which led him to believe, what had not been known before, that lightning was an electrical phenomenon. He wrote some account of his experiments, and of the views which they had led him to entertain, and sent it to the person from whom the library society had received the apparatus. These papers attracted much attention, and were at length laid before the Royal Society of London, and soon afterward published in the transactions of the Society. In this form they were seen by a distinguished French philosopher, the Count de Buffon, who caused them to be be translated into the French language and published at Paris. By this means the attention of the whole scientific world was called to Franklin's speculations, and as the correctness of his views was fully established by subsequent investigations and experiments, he acquired great renown. He was elected a member of the various scientific societies, and the Royal Society of London sent him a magnificent gold medal.

Illustration: Count de Buffon.

This medal was brought to America to be delivered to Franklin by a new Governor, Captain Denny, who was about this time appointed over the colony of Pennsylvania. The course of public business had often brought Franklin and the former governor into conflict with each other; for the governor, as has already been said, represented the interests of the English proprietors of the colony, while Franklin espoused very warmly the cause of the people. The governor often sent messages and addresses to the Assembly censuring them for the course of proceeding which they had followed in reference to taxing the proprietors' lands, and the Assembly often appointed Franklin to draw up suitable replies. The new governor seems to have been pleased with having the medal intrusted to his charge, as he intended in commencing his administration, to do all in his power to propitiate Franklin, so as to secure the great influence which the philosopher had now begun to wield in the province, in his favor.

When Governor Denny arrived at Philadelphia and entered upon the duties of his office, he determined on giving a great entertainment to the people of Philadelphia, and to take that occasion for presenting Franklin with his medal. This he accordingly did; and he accompanied the presentation with an appropriate speech, in which he complimented Franklin in a very handsome manner for his scientific attainments, and spoke in flattering terms of the renown which he was acquiring in Europe. After the dinner, he took Franklin aside into a small room, leaving the general company still at the table, and entered into conversation with him in respect to the affairs of the province and the contemplated measures of his administration. He had been advised, he said, by his friends in England, to cultivate a good understanding with Franklin, as a man capable of giving him the best advice, and of contributing most effectually to making his administration easy. He said a great deal about the friendly feeling toward the colony which was entertained by the proprietors, and about the advantage which it would be to all concerned, and to Franklin in particular, if the opposition which had been made to the proprietor's views should be discontinued, and harmony restored between them and the people of the colony.

Illustration: Franklin and Denny.

During all this time while the governor was plying his guest with these flatteries and promises, he was offering him wine and drinking his health; for the people at the dinner table, when they found that the governor did not return, [pg 297] sent a decanter of Madeira and some glasses into the room where he and Franklin were sitting. All these civilities and blandishments, however, on the part of the governor seem to have been thrown away. Franklin replied with politeness, but yet in such a manner as to evince a full determination to adhere faithfully to the cause of the colonists, in case any farther encroachments on their rights should be attempted.

In fact the breach between the people of the colony and the proprietors in England soon began to grow wider, under the administration of the new governor, than they had ever been before, until at length it was decided to send Franklin to England to lay a remonstrance and petition against the proceedings of the proprietors, before the king. Franklin accordingly took passage on board of a packet which was to sail from New York.

A great many embarrassments and delays, however, supervened before he finally set sail. In the first place, he was detained by certain negotiations which were entered into between Governors Loudoun of New York, and Denny of Philadelphia on the one part, and the Philadelphia Assembly on the other, in a vain attempt to compromise the difficulty, until the packet in which he had taken passage had sailed, carrying with her all the stores which he had laid in for the voyage. Next, he found himself detained week after week in New York by the dilatoriness and perpetual procrastination of Governor Loudoun, who kept back the packets as they came in, one after another, in order to get his dispatches prepared. He was always busy writing letters and dispatches, but they seemed never to be ready; so that it was said of him by some wags that he was like the figure of St. George upon the tavern signs, “who though always on horseback never rides on.”

Illustration: St. George Sign.

After being detained in this way several weeks, it was announced that the packets were about to sail, and the passengers were all ordered to go on board. The packets proceeded to Sandy Hook, and there anchored to wait for the governor's final dispatches. Here they were kept waiting day after day for about six weeks, so that at last the passengers' stores were consumed, and they had to obtain a fresh supply; and one of the vessels became so foul with the incrustation of shells and barnacles upon her hull, that she required to be taken into dock and cleaned. At length, however, the fleet sailed, and Franklin, after various adventures, arrived safely one foggy morning at Falmouth in England.

Illustration: The Ship.

The vessel narrowly escaped shipwreck on the Scilly Islands as they were approaching the town of Falmouth. Although the wind was not violent, the weather was very thick and hazy, and there was a treacherous current drifting them toward the rocks as they attempted to pass by the island and gain the shore. There was a watchman stationed at the bow, whose duty it was to keep a vigilant look-out. This watchman was called to from time to time by an officer on the deck, “Look out well before there,” and he as often answered “Ay, ay;” but he neglected his duty, notwithstanding, being probably half asleep at his station; for suddenly all on deck were alarmed by an outcry, and looking forward they saw the light-house which stood upon the rocks, looming up close before them. The ship was immediately brought round by a kind of manoeuvre considered very dangerous in such circumstances, but it was successful in this case, and thus they escaped the impending danger. The passengers were all aware of the peril they were in, and many of them were exceedingly alarmed. In fact, the shipmaster and the seamen considered it a very narrow escape. If the ship had gone upon the rocks, the whole company would probably have perished.

It was Sunday morning and the bells were ringing for church when the passengers landed. Franklin with the others went to church immediately, with hearts full of gratitude to God, as he says, for the deliverance which they had experienced. He then went to his inn and wrote [pg 298] a letter to his family giving them an account of his voyage.

Illustration: Franklin Writing.

A few days after this he went up to London, and began to devote himself to the business of his agency.

He found, however, that he made very slow progress in accomplishing his object, for the ministry were so much engaged with other affairs, that for a long time he could not obtain a hearing. He however was not idle. He wrote pamphlets and articles in the newspapers; and every thing that he wrote was of so original a character, and so apposite, and was moreover expressed with so much terseness and point, that it attracted great attention and acquired great influence.

In fact, Franklin was distinguished all his life for the genius and originality which he displayed in expressing any sentiments which he wished to inculcate upon mankind. One of the most striking examples of this is the celebrated Parable against persecution of which he is generally considered the author; it is as follows:

Illustration: Abraham and the Old Man.

And it came to pass after these things, that Abraham sat in the door of his tent, about the going down of the sun.

2. And behold, a man, bowed with age, came from the way of the wilderness, leaning on a staff.

3. And Abraham arose and met him, and said unto him, “Turn in, I pray thee, and wash thy feet, and tarry all night, and thou shalt arise early on the morrow, and go on thy way.”

4. But the man said, “Nay, for I will abide under this tree.”

5. And Abraham pressed him greatly; so he turned, and they went into the tent, and Abraham baked unleavened bread, and they did eat.

6. And when Abraham saw that the man blessed not God, he said unto him, “Wherefore dost thou not worship the most high God, Creator of heaven and earth?”

7. And the man answered and said, “I do not worship the God thou speakest of, neither do I call upon his name; for I have made to myself a god, which abideth alway in mine house, and provideth me with all things.”

8. And Abraham's zeal was kindled against the man, and he arose and fell upon him, and drove him forth with blows into the wilderness.

9. And at midnight God called unto Abraham, saying, “Abraham, where is the stranger?”

10. And Abraham answered and said, “Lord, he would not worship thee, neither would he call upon thy name; therefore have I driven him out from before my face into the wilderness.”

11. And God said, “Have I borne with him these hundred ninety and eight years, and nourished him, and clothed him, notwithstanding his rebellion against me; and couldst not thou, that art thyself a sinner, bear with him one night?”

This parable, the idea of which Franklin probably obtained from some ancient Persian books, he wrote out and committed to memory, and he used to amuse himself sometimes by opening the Bible, and repeating the parable as if he were reading it from that book; and he found, he said, that very few auditors were sufficiently acquainted with the contents of the sacred volume to suspect the deception.

He often expressed the sentiments which he wished to inculcate, in some unusual and striking form, as in this instance. His conversation assumed somewhat the same character, so that wherever he was, his sayings and doings always attracted great attention.

In respect to this parable on persecution, although it is generally considered as the production of Franklin, it was never really claimed as such by him. In fact, Franklin himself did not publish it. It was published without his knowledge, by a friend of his in Scotland, the celebrated Lord Kames, who inserted it in a volume of his writings, saying it was “furnished to him” by Franklin. Lord Kames resided in Scotland, and Franklin became acquainted with him during a visit which he made to that country in the summer of 1759. Lord Kames became very greatly interested in Franklin's character, and a warm friendship and constant correspondence was kept up between the two philosophers for many years, as long, in fact, as Lord Kames lived; for Franklin was the survivor.

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Illustration: Mrs. Stevenson.

Franklin's residence while he was in London was in Craven-street, near the Strand, at the house of a Mrs. Stevenson. This house is still commemorated in the London Guide Books, among other places of historical interest in the metropolis, on account of its having been the home of the distinguished philosopher so long. Franklin lived on very friendly terms with Mrs. Stevenson and her family, while he remained in her house, and he interested himself in the studies and instruction of her daughter. At the same time he kept up a constant and familiar correspondence with his wife and family at home. One of his sons was with him during his residence in England having accompanied him when he came over. His friends were very desirous that he should send for his wife to come to England too, and more especially his daughter Sally, who was a very attractive and agreeable young lady, just arrived to years of woman-hood. One of Franklin's most intimate friends, Mr. Strahan, a member of Parliament, wrote to Mrs. Franklin very urgently requesting her to come to England with her daughter. Franklin himself, however, seems not to have seconded this proposition very strongly. He knew, in the first place, that his wife had an irresistible repugnance to undertaking a sea voyage, and then he was continually hoping that the long and weary negotiations in which he was engaged would be brought soon to an end, so that he could return himself to his native land.

At length, after an infinite variety of difficulties and delays, the object for which Franklin had been sent to England was in the main accomplished. It was decided that the lands of the proprietors should be taxed as well as the property of the colonists. There were several other measures which he had been desirous of securing, which he found then impracticable. Still his object in the main was accomplished, and the Assembly were well satisfied with what he had done. He accordingly concluded to return to America.

He left England about the end of August, in 1762, in company with ten sail of merchant ships under convoy of a man-of-war. They touched at Madeira on the passage, where they were very kindly received by the inhabitants, and Franklin was very much interested in the observations which he made on the island and its productions. After remaining on the island for a few days, and furnishing the ships with provisions and refreshments of all kinds, the ships sailed again. They proceeded southward until they reached the trade winds, and then westward toward the coast of America. All this time the weather was so favorable, and the water was so smooth, that there were very few days when the passengers could [pg 300] not visit from ship to ship, dining with each other on board the different vessels, which made the time pass very agreeably; “much more so,” as Franklin said, “than when one goes in a single ship, as this was like traveling in a moving village with all one's neighbors about one.”

He arrived at home on the 1st of November, after an absence of between five and six years. He found his wife and daughter well—the latter, as he says, grown to quite a woman, and with many amiable accomplishments, acquired during his absence. He was received too with great distinction by the public authorities and by the people of Philadelphia. The Assembly voted him twelve thousand pounds for his services, and also passed a vote of thanks, to be presented to him in public by the Speaker. His friends came in great numbers to see him and congratulate him on his safe return, so that his house for many days was filled with them. Besides these public and private honors bestowed upon himself, Franklin experienced an additional satisfaction also at this time on account of the distinction to which his son was attaining. His son had been appointed Governor of New Jersey just before his father left England, and he remained behind when his father sailed, in order to be married to a very agreeable West India lady to whom he had proposed himself, with his father's consent and approbation. The young governor and his bride arrived in Philadelphia a few months after Franklin himself came home. Franklin accompanied his son to New Jersey, where he had the pleasure of seeing him warmly welcomed by people of all ranks, and then left him happily established in his government there.

Soon after this Franklin, who still held the office of postmaster for the colonies, turned his attention to the condition of the post-office, and concluded to make a tour of inspection with reference to this business in all the colonies north of Philadelphia. He took his daughter with him on this journey, although it was likely to be a very long and fatiguing one. He traveled in a wagon, accompanied by a saddle horse. His daughter rode on this horse for a considerable part of the journey. At the beginning of it she rode on the horse only occasionally; but, as she became accustomed to the exercise, she found it more and more agreeable, and on the journey home she traveled in this manner nearly all the way from Rhode Island to Philadelphia.

Illustration: Travelling by Wagon.

Not long after this time new Indian difficulties occurred on the frontiers, which called for the raising of a new military force to suppress them. A law was accordingly proposed in the Assembly for providing the necessary funds for this purpose by a tax. And now it was found that the question which Franklin had been sent to Europe to arrange, namely, the question of taxing the proprietary lands had not, after all, been so definitely settled as was supposed. The language of the law was this: “The uncultivated lands of the proprietaries shall not be assessed higher than the lowest rate at which any uncultivated lands belonging to the inhabitants shall be assessed;” and on attempting to determine the practical application of this language, it was found to be susceptible of two interpretations. The Assembly understood it to mean that the land of the proprietaries should not be taxed higher than that of any of the inhabitants, of the same quality. Whereas the governor insisted that the meaning must be that none of the proprietaries' land should be taxed any higher than the lowest and poorest belonging to any of the inhabitants. The language of the enactment is, perhaps, susceptible of either construction. It will certainly bear the one which the governor put upon it, and as he insisted, in the most absolute and determined manner, upon his view of the question, the Assembly were at length compelled to yield; for the terrible danger which impended over the colony from the Indians on the frontier would not admit of delay.

The people of the colony, though thus beaten in the contest and forced to submit, were by no means disposed to submit peaceably. On the contrary a very general feeling of indignation and resentment took possession of the community, and at length it was determined to send a petition to the King of Great Britain, praying him to dispossess the proprietaries of the power which they were so obstinately determined on abusing, and to assume the government of the colonies himself, as a prerogative of the crown. The coming to this determination on the part of the colony was not effected without a great deal of debate, and political animosity and contention, for the governor of course had a party on his side, and they exerted themselves to the utmost to prevent the adoption of the petition. It was, however, carried against all opposition. The Speaker of the Assembly [pg 301] however, refused to sign the bill when it was passed, and he resigned his office to avoid the performance of this duty, an act which would of course greatly please the proprietary party. The majority of the Assembly then elected Franklin Speaker, and he at once signed the bill. This proceeding made Franklin specially obnoxious to the proprietary party, and at the next election of members of the Assembly they made every possible effort in Franklin's district to prevent his being chosen. They succeeded. Franklin lost his election by about twenty-five votes out of four thousand. But though the proprietary interest was thus the strongest in Franklin's district, it was found when the new Assembly came together that the party that was opposed to them was in a majority of two-thirds; and in order to rebuke their opponents for the efforts which they had made to defeat Franklin in his district, they immediately passed a vote to send him to England again, as a special messenger, to present the petition which they had voted, to the king.

Illustration: Church.

The animosity and excitement which attended this contest was of course extreme, and the character and the whole political course of Franklin, were assailed by his enemies with all the violence and pertinacity that characterize political contests of this kind at the present day. Franklin, however, bore it all very good-naturedly. Just before he sailed, after he had left Philadelphia to repair to the ship, which was lying some distance down the river, he wrote a very affectionate letter to his daughter to bid her farewell and give her his parting counsels. “You know,” said he, in this letter, “that I have many enemies, all, indeed, on the public account (for I can not recollect that I have in a private capacity given just cause of offense to any one whatever), yet they are enemies, and very bitter ones; and you must expect their enmity will extend in some degree to you, so that your slightest indiscretions will be magnified into crimes, in order the more sensibly to wound and afflict me. It is, therefore, the more necessary for you to be extremely circumspect in all your behavior, that no advantage may be given to their malevolence.” Then followed various counsels relating to her duty to her mother, her general deportment, her studies, and her obligations to the church. The church with which Franklin was connected was of the Episcopal denomination, and he took a great interest in its prosperity; though he manifested the same liberality and public spirit here as in all the other relations that he sustained. At one time, for example, it was proposed by certain members of the congregation to form a sort of colony, and build a new church in another place. A portion of the people opposed this plan as tending to weaken the mother church, but Franklin favored it, thinking that in the end the measure would have a contrary effect from the one they apprehended. He compared it to the swarming of bees, by which, he said, the comfort and prosperity of the old hive was increased, and a new and flourishing colony established to keep the parent stock in countenance. Very few persons, at that period, would have seen either the expediency or the duty of pursuing such a course in respect to the colonization of a portion of a church: though now such views are very extensively entertained by all liberal minded men, and many such colonies are now formed from thriving churches, with the concurrence of all concerned.

Illustration: Assembled upon the wharf.

But to return to the voyage. Franklin was to embark on board his ship at Chester, a port situated down the river from Philadelphia, on the confines of the State of Delaware. A cavalcade of three hundred people from Philadelphia accompanied him to Chester, and a great company assembled upon the wharf, when the vessel was about to sail, to take leave of their distinguished countryman and wish him a prosperous voyage. The crowd thus assembled saluted Franklin with acclamations and cheers, as the boat which was to convey him to the vessel slowly moved away from the shore. The day of his sailing was the 7th of November, 1764, about two years after his return from his former visit.

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The voyage across the Atlantic was a prosperous one, notwithstanding that it was so late in the season. Franklin wrote a letter home to give his wife and daughter an account of his voyage, before he left the vessel. On landing he proceeded to London, and went directly to his old landlady's, at Mrs. Stevenson's, in Craven-street, Strand. When the news of his safe arrival reached Philadelphia, the people of the city celebrated the event by ringing the bells, and other modes of public rejoicing. The hostility which had been manifested toward him had operated to make him a greater favorite than ever.

Franklin now began to turn his attention toward the business of his agency. He had not been long in England, however, before difficulties grew up between the colonies and the mother country, which proved to be of a far more serious character than those which had been discussed at Philadelphia. Parliament claimed the right to tax the colonies. The colonies maintained that their own legislatures alone had this right, and a long and obstinate dispute ensued. The English government devised all sorts of expedients to assess the taxes in such a way that the Americans should be compelled to pay them; and the Americans on their part met these attempts by equally ingenious and far more effectual contrivances for evading the payment. For a time the Americans refused to use any British commodities, in order that the people of England might see that by the persisting of the government in their determination to tax the colonies, they would lose a very valuable trade. Franklin joined in this effort, insomuch that for a long time he would not make purchases in England of any articles to send home to his family. At length the difficulty was in some measure compromised. One of the most obnoxious of the acts of Parliament for taxing America was repealed, and then for the first time Franklin purchased and sent home to his wife and daughter quite a trunk full of dresses—silks, satins, and brocade—with gloves, and bottles of lavender water, and other such niceties to fill the corners. He told her, in the letter which he sent with this trunk, that, as the Stamp Act was repealed, he was now willing that she should have a new gown.

Illustration: The Gown.

In fact the great philosopher's attention was attracted at this time in some degree to the effect of dress upon his own personal appearance, for on making a visit to Paris, which he did toward the close of 1767, he says that the French tailor and perruquier so transformed him as to make him appear twenty years younger than he really was.

Illustration: Twenty Years Younger.

Franklin received a great deal of attention while he was in Paris, and he seems to have enjoyed his visit there very highly. The most distinguished men in the walks of literature and science sought his society, for they all knew well his reputation as a philosopher; and many of them had read his writings and had repeated the experiments which he had made, and which had awakened so deep an interest throughout the whole learned world. Franklin received too, many marks of distinction and honor from the public men of France—especially from those who were connected with the government. It was supposed that they had been watching the progress of the disputes between England and her colonies, and secretly hoping that these disputes might end in an open rupture; for such a rupture they thought would end in weakening the power of their ancient rival. Sympathizing thus with the party in this contest which Franklin represented, they naturally felt a special interest in him. Franklin was presented at court, and received into the most distinguished society in the metropolis.

After a time he returned again to England, but he found when he arrived there that the state of things between the English government and the [pg 303] American colonies was growing worse instead of better. Parliament insisted on its right “to bind the colonies,” as their resolve expressed it, “in all cases whatsoever.” The Americans, on the other hand, were more and more determined to resist such a claim. Parliament adopted measures more and more stringent every day, to compel the colonies to submit. They passed coercive laws; they devised ingenious modes of levying taxes; they sent out troops, and in every possible way strengthened the military position of the government in America. The colonists, on the other hand, began to evince the most determined spirit of hostility to the measures of the mother country. They held great public assemblages; they passed violent resolves; they began to form extensive and formidable combinations for resisting or evading the laws. Thus every thing portended an approaching conflict.

Franklin exerted all his power and influence for a long time in attempting to heal the breach. He wrote pamphlets and articles in the newspapers in England defending, though in a tone of great candor and moderation, the rights of America, and urging the ministry and people of England not to persist in their attempts at coercion. At the same time he wrote letters to America, endeavoring to diminish the violence of the agitation there, in hopes that by keeping back the tide of excitement and passion which was so rapidly rising, some mode of adjustment might be found to terminate the difficulty. All these efforts were, however, in vain. The quarrel grew wider and more hopeless every day.

About this time the administration of the colonial affairs for the English government was committed to a new officer, Lord Hillsborough, who was now made Secretary of State for America; and immediately new negotiations were entered into, and new schemes formed, for settling the dispute. Two or three years thus passed away, but nothing was done. At length Lord Hillsborough seems to have conceived the idea of winning over Franklin's influence to the side of the English government by compliments and flattering attentions. He met him one morning in Dublin, at the house of the Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, where he paid him special civilities, and invited him in the most cordial manner to visit him at his country mansion at Hillsborough, in the north of England. Franklin was then contemplating a journey northward, and in the course of this journey he stopped at Hillsborough. He and his party were received with the greatest attention by his lordship, and detained four days, during which time Franklin was loaded with civilities.

If these attentions were really designed to make Franklin more manageable, as the representative of the colonies in the contest that was going on, they wholly failed of their object; for in the negotiations which followed, Franklin continued as firm and intractable as ever. In fact, not long after this, he came directly into conflict with Lord Hillsborough before the Board of Trade, when a certain measure relating to the colony—one which Lord Hillsborough strongly opposed, and Franklin as strenuously advocated—was in debate. At last after a long contest Franklin gained the day; and this result so changed his lordship's sentiments toward Franklin that for some time he treated him with marked rudeness. At one time Franklin called to pay his respects to Lord Hillsborough on a day when his lordship was holding a levee, and when there were a number of carriages at the door. Franklin's coachman drove up, alighted, and was opening the carriage for Franklin to dismount, when the porter came out, and in the most supercilious and surly manner rebuked the coachman for opening the door of the carriage before he had inquired whether his lordship was at home; and then turning to Franklin he said, “My lord is not at home.”

Illustration: Franklin and Hillsborough.

Lord Hillsborough, however, recovered from his resentment after this, in the course of a year; and at length on one occasion his lordship called upon Franklin in his room, and accosted him in a very cordial and friendly manner, as if no difficulty between them had ever occurred.

In the mean time the determination in America to resist the principle of the supremacy of Parliament over the colonies, became more and more extended. A disposition was manifested by the several colonies to combine their efforts for this end, and one after another of them sent out commissions to Franklin to act as their agent, as well as agent for Pennsylvania. Things went on in this way until a certain tragical affair occurred in Boston, known generally in American accounts of these events as the Boston massacre, which greatly increased the popular excitement among the people of the colonies.

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This massacre, as it was called, was the shooting of some persons in a crowd in State-street in Boston, by the British soldiers. It originated thus: A company of boys one day undertook to burn effigies of certain merchants who persisted in importing British goods and secretly selling them, thus taking sides as it were against their countrymen in the contest that was going on. While doing this a man whom they considered a spy and informer came by; and the boys, in some way or other, became involved in a quarrel with him. The man retreated to his house; the boys followed him and threw snow-balls and pieces of ice at the house when he had gone in. The man brought a gun to the window and shot one of the boys dead on the spot.

Illustration: Boston Massacre.

This of course produced a very intense excitement throughout the city. The soldiers naturally took part with those supposed to favor British interests; this exasperated the populace against them, and finally, after various collisions, a case occurred in which the British officer deemed it his duty to order the troops to fire upon a crowd of people that were assembled to taunt and threaten them, and pelt them with ice and snow. They had been led to assemble thus, through some quarrel that had sprung up between a sentinel and one of the young men of the town. In the firing three men were killed outright, and two more were mortally wounded. The killing of these men was called a massacre, and the tidings of it produced a universal and uncontrollable excitement throughout the provinces.

Illustration: Lord Chatham.

In proportion, however, as the spirit of resistance to British rule manifested itself in America, the determination became more and more firm and decided on the part of the British government not to yield. It is a point of honor with all governments, and especially with monarchical governments, not to give way in the slightest degree to what they call rebellion. There were, however, a few among the British statesmen who foresaw the impossibility of subduing the spirit which was manifesting itself in America, by any force which could be brought to bear upon so distant and determined a population. Lord Chatham was one of these; and he actually brought forward in Parliament, in 1775, just before the revolution broke out, a bill for withdrawing the troops from Boston as the first step toward a conciliatory course of measures. Franklin was present in Parliament, by Chatham's particular request, at the time when this motion was brought forward. In the speech which Lord Chatham made on this occasion, he alluded to Franklin, and spoke of him in the highest terms. The motion was advocated too, by Lord Camden, another of the British peers, [pg 305] who made an able speech in favor of it. On the other hand it was most violently opposed by other speakers, and Franklin himself was assailed by one of them in very severe terms. When the vote came to be taken, it was lost by a large majority; and thus all hope of any thing like a reconciliation disappeared.

Illustration: Lord Camden.

A great variety of ingenious devices were resorted to from time to time to propitiate Franklin, and to secure his influence in America, in favor of some mode of settling the difficulty, which would involve submission on the part of the colonies. He was for example quite celebrated for his skill in playing chess, and at one time he was informed that a certain lady of high rank desired to play chess with him, thinking that she could beat him. He of course acceded to this request and played several games with her. The lady was a sister of Lord Howe, a nobleman who subsequently took a very active and important part in the events of the revolution. It turned out in the end that this plan of playing chess was only a manoeuvre to open the way for Franklin's visiting at Mrs. Howe's house, in order that Lord Howe himself might there have the opportunity of conferring with him on American affairs without attracting attention. Various conferences were accordingly held between Franklin and Lord Howe, at this lady's house, and many other similar negotiations were carried on with various other prominent men about this time, but they led to nothing satisfactory. In fact, the object of them all was to bring over Franklin to the British side of the question, and to induce him to exert his almost unlimited influence with the colonies to bring them over. But nothing of this sort could be done.

Illustration: Mrs. Howe.

Ten years had now passed away since Franklin went to England, and it began to appear very obvious that the difficulties in which his mission had originated, could not be settled, but would soon lead to an open rupture between the colonies and the mother country. Franklin of course concluded that for him to remain any longer in England would be of no avail. He had hitherto exerted all his power to promote a settlement of the dispute, and had endeavored to calm the excitement of the people at home, and restrain them from the adoption of any rash or hasty measures. He now, however, gave up all hope of a peaceable settlement of the question, and returned to America prepared to do what lay in his power to aid his countrymen in the approaching struggle.

It was in May, 1775, that Franklin arrived in Philadelphia, just about the time that open hostilities were commenced between the colonies and the mother country. Though he was now quite advanced in age, being about seventy years old, he found himself called to the discharge of the most responsible and arduous duties. A Continental Congress had been summoned—to consist of delegates from all the colonies. Franklin was elected, on the next day after his arrival, as a member of this body, and he entered at once upon the discharge of the duties which his position brought upon him, and prosecuted them in the most efficient manner. In all the measures which were adopted by Congress for organizing and arming the country, he took a very prominent and conspicuous part. In fact so high was the estimation in which he was held, on account of his wisdom and experience, and the far-reaching sagacity which characterized all his doings, that men were not willing to allow any important business to be transacted without his concurrence; and at length, notwithstanding his advanced age, for he was now, as has been said, about seventy years old, they proposed to send him as a commissioner into Canada.

The province of Canada had not hitherto evinced a disposition to take part with the other colonies in the contest which had been coming on, and now Congress, thinking it desirable to secure the co-operation of that colony if possible, decided on sending a commission there to confer with the people, and endeavor to induce them to join the general confederation. Franklin was appointed at the head of this commission. He readily consented to accept the appointment, though for a man of his years the journey, long as it was, and leading through such a wilderness as then intervened, was a very formidable undertaking. So few were the facilities for traveling in those days that it required five or six weeks to make the journey. The commissioners left Philadelphia on the 20th of March, and did not reach Montreal until near the end of April. In fact after commencing the journey, and finding how fatiguing and how protracted it was likely to be, Franklin felt some doubt whether he should ever live to return; and when he reached Saratoga [pg 306] he wrote to a friend, saying that he began to apprehend that he had undertaken a fatigue which at his time of life might prove too much for him; and so he had taken paper, he said, to write to a few friends by way of farewell.

He did, however, safely return, after a time, though unfortunately the mission proved unsuccessful. The Canadians were not disposed to join the confederation.

At length early in the spring of 1776 the leading statesmen of America came to the conclusion that the end of the contest in which they were engaged must be the absolute and final separation of the colonies from the mother country, and the establishment of an independent government for America. When this was resolved upon, a committee of five members of Congress, namely Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Livingston, were appointed a committee to prepare a declaration of independence. The original resolution, on the basis of which the appointment of this committee was made, was as follows:

“Resolved, That these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states, and that all political connection between them and Great Britain is, and of right ought to be totally dissolved.”

Illustration: The Committee.

This resolution was first proposed and debated on the 8th of June. Some of the provinces were however found to be not quite prepared for such a measure, and so the debate was adjourned. The vote was finally taken on the 1st of July, and carried by a majority of nine out of thirteen colonies. Pennsylvania and South Carolina were against it; Delaware was divided; and New York did not vote, on account of some informality in the instructions of her delegates.

In the mean time the committee had proceeded to the work of drawing up the declaration of independence. Jefferson was appointed to write the document, and he, when he had prepared his draft, read it in committee meeting for the consideration of the other members. The committee approved the draft substantially as Jefferson had written it, and it was accordingly reported to Congress and was adopted by the vote of all the colonies.

For by the time that the final and decisive vote was to be taken, the delegates from all the colonies had received fresh instructions from their constituents, or fresh intelligence in respect to the state of public sentiment in the communities which they represented, so that at last the concurrence of the colonies was unanimous in the act of separation; and all the members present on the 4th of July, the day on which the declaration was passed, excepting one, signed the paper; thus making themselves individually and personally responsible for it, under the awful pains and penalties of treason.

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In connection with these discussions in relations to the declaration of independence, a curious instance is preserved of the tone of good humor and pleasantry which always marked the intercourse which Franklin held with others, even in cases where interests of the most momentous importance were concerned. When Jefferson had read his draft in the presence of the committee, the several members had various suggestions to make, and amendments to propose, as is usual in such cases; while the author, as is also equally usual, was very sensitive to these criticisms, and was unwilling to consent to any changing of his work. At length Jefferson appearing to be quite annoyed by the changes proposed, Franklin consoled him by saying that his case was not quite so bad, after all, as that of John Thompson, the hatter. “He wrote a sign,” said Franklin, “to be put up over his door, which read thus, ‘John Thompson makes and sells hats for ready money.’ On showing his work to his friends they one and all began to amend it. The first proposed to strike out ‘for ready money,’ since it was obvious, he said, that if a hatter sold hats at all he would be glad to sell them for ready money. Another thought the words ‘makes and sells hats,’ superfluous—that idea being conveyed in the word ‘hatter;’ and finally a third proposed to expunge the ‘hatter,’ and put the figure of a hat after the name, instead, which he said would be equally well understood, and be more striking. Thus the composition was reduced from ‘John Thompson, hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money,’ to simply ‘John Thompson,’ with the figure of a hat subjoined.” The whole story was perhaps fabricated by Franklin on the spot, for the occasion. It answered its purpose, however, perfectly. Jefferson laughed, and his good-humor was restored.

In the mean time during the summer of 1776 the hostile operations which had been commenced between the new government and the parent state were prosecuted on both sides with great vigor. Great Britain however did not yet give up all hope of persuading the revolted provinces to return. The English government sent out Lord Howe with instructions to communicate with the leading men in America and endeavor to effect some accommodation of the difficulty. When Lord Howe arrived in this country he attempted to open communications with the Americans through Franklin, but insuperable difficulties were encountered at the outset. Lord Howe could only treat with the American authorities as private persons in a state of rebellion, and the offers he made were offers of pardon. The American government indignantly rejected all such propositions. In a letter which he wrote in reply to Lord Howe Franklin says, “Directing pardons to be offered to the colonies, who are the very parties injured, expresses indeed that opinion of our ignorance, baseness, and insensibility, which your uninformed and proud nation has long been pleased to entertain of us: but it can have no other effect than that of increasing our resentment.” Of course all hope of an accommodation was soon abandoned, and both parties began to give their whole attention to the means for a vigorous prosecution of the war.

Illustration.

The American government soon turned their thoughts to the subject of forming some foreign alliance to help them in the impending struggle; and they presently proposed to send Franklin to France to attempt to open a negotiation for this purpose with the government of that country. Franklin was now very far advanced in life and his age and infirmities would naturally have prompted him to desire repose—but he did not decline the duty to which he was thus called; and all aged men should learn from his example that they are not to consider the work of life as ended, so long as any available health and strength remain.

Franklin arrived in Paris in the middle of winter in 1776. He traveled on this expedition wholly as a private person, his appointment as commissioner to the court of France having been kept a profound secret, for obvious reasons. He however, immediately entered into private negotiations with the French ministry, and though he found the French government disposed to afford the Americans such indirect aid as could be secretly rendered, they were not yet willing to form any alliance with them, or to take any open ground in their favor. While this state of things continued, Franklin, of course, and his brother commissioners could not be admitted to the French court; but though they were all the time in secret communication with the government, they assumed the position at Paris of private gentlemen residing at the great capital for their pleasure.

Notwithstanding his being thus apparently in private life, Franklin was a very conspicuous object of public attention at Paris. His name and fame had been so long before the world, and his character and manners were invested with so singular a charm, that he was universally known and admired; all ranks and classes of people were full of enthusiasm for the venerable American philosopher. Pictures, busts, and medallions of the illustrious Franklin were met on every hand. He was received into the very highest [pg 308] society, being welcomed by all circles with the greatest cordiality and interest.

Illustration: In Paris.

At length, after the lapse of about a year, the progress of the Americans in making good their defense against the armies of the mother country was so decided, that it began to appear very probable that the independence of the country would be maintained, and the French government deemed that it would be safe for them to enter into treaties of commerce and friendship with the new state. This was accordingly done in February, 1778, though it necessarily involved the consequence of a war with England.

When these treaties were at length signed, Franklin and the two other commissioners were formally presented at court, where they were received by the French monarch as the acknowledged representatives of an independent and sovereign power, now for the first time taking her place among the nations of the earth. This was an event in the life of Franklin of the highest interest and importance, since the open negotiations of the American government by France made the success of the country, in its effort to achieve its independence, almost certain, and thus it was the seal and consummation of all that he had been so laboriously toiling to accomplish for fifty years. For we may safely say that the great end and aim of Franklin's life, the one object which he kept constantly in view, and to which all his efforts tended from the beginning to the end of his public career, was the security of popular rights and popular liberty against the encroachments of aristocratic prerogative and power; and the establishment of the independence of these United States, which he saw thus happily settled at last, sealed and secured this object for half the world.

As soon as the event of the acknowledgment of the independence of the United States of America, by the French government transpired, the whole subject of the conflict between the late colonies and the mother country assumed a new aspect before mankind. The British government became now more desirous than ever to contrive some means of settling the dispute without entirely losing so important a portion of their ancient dominion. A great many applications were made to Franklin, by the secret agents of the British government, with a view of drawing off the Americans from their alliance with the French, and making a separate peace with them. Franklin, however, would listen to no such proposals, but on the contrary, made them all known to the French government.

Another consequence of the recognition of American independence was that a large number of young French gentlemen desired to proceed to America and join the army there. Many of them applied to Franklin for commissions—more in fact than could possibly be received. Among [pg 309] those who were successful was the Marquis de La Fayette, then a young man, who came to this country with letters of recommendation from Franklin, and who afterward distinguished himself so highly in the war.

Illustration: La Fayette.

After this, Franklin remained in France for several years, at first as commissioner, and afterward as minister plenipotentiary of the government at the French court, during all which time the most arduous and the most responsible public duties devolved upon him. He concluded most important negotiations with other foreign powers. He received of the French government and transmitted to America vast sums of money to be used in the prosecution of the war. He conferred with various other commissioners and embassadors who were sent out from time to time from the government at home. In a word, there devolved upon him day by day, an uninterrupted succession of duties of the most arduous and responsible character.

Illustration: Printing Office.

It is a curious illustration of the manner in which the tastes and habits of early life come back in old age, that Franklin was accustomed at this time, for recreation, to amuse himself with a little printing office, which he caused to be arranged at his lodgings—on a small scale it is true—but sufficiently complete to enable him to live his youth over again, as it were, in bringing back old associations and thoughts to his mind by giving himself up to his ancient occupations. The things that he printed in this little office were all trifles, as he called them, and were only intended for the amusement of his friends; but the work of producing them gave him great pleasure.

The time at length arrived when England began to conclude that it would be best for her to give up the attempt to reduce her revolted colonies to subjection again; and negotiations for peace were commenced at Paris, at first indirectly and informally, and afterward in a more open and decided manner. In these negotiations Franklin of course took a very prominent part. In fact the conclusion and signing of the great treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States, by which the independence of this nation was finally and fully acknowledged, was the last crowning act of Franklin's official career. The treaty was signed in 1783, and thus the work of the great statesman's life was ended. His public life, in fact, began and ended with the beginning and the end of that great protracted struggle by which the American nation was ushered into being. His history is then simply the history of the establishment of American independence; and when this work was achieved his duty was done.

Soon after the peace was made, Franklin prepared to take leave of France, in order to return to his native land. He had contemplated a tour over the continent before going back to America, but the increasing infirmities of age prevented the realization of this plan. When the time arrived for leaving Paris, almost all the rank, fashion, and wealth of the city gathered around him to bid him farewell. He was borne in the queen's palanquin to Havre, and accompanied on the journey by numerous friends. From Havre he crossed the channel to Southampton, and there took passage in the London packet for Philadelphia.

The voyage occupied a period of forty-eight days, at the end of which time the ship anchored just below Philadelphia. The health-officer of the port went on board, and finding no sickness gave the passengers leave to land. The passengers accordingly left the ship in a boat, and landed at the Market-street wharf, where crowds of people were assembled, who received Franklin with loud acclamations, and accompanied him through the streets, with cheers and rejoicings, to his door.

In a word, the great philosopher and statesman, on his return to his native land, received the welcome he deserved, and spent the short period that still remained to him on earth, surrounded by his countrymen and friends, the object of universal respect and veneration. But great as was the veneration which was felt for his name and memory then, it is greater now, and it will be greater and greater still, at the end of every succeeding century, as long as any written records of our country's early history remain.

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Though, after the Battle of the Pyramids, Napoleon was the undisputed master of Egypt, still much was to be accomplished in pursuing the desperate remnants of the Mamelukes, and in preparing to resist the overwhelming forces which it was to be expected that England and Turkey would send against him. Mourad Bey had retreated with a few thousand of his horsemen into Upper Egypt. Napoleon dispatched General Desaix, with two thousand men, to pursue him. After several terribly bloody conflicts, Desaix took possession of all of Upper Egypt as far as the cataracts. Imbibing the humane and politic sentiments of Napoleon, he became widely renowned and beloved for his justice and his clemency. A large party of scientific men accompanied the military division, examining every object of interest, and taking accurate drawings of those sphinxes, obelisks, temples, and sepulchral monuments, which, in solitary grandeur, have withstood the ravages of four thousand years. To the present hour, the Egyptians remember with affection, the mild and merciful, yet efficient government of Desaix. They were never weary with contrasting it with the despotism of the Turks.

Illustration: The Escape from the Red Sea.

In the mean time Napoleon, in person, made an expedition to Suez, to inspect the proposed route of a canal to connect the waters of the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. With indefatigable activity of mind he gave orders for the construction of new works to fortify the harbor of Suez, and commenced the formation of an infant marine. One day, with quite a retinue, he made an excursion to that identical point of the Red Sea which, as tradition reports, the children of Israel crossed three thousand years ago. The tide was out, and he passed over to the Asiatic shore upon extended flats. Various objects of interest engrossed his attention until late in the afternoon, when he commenced his return. The twilight faded away, and darkness came rapidly on. The party lost their path, and, as they were wandering, bewildered among the sands, the rapidly returning tide surrounded them. The darkness of the night increased, and the horses floundered deeper and deeper in the rising waves The water reached the girths of the saddles, and dashed upon the feet of the riders, and destruction seemed inevitable. From this perilous position Napoleon extricated himself, by that presence of mind, and promptness of decision, which seemed never to fail him. It was an awful hour and an awful scene. And yet, amidst the darkness and the rising waves of apparently a shoreless ocean, the spirit of Napoleon was as unperturbed as if he were reposing in slippered ease upon his sofa. He collected his escort around him, in concentric circles, each horseman facing outward, and ranged in several rows. He then ordered them to advance, each in a straight line. When the horse of the leader of one of these columns lost his foothold, and began to swim, the column drew back, and followed in the direction of another column, which had not yet lost the firm ground. The radii, thus thrown out in every direction, were thus successively withdrawn, till all were following in the direction of one column, which had a stable footing. Thus escape was effected. The horses did not reach the shore until midnight, when they were wading breast deep in the swelling waves. The tide [pg 311] rises on that part of the coast to the height of twenty-two feet. “Had I perished in that manner, like Pharaoh,” said Napoleon, “it would have furnished all the preachers of Christendom with a magnificent text against me.”

England, animated in the highest degree by the great victory of Aboukir, now redoubled her exertions to concentrate all the armies of Europe upon Republican France. Napoleon had been very solicitous to avoid a rupture with the Grand Seignor at Constantinople. The Mamelukes who had revolted against his authority had soothed the pride of the Ottoman Porte, and purchased peace by paying tribute. Napoleon proposed to continue the tribute, that the revenues of the Turkish Empire might not be diminished by the transfer of the sovereignty of Egypt from the oppressive Mamelukes to better hands. The Sultan was not sorry to see the Mamelukes punished, but he looked with much jealousy upon the movements of a victorious European army so near his throne. The destruction of the French fleet deprived Napoleon of his ascendency in the Levant, and gave the preponderance to England. The agents of the British government succeeded in rousing Turkey to arms, to recover a province which the Mamelukes had wrested from her, before Napoleon took it from the Mamelukes. Russia also, with her barbaric legions, was roused by the eloquence of England, to rush upon the French Republic in this day of disaster. Her troops crowded down from the north to ally themselves with the turbaned Turk, for the extermination of the French in Egypt. Old enmities were forgotten, as Christians and Mussulmans grasped hands in friendship, forgetting all other animosities in their common hatred and dread of Republicanism. The Russian fleet crowded down from the Black Sea, through the Bosphorus, to the Golden Horn, where, amidst the thunders of artillery, and the acclamations of the hundreds of thousands who throng the streets of Constantinople, Pera, and Scutari, it was received into the embrace of the Turkish squadron. It was indeed a gorgeous spectacle as, beneath the unclouded splendor of a September sun, this majestic armament swept through the beautiful scenery of the Hellespont. The shores of Europe and Asia, separated by this classic strait, were lined with admiring spectators, as the crescent and the cross, in friendly blending, fluttered together in the breeze. The combined squadron emerged into the Mediterranean, to co-operate with the victorious fleet of England, which was now the undisputed mistress of the sea. Religious animosities the most inveterate, and national antipathies the most violent were reconciled by the pressure of a still stronger hostility to those principles of popular liberty which threatened to overthrow the despotism both of the Sultan and the Czar. The Grand Seignor had assembled an army of twenty thousand men at Rhodes. They were to be conveyed by the combined fleet to the shores of Egypt, and there effect a landing under cover of its guns. Another vast army was assembled in Syria, to march down upon the French by way of the desert, and attack them simultaneously with the forces sent by the fleet. England, and the emissaries of the Bourbons, with vast sums of money accumulated from the European monarchies, were actively co-operating upon the Syrian coast, by landing munitions of war, and by supplying able military engineers. The British Government was also accumulating a vast army in India, to be conveyed by transports up the Red Sea, and to fall upon the French in their rear. England also succeeded in forming a new coalition with Austria, Sardinia, Naples, and other minor European states to drive the French out of Italy, and with countless numbers to invade the territory of France. Thus it would be in vain for the Directory to attempt even to send succors to their absent general. And it was not doubted that Napoleon, thus assailed in diverse quarters by overpowering numbers, would fall an easy prey to his foes. Thus suddenly and portentously peril frowned upon France from every quarter.

Mourad Bey, animated by this prospect of the overthrow of his victorious foes, formed a widespread conspiracy, embracing all the friends of the Mamelukes and of the Turks. Every Frenchman was doomed to death, as in one hour, all over the land, the conspirators, with scimitar and poniard, should fall upon their unsuspecting foes. In this dark day of accumulating disaster the genius of Napoleon blazed forth with new and terrible brilliance.

But few troops were at the time in Cairo, for no apprehension of danger was cherished, and the French were scattered over Egypt, engaged in all plans of utility. At five o'clock on the morning of the 21st of October, Napoleon was awoke from sleep by the announcement that the city was in revolt, that mounted Bedouin Arabs were crowding in at the gates, that several officers and many soldiers were already assassinated. He ordered an aid immediately to take a number of the Guard, and quell the insurrection. But a few moments passed ere one of them returned covered with blood, and informed him that all the rest were slain. It was an hour of fearful peril. Calmly, fearlessly, mercilessly did Napoleon encounter it. Immediately mounting his horse, accompanied by a body of his faithful Guards, he proceeded to every threatened point. Instantly the presence of Napoleon was felt. A perfect storm of grape-shot, cannon-balls, and bomb-shells swept the streets with unintermitted and terrible destruction. Blood flowed in torrents. The insurgents, in dismay, fled to the most populous quarter of the city. Napoleon followed them with their doom, as calm as destiny. From the windows and the roofs the insurgents fought with desperation. The buildings were immediately enveloped in flames. They fled into the streets only to be hewn down with sabres and mown down with grape-shot. Multitudes, bleeding and breathless with consternation, sought refuge in the mosques. The mosques were battered down and set on fire, and the [pg 312] wretched inmates perished miserably. The calm yet terrible energy with which Napoleon annihilated “the murderers of the French,” sent a thrill of dismay through Egypt. A large body of Turks, who had surprised and assassinated a party of the French, intrenched themselves in a small village. Their doom was sealed. The next day a long line of asses, heavily laden with sacks, was seen entering the gates of Cairo. The mysterious procession proceeded to the public square. The sacks were opened, and the ghastly, gory heads of the assassins were rolled upon the pavements. The city gazed upon the spectacle with horror. “Such,” said Napoleon, sternly, “is the doom of murderers.” This language of energetic action was awfully eloquent. It was heard and heeded. It accomplished the purpose for which it was uttered. Neither Turk nor Arab ventured again to raise the dagger against Napoleon. Egypt felt the spell of the mighty conqueror, and stood still, while he gathered his strength to encounter England, and Russia, and Turkey in their combined power. What comment shall be made upon this horrible transaction. It was the stern necessity of diabolical war. “My soldiers,” said Napoleon, “are my children.” The lives of thirty thousand Frenchmen were in his keeping. Mercy to the barbaric and insurgent Turks would have been counted weakness, and the bones of Napoleon and of his army would soon have whitened the sands of the desert. War is a wholesale system of brutality and carnage. The most revolting, execrable details are essential to its vigorous execution. Bomb-shells can not be thrown affectionately. Charges of cavalry can not be made with a meek and lowly spirit. Red-hot shot, falling into the beleagured city, will not turn from the cradle of the infant, or from the couch of the dying maiden. These horrible scenes must continue to be enacted till the nations of the earth shall learn war no more.

Early in January, Napoleon received intelligence that the vanguard of the Syrian army, with a formidable artillery train, and vast military stores, which had been furnished from the English ships, had invaded Egypt, on the borders of the great Syrian desert, and had captured El Arish. He immediately resolved to anticipate the movement of his enemies, to cross the desert with the rapidity of the wind, to fall upon the enemy unawares, and thus to cut up this formidable army before it could be strengthened by the co-operation of the host assembled at Rhodes.

Napoleon intended to rally around his standard the Druses of Mount Lebanon, and all the Christian tribes of Syria, who were anxiously awaiting his approach, and having established friendly relations with the Ottoman Porte, to march, with an army of an hundred thousand auxiliaries, upon the Indus, and drive the English out of India. As England was the undisputed mistress of the sea, this was the only point where Republican France could assail its unrelenting foe. The imagination of Napoleon was lost in contemplating the visions of power and of empire thus rising before him.

Illustration: The Dromedary Regiment.

For such an enterprise the ambitious general, with an army of but ten thousand men, commenced his march over the desert, one hundred and fifty miles broad, which separates Africa from Asia. The Pacha of Syria, called Achmet the Butcher, from his merciless ferocity, was execrated by the Syrians. Napoleon had received delegations from the Christian tribes entreating him to come for their deliverance from the most intolerable oppression, and assuring him of their readiness to join his standard. The English, to divert the attention of Napoleon from his project upon Syria, commenced the bombardment of Alexandria. He understood the object of the unavailing attack, and treated it with disdain. He raised a regiment of entirely a new [pg 313] kind, called the dromedary regiment. Two men, seated back to back, were mounted on each dromedary; and such was the strength and endurance of these animals, that they could thus travel ninety miles without food, water, or rest. This regiment was formed to give chase to the Arab robbers who, in fierce banditti bands, were the scourge of Egypt. The marauders were held in terror by the destruction with which they were overwhelmed by these swift avengers. Napoleon himself rode upon a dromedary. The conveyance of an army of ten thousand men, with horses and artillery, across such an apparently interminable waste of shifting sand, was attended with inconceivable suffering. To allay the despair of the soldiers, Napoleon, ever calm and unagitated in the contemplation of any catastrophe however dreadful, soon dismounted, and waded through the burning sands by the side of the soldiers, sharing the deprivations and the toils of the humblest private in the ranks. Five days were occupied in traversing this forlorn waste. Water was carried for the troops in skins. At times portions of the army, almost perishing with thirst, surrendered themselves to despair. The presence of Napoleon, however, invariably reanimated hope and courage. The soldiers were ashamed to complain when they saw their youthful leader, pale and slender, and with health seriously impaired, toiling along by their side, sharing cheerfully all their privations and fatigues. The heat of these glowing deserts, beneath the fierce glare of a cloudless sun, was almost intolerable. At one time, when nearly suffocated by the intense heat, while passing by some ruins, a common soldier yielded to Napoleon the fragments of a pillar, in whose refreshing shadow he contrived, for a few moments, to shield his head. “And this,” said Napoleon, “was no trifling concession.” At another time a party of the troops got lost among the sand hills and nearly perished. Napoleon took some Arabs on dromedaries, and hastened in pursuit of them. When found they were nearly dead from thirst, fatigue, and despair. Some of the younger soldiers, in their frenzy, had broken their muskets and thrown them away. The sight of their beloved general revived their hopes, and inspired them with new life. Napoleon informed them that provisions and water were at hand. “But,” said he, “if relief had been longer delayed, would that have excused your murmurings and loss of courage? No! soldiers, learn to die with honor.”

After a march of five days they arrived before El Arish, one of those small, strongly fortified military towns, deformed by every aspect of poverty and wretchedness, with which iron despotism has filled the once fertile plains of Syria. El Arish was within the boundaries of Egypt. It had been captured by the Turks, and they had accumulated there immense magazines of military stores. It was the hour of midnight when Napoleon arrived beneath its walls. The Turks, not dreaming that a foe was near, were roused from sleep by the storm of balls and shells, shaking the walls and crushing down through the roofs of their dwellings. They sprang to their guns, and, behind the ramparts of stone, fought with their accustomed bravery. But after a short and bloody conflict, they were compelled to retire, and effected a disorderly retreat. The garrison, in the citadel, consisting of nearly two thousand men, were taken prisoners. Napoleon was not a little embarrassed in deciding what to do with these men. He had but ten thousand soldiers with whom to encounter the whole power of the Ottoman Porte, aided by the fleets of England and Russia. Famine was in his camp, and it was with difficulty that he could obtain daily rations for his troops. He could not keep these prisoners with him. They would eat the bread for which his army was hungering; they would demand a strong guard to keep them from insurrection; and the French army was already so disproportionate to the number of its foes, that not an individual could be spared from active service. They would surely take occasion, in the perilous moments of the day of battle, to rise in revolt, and thus, perhaps, effect the total destruction of the French army. Consequently, to retain them in the camp was an idea not to be entertained for a moment. To disarm them, and dismiss them upon their word of honor no longer to serve against the French, appeared almost equally perilous. There was no sense of honor in the heart of the barbarian Turk. The very idea of keeping faith with infidels they laughed to scorn. They would immediately join the nearest division of the Turkish army, and thus swell the already multitudinous ranks of the foe, and even if they did not secure the final defeat of Napoleon, they would certainly cost him the lives of many of his soldiers. He could not supply them with food, neither could he spare an escort to conduct them across the desert to Egypt. To shoot them in cold blood was revolting to humanity. Napoleon, however, generously resolved to give them their liberty, taking their pledge that they would no longer serve against him; and in order to help them keep their word, he sent a division of the army to escort them, one day's march, toward Bagdad, whither they promised to go. But no sooner had the escort commenced its return to the army, than these men, between one and two thousand in number, turned also, and made a straight path for their feet to the fortress of Jaffa, laughing at the simplicity of their outwitted foe. But Napoleon was not a man to be laughed at. This merriment soon died away in fearful wailings. Here they joined the marshaled hosts of Achmet the Butcher. The bloody pacha armed them anew, and placed them in his foremost ranks, again to pour a shower of bullets upon the little band headed by Napoleon. El Arish is in Egypt, eighteen miles from the granite pillars which mark the confines of Asia and Africa. Napoleon now continued his march through a dry, barren, and thirsty land. After having traversed a dreary desert of an hundred and fifty miles, the whole aspect of the country began rapidly to change. The soldiers were delighted to see the wreaths of vapor gathering in [pg 314] the hitherto glowing and cloudless skies. Green and flowery valleys, groves of olive-trees, and wood-covered hills, rose, like a vision of enchantment, before the eye, so long weary of gazing upon shifting sands and barren rocks. Napoleon often alluded to his passage across the desert, remarking that the scene was ever peculiarly gratifying to his mind. “I never passed the desert,” said he, “without experiencing very powerful emotions. It was the image of immensity to my thoughts. It displayed no limits. It had neither beginning nor end. It was an ocean for the foot of man.” As they approached the mountains of Syria, clouds began to darken the sky, and when a few drops of rain descended, a phenomenon which they had not witnessed for many months, the joy of the soldiers was exuberant. A murmur of delight ran through the army, and a curious spectacle was presented, as, with shouts of joy and peals of laughter, the soldiers, in a body, threw back their heads and opened their mouths, to catch the grateful drops upon their dry and thirsty lips.

But when dark night came on, and, with saturated clothing, they threw themselves down, in the drenching rain, for their night's bivouac, they remembered with pleasure the star-spangled firmament and the dry sands of cloudless, rainless Egypt. The march of a few days brought them to Gaza. Here they encountered another division of the Turkish army. Though headed by the ferocious Achmet himself, the Turks were, in an hour, dispersed before the resistless onset of the French, and all the military stores, which had been collected in the place, fell into the hands of the conqueror. But perils were now rapidly accumulating around the adventurous band. England, with her invincible fleet, was landing men, and munitions of war and artillery, and European engineers, to arrest the progress of the audacious and indefatigable victor. The combined squadrons of Turkey and Russia, also, were hovering along the coast, to prevent any possible supplies from being forwarded to Napoleon from Alexandria. Thirty thousand Turks, infantry and horsemen, were marshaled at Damascus. Twenty thousand were at Rhodes. Through all the ravines of Syria, the turbaned Musselmans, with gleaming sabres, were crowding down to swell the hostile ranks, already sufficiently numerous to render Napoleon's destruction apparently certain. Still unintimidated, Napoleon pressed on, with the utmost celerity, into the midst of his foes. On the 3d of March, twenty-three days after leaving Cairo, he arrived at Jaffa, the ancient Joppa. This place, strongly garrisoned, was surrounded by a massive wall flanked by towers. Napoleon had no heavy battering train, for such ponderous machines could not be dragged across the desert. He had ordered some pieces to be forwarded to him from Alexandria, by small vessels, which could coast near the shore. But they had been intercepted and taken by the vigilance of the English cruisers. Not an hour, however, was to be lost. From every point in the circumference of the circle, of which his little band was the centre, the foe was hurrying to meet him. The sea was whitened with their fleets, and the tramp of their dense columns shook the land. His only hope was, by rapidity of action, to defeat the separate divisions before all should unite. With his light artillery he battered a breach in the walls, and then, to save the effusion of blood, sent a summons to the commander to surrender. The barbarian Turk, regardless of the rules of civilized warfare, cut off the head of the unfortunate messenger, and raised the ghastly, gory trophy, upon a pole, from one of the towers. This was his bloody defiance and his threat. The enraged soldiers, with extraordinary intrepidity, rushed in at the breach and took sanguinary vengeance. The French suffered very severely, and the carnage, on both sides, was awful. Nothing could restrain the fury of the assailants, enraged at the wanton murder of their comrade. For many hours a scene of horror was exhibited in the streets of Jaffa, which could hardly have been surpassed had the conflict raged between fiends in the world of woe. Earth has never presented a spectacle more horrible than that of a city taken by assault. The vilest and the most abandoned of mankind invariably crowd into the ranks of an army. Imagination shrinks appalled from the contemplation of the rush of ten thousand demons, infuriated and inflamed, into the dwellings of a crowded city.

Napoleon, shocked at the outrages which were perpetrated, sent two of his aids to appease the fury of the soldiers, and to stop the massacre. Proceeding upon this message of mercy, they advanced to a large building where a portion of the garrison had taken refuge. The soldiers were shooting them as they appeared at the windows, battering the doors with cannon-balls, and setting fire to the edifice, that all might be consumed together. The Turks fought with the energies of despair. These were the men who had capitulated at El Arish, and who had violated their parole. They now offered to surrender again, if their lives might be spared. The aids, with much difficulty, rescued them from the rage of the maddened soldiers, and they were conducted, some two thousand in number, as prisoners into the French camp. Napoleon was walking in front of his tent, when he saw this multitude of men approaching. The whole dreadfulness of the dilemma in which he was placed flashed upon him instantaneously. His countenance fell, and in tones of deep grief he exclaimed, “What do they wish me to do with these men? Have I food for them—ships to convey them to Egypt or France? Why have they served me thus?” The aids excused themselves for taking them prisoners, by pleading that he had ordered them to go and stop the carnage. “Yes!” Napoleon replied sadly, “as to women, children, and old men, all the peaceable inhabitants, but not with respect to armed soldiers. It was your duty to die, rather than bring these unfortunate creatures to me. What do you want me to do with them?”

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A council of war was immediately held in the tent of Napoleon, to decide upon their fate. Long did the council deliberate, and, finally, it adjourned without coming to any conclusion. The next day the council was again convened. All the generals of division were summoned to attend. For many anxious hours they deliberated, sincerely desirous of discovering any measures by which they might save the lives of the unfortunate prisoners. The murmurs of the French soldiers were loud and threatening. They complained bitterly of having their scanty rations given to the prisoners; of having men again liberated who had already broken their pledge of honor, and had caused the death of many of their comrades. General Bon represented that the discontent was so deep and general, that unless something were expeditiously done, a serious revolt in the army was to be apprehended. Still the council adjourned, and the third day arrived without their being able to come to any conclusion favorable to the lives of these unfortunate men. Napoleon watched the ocean with intense solicitude, hoping against hope that some French vessel might appear, to relieve him of the fearful burden. But the evil went on increasing. The murmurs grew louder. The peril of the army was real and imminent, and, by the delay, was already seriously magnified. It was impossible longer to keep the prisoners in the camp. If set at liberty, it was only contributing so many more troops to swell the ranks of Achmet the Butcher, and thus, perhaps, to insure the total discomfiture and destruction of the French army. The Turks spared no prisoners. All who fell into their hands perished by horrible torture. The council at last unanimously decided that the men must be put to death. Napoleon, with extreme reluctance, signed the fatal order. The melancholy troop, in the silence of despair, were led, firmly fettered, to the sand hills, on the sea-coast, where they were divided into small squares, and mown down by successive discharges of musketry. The dreadful scene was soon over, and they were all silent in death. The pyramid of their bones still remains in the desert, a frightful memorial of the horrors of war.

As this transaction has ever been deemed the darkest blot upon the character of Napoleon, it seems but fair to give his defense in his own words: “I ordered,” said Napoleon at St. Helena, “about a thousand or twelve hundred to be shot. Among the garrison at Jaffa a number of Turkish troops were discovered, whom I had taken a short time before at El Arish, and sent to Bagdad, on their parole not to be found in arms against me for a year. I had caused them to be escorted thirty-six miles, on their way to Bagdad, by a division of my army. But, instead of proceeding to Bagdad, they threw themselves into Jaffa, defended it to the last, and cost me the lives of many of my brave troops. Moreover, before I attacked the town I sent them a flag of truce. Immediately after, we saw the head of the bearer elevated on a pole over the wall. Now, if I had spared them again, and sent them away on their parole, they would directly have gone to Acre, and have played over, for the second time, the same scene that they had done at Jaffa. In justice to the lives of my soldiers, as every general ought to consider himself as their father, and them as his children, I could not allow this. To leave as a guard a portion of my army, already reduced in number in consequence of the breach of faith of those wretches, was impossible. Indeed, to have acted otherwise than as I did, would probably have caused the destruction of my whole army. I, therefore, availing myself of the rights of war, which authorize the putting to death prisoners taken under such circumstances, independent of the right given to me by having taken the city by assault, and that of retaliation on the Turks, ordered that the prisoners, who, in defiance of their capitulation, had been found bearing arms against me, should be selected out and shot. The rest, amounting to a considerable number, were spared. I would do the same thing again to-morrow, and so would Wellington, or any general commanding an army under similar circumstances.” Whatever judgment posterity may pronounce upon this transaction, no one can see in it any indication of an innate love of cruelty in Napoleon. He regarded the transaction as one of the stern necessities of war. The whole system is one of unmitigated horror. Bomb-shells are thrown into cities to explode in the chambers of maidens and in the cradles of infants, and the incidental destruction of innocence and helplessness is disregarded. The execrable ferocity of the details of war are essential to the system. To say that Napoleon ought not to have shot these prisoners, is simply to say that he ought to have relinquished the contest, to have surrendered himself and his army to the tender mercies of the Turk; and to allow England, and Austria, and Russia, to force back upon the disenthralled French nation the detested reign of the Bourbons. England was bombarding the cities of France, to compel a proud nation to re-enthrone a discarded and hated king. The French, in self-defense, were endeavoring to repel their powerful foe, by marching to India, England's only vulnerable point. Surely, the responsibility of this war rests with the assailants, and not with the assailed. There was a powerful party in the British Parliament and throughout the nation, the friends of reform and of popular liberty, who sympathized entirely with the French in this conflict, and who earnestly protested against a war which they deemed impolitic and unjust. But the king and the nobles prevailed, and as the French would not meekly submit to their demands, the world was deluged with blood. “Nothing was easier,” says Alison, “than to have disarmed the captives and sent them away.” The remark is unworthy of the eloquent and distinguished historian. It is simply affirming that France should have yielded the conflict, and submitted to British dictation. It would have been far more in accordance with the spirit of the events to have said, “Nothing was easier than for England to allow France to choose her own [pg 316] form of government.” But had this been done, the throne of England's king, and the castles of her nobles might have been overturned by the earthquake of revolution. Alas, for man!

Bourrienne, the rejected secretary of Napoleon, who became the enemy of his former benefactor, and who, as the minister and flatterer of Louis XVIII., recorded with caustic bitterness the career of the great rival of the European kings, thus closes his narrative of this transaction: “I have related the truth; the whole truth. I assisted at all the conferences and deliberations, though, of course, without possessing any deliberative voice. But I must in candor declare, that had I possessed a right of voting, my voice would have been for death. The result of the deliberations, and the circumstances of the army, would have constrained me to this. War, unfortunately, offers instances, by no means rare, in which an immutable law, of all times and common to all nations, has decreed that private interests shall succumb to the paramount good of the public, and that humanity itself shall be forgotten. It is for posterity to judge whether such was the terrible position of Bonaparte. I have a firm conviction that it was. And this is strengthened by the fact, that the opinion of the members of the council was unanimous upon the subject, and that the order was issued upon their decision. I owe it also to truth to state, that Napoleon yielded only at the last extremity, and was, perhaps, one of those who witnessed the massacre with the deepest sorrow.” Even Sir Walter Scott, who, unfortunately, allowed his Tory predilections to dim the truth of his unstudied yet classic page, while affirming that “this bloody deed must always remain a deep stain upon the character of Napoleon,” is constrained to admit, “yet we do not view it as the indulgence of an innate love of cruelty; for nothing in Bonaparte's history shows the existence of that vice; and there are many things which intimate his disposition to have been naturally humane.”

Napoleon now prepared to march upon Acre, the most important military post in Syria. Behind its strong ramparts Achmet the Butcher had gathered all his troops and military stores, determined upon the most desperate resistance. Colonel Philippeaux, an emissary of the Bourbons, and a former school-mate of Napoleon, contributed all the skill of an accomplished French engineer in arming the fortifications and conducting the defense. Achmet immediately sent intelligence of the approaching attack to Sir Sydney Smith, who was cruising in the Levant with an English fleet. He immediately sailed for Acre, with two ships of the line and several smaller vessels, and proudly entered the harbor two days before the French made their appearance, strengthening Achmet with an abundant supply of engineers, artillerymen, and ammunition. Most unfortunately for Napoleon, Sir Sydney, just before he entered the harbor, captured the flotilla, dispatched from Alexandria with the siege equipage, as it was cautiously creeping around the headlands of Carmel. The whole battering train, amounting to forty-four heavy guns, he immediately mounted upon the ramparts, and manned them with English soldiers. This was an irreparable loss to Napoleon, but with undiminished zeal the besiegers, with very slender means, advanced their works. Napoleon now sent an officer with a letter to Achmet, offering to treat for peace “Why,” said he, in this, “should I deprive an old man, whom I do not know, of a few years of life? What signify a few leagues more, added to the countries I have conquered? Since God has given victory into my hands, I will, like him, be forgiving and merciful, not only toward the people, but toward their rulers also.” The barbarian Turk, regardless of the flag of truce, cut off the head of this messenger, though Napoleon had taken the precaution to send a Turkish prisoner with the flag, and raised the ghastly trophy upon a pole, over his battlements, in savage defiance. The decapitated body he sewed up in a sack, and threw it into the sea. Napoleon then issued a proclamation to the people of Syria: “I am come into Syria,” said he, “to drive out the Mamelukes and the army of the Pacha. What right had Achmet to send his troops to attack me in Egypt? He has provoked me to war. I have brought it to him. But it is not on you, inhabitants, that I intend to inflict its horrors. Remain quiet in your homes. Let those who have abandoned them through fear return again. I will grant to every one the property which he possesses. It is my wish that the Cadis continue their functions as usual, and dispense justice; that religion, in particular, be protected and revered, and that the mosques should continue to be frequented by all faithful Mussulmans. It is from God that all good things come; it is he who gives the victory. The example of what has occurred at Gaza and Jaffa ought to teach you that if I am terrible to my enemies, I am kind to my friends, and, above all, benevolent and merciful to the poor.”

The plague, that most dreadful scourge of the East, now broke out in the army. It was a new form of danger, and created a fearful panic. The soldiers refused to approach their sick comrades, and even the physicians, terrified in view of the fearful contagion, abandoned the sufferers to die unaided. Napoleon immediately entered the hospitals, sat down by the cots of the sick soldiers, took their fevered hands in his own, even pressed their bleeding tumors, and spoke to them words of encouragement and hope. The dying soldiers looked upon their heroic and sympathizing friend with eyes moistened with gratitude, and blessed him. Their courage was reanimated and thus they gained new strength to throw off the dreadful disease. “You are right,” said a grenadier, upon whom the plague had made such ravages, that he could hardly move a limb; “your grenadiers were not made to die in a hospital.” The physicians, shamed by the heroism of Napoleon, returned to their duty. The soldiers, animated by the example of their chief, no longer refused to administer to the wants of their suffering comrades, and thus the progress of the infection in [pg 317] the army was materially arrested. One of the physicians reproached Napoleon for his imprudence, in exposing himself to such fearful peril. He coolly replied, “It is but my duty. I am the commander-in-chief.”

Illustration: The Plague Hospital.

Napoleon now pressed the siege of Acre. It was the only fortress in Syria which could stop him. Its subjugation would make him the undisputed master of Syria. Napoleon had already formed an alliance with the Druses and other Christian tribes, who had taken refuge from the extortions of the Turks, among the mountains of Lebanon, and they only awaited the capture of Acre to join his standard in a body, and to throw off the intolerable yoke of Moslem despotism. Delegations of their leading men frequently appeared in the tent of Napoleon, and their prayers were fervently ascending for the success of the French arms. That in this conflict Napoleon was contending on the side of human liberty, and the allies for the support of despotism, is undeniable. The Turks were not idle. By vast exertions they had roused the whole Mussulman population to march, in the name of the Prophet, for the destruction of the “Christian dogs.” An enormous army was marshaled, and was on its way for the relief of the beleagured city. Damascus had furnished its thousands. The scattered remnants of the fierce Mamelukes, and the mounted Bedouins of the desert, had congregated, to rush, with resistless numbers, upon their bold antagonist.

Napoleon had been engaged for ten days in an almost incessant assault upon the works of Acre, when the approach of the great Turkish army was announced. It consisted of about thirty [pg 318] thousand troops, twelve thousand of whom were the fiercest and best-trained horsemen in the world. Napoleon had but eight thousand effective men with which to encounter the well-trained army of Europeans and Turks within the walls of Acre, and the numerous host rushing to its rescue. He acted with his usual promptitude. Leaving two thousand men to protect the works and cover the siege, he boldly advanced with but six thousand men, to encounter the thirty thousand already exulting in his speedy and sure destruction. Kleber was sent forward with an advance-guard of three thousand men. Napoleon followed soon after, with three thousand more. As Kleber, with his little band, defiled from a narrow valley at the foot of Mount Tabor, he entered upon an extended plain. It was early in the morning of the sixteenth of April. The unclouded sun was just rising over the hills of Palestine, and revealed to his view the whole embattled Turkish host spread out before him. The eye was dazzled with the magnificent spectacle, as proud banners and plumes, and gaudy turbans and glittering steel, and all the barbaric martial pomp of the East was reflected by the rays of the brilliant morning. Twelve thousand horsemen, decorated with the most gorgeous trappings of military show, and mounted on the fleetest Arabian chargers, were prancing and curveting in all directions. A loud and exultant shout of vengeance and joy, rising like the roar of the ocean, burst from the Turkish ranks, as soon as they perceived their victims enter the plain. The French, too proud and self-confident to retreat before any superiority in numbers, had barely time to form themselves into one of Napoleon's impregnable squares, when the whole cavalcade of horsemen, with gleaming sabres and hideous yells, and like the sweep of the wind, came rushing down upon them. Every man in the French squares knew that his life depended upon his immobility; and each one stood, shoulder to shoulder with his comrades, like a rock. It is impossible to drive a horse upon the point of a bayonet. He has an instinct of self-preservation which no power of the spur can overcome. He can be driven to the bayonet's point, but if the bayonet remains firm he will rear and plunge, and wheel, in defiance of all the efforts of his rider to force his breast against it. As the immense mass came thundering down upon the square, it was received by volcanic bursts of fire from the French veterans, and horse and riders rolled together in the dust. Chevaux-de-frise of bayonets, presented from every side of this living, flaming citadel, prevented the possibility of piercing the square. For six long hours this little band sustained the dreadful and unequal conflict. The artillery of the enemy plowed their ranks in vain. In vain the horsemen made reiterated charges on every side. The French, by the tremendous fire incessantly pouring from their ranks, soon formed around them a rampart of dead men and horses. Behind this horrible abattis, they bid stern defiance to the utmost fury of their enemies. Seven long hours passed away while the battle raged with unabated ferocity. The mid-day sun was now blazing upon the exhausted band. Their ammunition was nearly expended. Notwithstanding the enormous slaughter they had made, their foes seemed undiminished in number. A conflict so unequal could not much longer continue. The French were calling to their aid a noble despair, expecting there to perish, but resolved, to a man, to sell their lives most dearly.

Matters were in this state, when at one o'clock Napoleon, with three thousand men, arrived on the heights which overlooked the field of battle. The field was covered with a countless multitude, swaying to and fro in the most horrible clamor and confusion. They were canopied with thick volumes of smoke, which almost concealed the combatants from view. Napoleon could only distinguish the French by the regular and unintermitted volleys which issued from their ranks, presenting one steady spot, incessantly emitting lightning flashes, in the midst of the moving multitude with which it was surrounded. With that instinctive judgment which enabled him, with the rapidity of lightning, to adopt the most important decisions, Napoleon instantly took his resolution. He formed his little band into two squares, and advanced in such a manner as to compose, with the square of Kleber, a triangle inclosing the Turks. Thus, with unparalleled audacity, with six thousand men he undertook to surround thirty thousand of as fierce and desperate soldiers as the world has ever seen. Cautiously and silently the two squares hurried on to the relief of their friends, giving no sign of approach, till they were just ready to plunge upon the plains. Suddenly the loud report of a cannon upon the hills startled with joyful surprise the weary heroes. They recognized instantly the voice of Napoleon rushing to their rescue. One wild shout of almost delirious joy burst from the ranks. “It is Bonaparte! It is Bonaparte!” That name operated as a talisman upon every heart. Tears of emotion dimmed the eyes of those scarred and bleeding veterans, as, disdaining longer to act upon the defensive, they grasped their weapons with nervous energy, and made a desperate onset upon their multitudinous foes. The Turks were assailed by a murderous fire instantaneously discharged from the three points of this triangle. Discouraged by the indomitable resolution with which they had been repulsed, and bewildered by the triple assault, they broke and fled. The mighty host, like ocean waves, swept across the plain, when suddenly it was encountered by one of the fresh squares, and in refluent surges rolled back in frightful disorder. A scene of horror now ensued utterly unimaginable. The Turks were cut off from retreat in every direction. The enormous mass of infantry, horse, artillery, and baggage, was driven in upon itself, in wild and horrible confusion. From the French squares there flashed one incessant sheet of flame. Peal after peal, the artillery thundered in a continuous roar. These thoroughly-drilled veterans fired with a rapidity and a precision which seemed to the [pg 319] Turks supernatural. An incessant storm of cannon-balls, grape-shot, and bullets pierced the motley mass, and the bayonets of the French dripped with blood.

Murat was there, with his proud cavalry—Murat, whom Napoleon has described as in battle probably the bravest man in the world. Of majestic frame, dressed in the extreme of military ostentation, and mounted upon the most powerful of Arabian chargers, he towered, proudly eminent, above all his band. With the utmost enthusiasm he charged into the swollen tide of turbaned heads and flashing scimitars. As his strong horse reared and plunged in the midst of the sabre strokes falling swiftly on every side around him, his white plume, which ever led to victory, gleamed like a banner over the tumultuous throng. It is almost an inexplicable development of human nature to hear Murat exclaim, “In the hottest of this terrible fight, I thought of Christ, and of his transfiguration upon this very spot, two thousand years ago, and the reflection inspired me with ten-fold courage and strength.” The fiend-like disposition created by these horrible scenes, is illustrated by the conduct of a French soldier on this occasion. He was dying of a frightful wound. Still he crawled to a mangled Mameluke, even more feeble than himself, also in the agonies of death, and, seizing him by the throat, tried to strangle him. “How can you,” exclaimed a French officer, to the human tiger, “in your condition, be guilty of such an act?” “You speak much at your ease,” the man replied, “you who are unhurt; but I, while I am dying, must reap some enjoyment while I can.”

The victory was complete. The Turkish army was not merely conquered, it was destroyed. As that day's sun, vailed in smoke, solemnly descended, like a ball of fire, behind the hills of Lebanon, the whole majestic array, assembled for the invasion of Egypt, and who had boasted that they were “innumerable as the sands of the sea or as the stars of heaven,” had disappeared to be seen no more. The Turkish camp, with four hundred camels and an immense booty, fell into the hands of the victors.

This signal victory was achieved by a small division of Napoleon's army, of but six thousand men, in a pitched battle, on an open field. Such exploits history can not record without amazement. The ostensible and avowed object of Napoleon's march into Syria was now accomplished. Napoleon returned again to Acre, to prosecute with new vigor its siege, for, though the great army, marshaled for his destruction, was annihilated, he had other plans, infinitely more majestic, revolving in his capacious mind. One evening he was standing with his secretary upon the mount which still bears the name of Richard Coeur de Lion, contemplating the smouldering scene of blood and ruin around him, when, after a few moments of silent thought, he exclaimed, “Yes, Bourrienne, that miserable fort has cost me dear. But matters have gone too far not to make a last effort. The fate of the East depends upon the capture of Acre. That is the key of Constantinople or of India. If we succeed in taking this paltry town, I shall obtain the treasures of the Pacha, and arms for three hundred thousand men. I will then raise and arm the whole population of Syria, already so exasperated by the cruelty of Achmet, and for whose fall all classes daily supplicate Heaven. I shall advance on Damascus and Aleppo. I will recruit my army, as I advance, by enlisting all the discontented. I will announce to the people the breaking of their chains and the abolition of the tyrannical governments of the Pachas. The Druses wait but for the fall of Acre, to declare themselves. I am already offered the keys of Damascus. My armed masses will penetrate to Constantinople, and the Mussulman dominion will be overturned. I shall found in the East a new and mighty empire, which will fix my position with posterity.”

With these visions animating his mind, and having fully persuaded himself that he was the child of destiny, he prosecuted, with all possible vigor, the siege of Acre. But English and Russian and Turkish fleets were in that harbor. English generals, and French engineers, and European and Turkish soldiers, stood, side by side, behind those formidable ramparts, to resist the utmost endeavors of their assailants, with equal vigor, science, and fearlessness. No pen can describe the desperate conflicts and the scenes of carnage which ensued. Day after day, night after night, and week after week, the horrible slaughter, without intermission, continued. The French succeeded in transporting, by means of their cruisers, from Alexandria, a few pieces of heavy artillery, and the walls of Acre were reduced to a pile of blackened ruins. The streets were plowed up, and the houses blown down by bomb-shells. Bleeding forms, blackened with smoke, and with clothing burnt and tattered, rushed upon each other, with dripping sabres and bayonets, and with hideous yells which rose even above the incessant thunders of the cannonade. The noise, the uproar, the flash of guns, the enveloping cloud of sulphurous smoke converting the day into hideous night, and the unintermitted flashes of musketry and artillery, transforming night into lurid and portentous day, the forms of the combatants, gliding like spectres, with demoniacal fury through the darkness, the blast of trumpets, the shout of onset, the shriek of death, presented a scene which no tongue can tell nor imagination conceive. There was no time to bury the dead, and the putrefaction of hundreds of corpses under that burning sun added appalling horrors. To the pure spirits of a happier world, in the sweet companionship of celestial mansions, loving and blessing each other, it must have appeared a spectacle worthy of pandemonium. And yet the human heart is so wicked, that it can often, forgetting the atrocity of such a scene, find a strange pleasure in the contemplation of its energy and its heroism. We are indeed a fallen race.

There were occasional lulls in this awful storm, during which each party would be rousing its [pg 320] energies for more terrible collision. The besiegers burrowed mines deep under the foundations of walls and towers, and with the explosion of hundreds of barrels of gunpowder, opened volcanic craters, blowing men and rocks into hideous ruin. In the midst of the shower of destruction darkening the skies, the assailants rushed, with sabres and dripping bayonets, to the assault. The onset, on the part of the French, was as furious and desperate as mortal man is capable of making. The repulse was equally determined and fearless.

Sir Sydney Smith conducted the defense, with the combined English and Turkish troops. He displayed consummate skill, and unconquerable firmness, and availed himself of every weapon of effective warfare. Conscious of the earnest desire of the French soldiers to return to France, and of the despair with which the army had been oppressed when the fleet was destroyed, and thus all hope of return was cut off, he circulated a proclamation among them, offering to convey safely to France every soldier who would desert from the standard of Napoleon. This proclamation, in large numbers, was thrown from the ramparts to the French troops. A more tempting offer could not have been presented, and yet so strong was the attachment of the soldiers for their chief, that it is not known that a single individual availed himself of the privilege. Napoleon issued a counter proclamation to his army, in which he asserted that the English commodore had actually gone mad. This so provoked Sir Sydney, that he sent a challenge to Napoleon to meet him in single combat. The young general proudly replied, “If Sir Sydney will send Marlborough from his grave, to meet me, I will think of it. In the mean time, if the gallant commodore wishes to display his personal prowess, I will neutralize a few yards of the beach, and send a tall grenadier, with whom he can run a tilt.”

In the progress of the siege, Gen. Caffarelli was struck by a ball and mortally wounded. For eighteen days he lingered in extreme pain, and then died. Napoleon was strongly attached to him, and during all the period, twice every day, made a visit to his couch of suffering. So great was his influence over the patient, that though the wounded general was frequently delirious, no sooner was the name of Napoleon announced, than he became perfectly collected, and conversed coherently.

The most affecting proofs were frequently given of the entire devotion of the troops to Napoleon. One day, while giving some directions in the trenches, a shell, with its fuse fiercely burning, fell at his feet. Two grenadiers, perceiving his danger, instantly rushed toward him, encircled him in their arms, and completely shielded every part of his body with their own. The shell exploded, blowing a hole in the earth sufficiently large to bury a cart and two horses. All three were tumbled into the excavation, and covered with stones and sand. One of the men was rather severely wounded; Napoleon escaped with but a few slight bruises. He immediately elevated both of these heroes to the rank of officers.

“Never yet, I believe,” said Napoleon, “has there been such devotion shown by soldiers to their general, as mine have manifested for me. At Arcola, Colonel Muiron threw himself before me, covered my body with his own, and received the [pg 321] blow which was intended for me. He fell at my feet, and his blood spouted up in my face. In all my misfortunes never has the soldier been wanting in fidelity—never has man been served more faithfully by his troops. With the last drop of blood gushing out of their veins, they exclaimed, The siege had now continued for sixty days. Napoleon had lost nearly three thousand men, by the sword and the plague. The hospitals were full of the sick and the wounded. Still, Napoleon remitted not his efforts. “Victory,” said he, “belongs to the most persevering.” Napoleon had now expended all his cannon-balls. By a singular expedient he obtained a fresh supply. A party of soldiers was sent upon the beach, and set to work, apparently throwing up a rampart for the erection of a battery. Sir Sydney immediately approached with the English ships, and poured in upon them broadside after broadside from all his tiers. The soldiers, who perfectly comprehended the joke, convulsed with laughter, ran and collected the balls as they rolled over the sand. Napoleon ordered a dollar to be paid to the soldiers for each ball thus obtained. When this supply was exhausted, a few horsemen or wagons were sent out upon the beach, as if engaged in some important movement, when the English commodore would again approach and present them, from his plethoric magazines, with another liberal supply. Thus for a long time Napoleon replenished his exhausted stores.

One afternoon in May, a fleet of thirty sail of the line was descried in the distant horizon, approaching Acre. All eyes were instantly turned in that direction. The sight awakened intense anxiety in the hearts of both besiegers and besieged. The French hoped that they were French ships conveying to them succors from Alexandria or from France. The besieged flattered themselves that they were friendly sails, bringing to them such aid as would enable them effectually to repulse their terrible foes. The English cruisers immediately stood out of the bay to reconnoitre the unknown fleet. Great was the disappointment of the French when they saw the two squadrons unite, and the crescent of the Turk, and the pennant of England, in friendly blending, approach the bay together. The Turkish fleet brought a reinforcement of twelve thousand men, with an abundant supply of military stores. Napoleon's only hope was to capture the place before the disembarkation of these reinforcements. Calculating that the landing could not be effected in less than six hours, he resolved upon an immediate assault. In the deepening twilight, a black and massy column, issued from the trenches, and advanced, with the firm and silent steps of utter desperation, to the breach. The besieged knowing that, if they could hold out but a few hours longer, deliverance was certain, were animated to the most determined resistance. A horrible scene of slaughter ensued. The troops, from the ships, in the utmost haste, were embarked in the boats, and were pulling, as rapidly as possible, across the bay, to aid their failing friends. Sir Sydney himself headed the crews of the ships, and led them armed with pikes to the breach. The assailants gained the summit of the heap of stones into which the wall had been battered, and even forced their way into the garden of the pacha. But a perfect swarm of janizaries suddenly poured in upon them, with the keen sabre in one hand, and the dagger in the other, and in a few moments they were all reduced to headless trunks. The Turks gave no quarter. The remorseless Butcher sat in the court-yard of his palace, paying a liberal reward for the gory head of every infidel which was laid at his feet. He smiled upon the ghastly trophies heaped up in piles around him. The chivalric Sir Sydney must at times have felt not a little abashed in contemplating the deeds of his allies. He was, however, fighting to arrest the progress of free institutions, and the scimitar of the Turk was a fitting instrument to be employed in such a service. In promotion of the same object, but a few years before, the “tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage” had been called into requisition, to deluge the borders of our own land with blood. Napoleon was contending to wrest from the hand of Achmet the Butcher, his bloody scimitar. Sir Sydney, with the united despots of Turkey and of Russia, was struggling to help him retain it.

Sir Sydney also issued a proclamation to the Druses, and other Christian tribes of Syria, urging them to trust to the faith of a “Christian knight,” rather than to that of an “unprincipled renegado.” But the “Christian knight,” in the hour of victory, forgot the poor Druses, and they were left, without even one word of sympathy, to bleed, during ages whose limits can not yet be seen, beneath the dripping yataghan of the Moslem. Column after column of the French advanced to the assault, but all were repulsed with dreadful slaughter. Every hour the strength of the enemy was increasing. Every hour the forces of Napoleon were melting away, before the awful storm sweeping from the battlements. In these terrific conflicts, where immense masses were contending hand to hand, it was found that the scimitar of the Turk was a far more efficient weapon of destruction than the bayonet of the European.

Success was now hopeless. Sadly Napoleon made preparations to relinquish the enterprise. He knew that a formidable Turkish army, aided by the fleets of England and Russia, was soon to be conveyed from Rhodes to Egypt. Not an hour longer could he delay his return to meet it. Had not Napoleon been crippled by the loss of his fleet at Aboukir, victory at Acre would have been attained without any difficulty. The imagination is bewildered in contemplating the results which might have ensued. Even without the aid of the fleet, but for the indomitable activity, courage, and energy of Sir Sydney Smith, Acre would have fallen, and the bloody reign of the Butcher would have come to an end. This destruction of Napoleon's magnificent anticipations [pg 322] of Oriental conquest must have been a bitter disappointment. It was the termination of the most sanguine hope of his life. And it was a lofty ambition in the heart of a young man of twenty-six, to break the chains which bound the countless millions of Asia, in the most degrading slavery, and to create a boundless empire such as earth had never before seen, which should develop all the physical, intellectual, and social energies of man.

History can record with unerring truth the deeds of man and his avowed designs. The attempt to delineate the conflicting motives, which stimulate the heart of a frail mortal, are hazardous. Even the most lowly Christian finds unworthy motives mingling with his best actions. Napoleon was not a Christian. He had learned no lessons in the school of Christ. Did he merely wish to aggrandize himself, to create and perpetuate his own renown, by being the greatest and the best monarch earth has ever known? This is not a Christian spirit. But it is not like the spirit which demonized the heart of Nero, which stimulated the lust of Henry the Eighth, which fired the bosom of Alexander with his invincible phalanxes, and which urged Tamerlane, with his mounted hordes, to the field of blood. Our Saviour was entirely regardless of self in his endeavors to bless mankind. Even Washington, who though one of the best of mortals, must be contemplated at an infinite distance from the Son of God, seemed to forget himself in his love for his country. That absence of regard for self can not be so distinctly seen in Napoleon. He wished to be the great benefactor of the world, elevating the condition and rousing the energies of man, not that he might obtain wealth and live in splendor, not that he might revel in voluptuous indulgences, but apparently that his own name might be embalmed in glory. This is not a holy motive. Neither is it degrading and dishonorable. We hate the mercenary despot. We despise the voluptuary. But history can not justly consign Napoleon either to hatred or to contempt. Had Christian motives impelled him, making all due allowance for human frailty, he might have been regarded as a saint. Now he is but a hero.

The ambitious conqueror who invades a peaceful land, and with fire and blood subjugates a timid and helpless people, that he may bow their necks to the yoke of slavery, that he may doom them to ignorance and degradation, that he may extort from them their treasures by the energies of the dungeon, the scimetar, and the bastinado, consigning the millions to mud hovels, penury, and misery, that he and his haughty parasites may revel in voluptuousness and splendor, deserves the execrations of the world. Such were the rulers of the Orient. But we can not with equal severity condemn the ambition of him, who marches not to forge chains, but to break them; not to establish despotism, but to assail despotic usurpers; not to degrade and impoverish the people, but to ennoble, and to elevate, and to enrich them; not to extort from the scanty earnings of the poor the means of living in licentiousness and all luxurious indulgence, but to endure all toil, all hardship, all deprivation cheerfully, that the lethargic nations may be roused to enterprise, to industry, and to thrift. Such was the ambition of Napoleon. Surely it was lofty. But far more lofty is that ambition of which Christ is the great exemplar, which can bury self entirely in oblivion.

Twenty years after the discomfiture at Acre, Napoleon, when imprisoned upon the Rock of St. Helena, alluded to these dreams of his early life. “Acre once taken,” said he; “the French army would have flown to Aleppo and Damascus. In the twinkling of an eye it would have been on the Euphrates. The Christians of Syria, the Druses, the Christians of Armenia, would have joined it. The whole population of the East would have been agitated.” Some one said, he would have soon been reinforced by one hundred thousand men. “Say rather, six hundred thousand,” Napoleon replied. “Who can calculate what would have happened! I would have reached Constantinople and the Indies—I would have changed the face of the world.”

The manner in which Napoleon bore this disappointment most strikingly illustrates the truth of his own remarkable assertion. “Nature seems to have calculated that I should endure great reverses. She has given me a mind of marble. Thunder can not ruffle it. The shaft merely glides along.” Even his most intimate friends could discern no indications of discontent. He seemed to feel that it was not his destiny to found an empire in the East, and, acquiescing without a murmur, he turned his attention to other enterprises. “That man,” said he, with perfect good-nature, speaking of Sir Sydney Smith, “made me miss my destiny.” Napoleon ever manifested the most singular magnanimity in recognizing the good qualities of his enemies. He indulged in no feelings of exasperation toward Sir Sydney, notwithstanding his agency in frustrating the most cherished plan of his life.—Wurmser, with whom he engaged in such terrible conflicts in Italy, he declared to be a brave and magnanimous foe; and, in the hour of triumph, treated him with a degree of delicacy and generosity which could not have been surpassed had his vanquished antagonist been his intimate friend. Of Prince Charles, with whom he fought repeated and most desperate battles in his march upon Vienna, he remarked, “He is a good man, which includes every thing when said of a prince. He is incapable of a dishonorable action.” And even of his eccentric and versatile antagonist at Acre, Napoleon says, with great impartiality and accuracy of judgment, “Sir Sydney Smith is a brave officer. He displayed considerable ability in the treaty for the evacuation of Egypt by the French. He also manifested great honor in sending immediately to Kleber the refusal of Lord Keith to ratify the treaty, which saved the French army. If he had kept it a secret for seven or eight days longer, Cairo would have been given up to the Turks, and the French army would have been obliged to surrender to the English. [pg 323] He also displayed great humanity and honor in all his proceedings toward the French who fell into his hands. He is active, intelligent, intriguing, and indefatigable; but I believe that he is half crazy. The chief cause of the failure at Acre was, that he took all my battering train, which was on board several small vessels. Had it not been for that I should have taken Acre in spite of him. He behaved very bravely. He sent me, by means of a flag of truce, a lieutenant or midshipman, with a letter containing a challenge to me, to meet him in some place he pointed out, in order to fight a duel. I laughed at this, and sent him back an intimation that when he brought Marlborough to fight me, I would meet him. Notwithstanding this, I like the character of the man. He has certain good qualities, and, as an old enemy, I should like to see him.”

A minute dissector of human nature may discern, in this singular candor, a destitution of earnestness of principle. The heart is incapable of this indifference, when it cherishes a profound conviction of right and wrong. It is undoubtedly true that Napoleon encountered his foes upon the field of battle, with very much the same feeling with which he would meet an opponent in a game of chess. These wars were fierce conflicts between the kings and the people; and Napoleon was not angry with the kings for defending strongly their own cause. There were of course moments of irritation, but his prevailing feeling was that his foes were to be conquered, not condemned. At one time he expressed much surprise in perceiving that Alexander of Russia had allowed feelings of personal hostility to enter into the conflict. A chess-player could not have manifested more unaffected wonder, in finding his opponent in a rage at the check of his king. Napoleon does not appear often to have acted from a deep sense of moral obligation. His justice, generosity, and magnanimity were rather the instinctive impulses of a noble nature, than the result of a profound conviction of duty. We see but few indications, in the life of Napoleon, of tenderness of conscience. That faculty needs a kind of culture which Napoleon never enjoyed.

He also cherished the conviction that his opponents were urged on by the same destiny by which he believed himself to be impelled. “I am well taught,” said Dryfesdale, “and strong in the belief, that man does naught of himself. He is but the foam upon the billow, which rises, bubbles, and bursts, not by its own efforts, but by the mightier impulse of fate, which urges him.” The doctrine called destiny by Napoleon, and philosophical necessity by Priestley, and divine decrees by Calvin, assuming in each mind characteristic modifications, indicated by the name which each assigned to it, is a doctrine which often nerves to the most heroic and virtuous endeavors, and which is also capable of the most awful perversion.

Napoleon was an inveterate enemy to dueling, and strongly prohibited it in the army. One evening in Egypt, at a convivial party, General Lanusse spoke sarcastically respecting the condition of the army. Junot, understanding his remarks to reflect upon Napoleon, whom he almost worshiped, was instantly in a flame, and stigmatized Lanusse as a traitor. Lanusse retorted by calling Junot a scoundrel. Instantly swords were drawn, and all were upon their feet, for such words demanded blood. “Hearken,” said Junot, sternly, “I called you a traitor; I do not think that you are one. You called me a scoundrel; you know that I am not such. But we must fight. One of us must die. I hate you, for you have abused the man whom I love and admire, as much as I do God, if not more.” It was a dark night. The whole party, by the light of torches, proceeded to the bottom of the garden which sloped to the Nile, when the two half inebriated generals cut at each other with their swords, until the head of Lanusse was laid open, and the bowels of Junot almost protruded from a frightful wound. When Napoleon, the next morning, heard of the occurrence, he was exceedingly indignant. “What?” exclaimed he, “are they determined to cut each other's throats? Must they go into the midst of the reeds of the Nile to dispute it with the crocodiles? Have they not enough, then, with the Arabs, the plague, and the Mamelukes? You deserve, Monsieur Junot,” said he, as if his aid were present before him, “you richly deserve, as soon as you get well, to be put under arrest for a month.”

In preparation for abandoning the siege of Acre, Napoleon issued the following proclamation to his troops. “Soldiers! You have traversed the desert which separates Asia from Africa, with the rapidity of an Arab force. The army, which was on its march to invade Egypt, is destroyed. You have taken its general, its field artillery, camels, and baggage. You have captured all the fortified posts, which secure the wells of the desert. You have dispersed, at Mount Tabor, those swarms of brigands, collected from all parts of Asia, hoping to share the plunder of Egypt. The thirty ships, which, twelve days since, you saw enter the port of Acre, were destined for an attack upon Alexandria. But you compelled them to hasten to the relief of Acre. Several of their standards will contribute to adorn your triumphal entry into Egypt. After having maintained the war, with a handful of men, during three months, in the heart of Syria, taken forty pieces of cannon, fifty stands of colors, six thousand prisoners, and captured or destroyed the fortifications of Gaza, Jaffa, and Acre, we prepare to return to Egypt, where, by a threatened invasion, our presence is imperiously demanded. A few days longer might give you the hope of taking the Pacha in his palace. But at this season the castle of Acre is not worth the loss of three days, nor the loss of those brave soldiers who would consequently fall, and who are necessary for more essential services. Soldiers! we have yet a toilsome and a perilous task to perform. After having, by this campaign, secured ourselves from attacks from the eastward, it will perhaps be necessary to repel efforts which may be made from the west.”

[pg 324]

On the 20th of May, Napoleon, for the first time in his life, relinquished an enterprise unaccomplished. An incessant fire was kept up in the trenches till the last moment, while the baggage, the sick, and the field artillery were silently defiling to the rear, so that the Turks had no suspicion that the besiegers were about to abandon their works. Napoleon left three thousand of his troops, slain or dead of the plague, buried in the sands of Acre. He had accomplished the ostensible and avowed object of his expedition. He had utterly destroyed the vast assemblages formed in Syria for the invasion of Egypt, and had rendered the enemy, in that quarter, incapable of acting against him. Acre had been overwhelmed by his fire, and was now reduced to a heap of ruins. Those vague and brilliant dreams of conquest in the East, which he secretly cherished, had not been revealed to the soldiers. They simply knew that they had triumphantly accomplished the object announced to them, in the destruction of the great Turkish army. Elated with the pride of conquerors, they prepared to return, with the utmost celerity, to encounter another army, assembled at Rhodes, which was soon to be landed, by the hostile fleet, upon some part of the shores of Egypt. Thus, while Napoleon was frustrated in the accomplishment of his undivulged but most majestic plans, he still appeared to the world an invincible conqueror.

There were, in the hospitals, twelve hundred sick and wounded. These were to be conveyed on horses and on litters. Napoleon relinquished his own horse for the wounded, and toiled along through the burning sands with the humblest soldiers on foot. The Druses and other tribes, hostile to the Porte, were in a state of great dismay when they learned that the French were retiring. They knew that they must encounter terrible vengeance at the hands of Achmet the Butcher. The victory of the allies riveted upon them anew their chains, and a wail, which would have caused the ear of Christendom to tingle, ascended from terrified villages, as fathers and mothers and children cowered beneath the storm of vengeance which fell upon them, from the hands of the merciless Turk. But England was too far away for the shrieks to be heard in her pious dwellings.

At Jaffa, among the multitude of the sick, there were seven found near to death. They were dying of the plague, and could not be removed. Napoleon himself fearlessly went into the plague hospital, passed through all its wards, and spoke words of sympathy and encouragement to the sufferers. The eyes of the dying were turned to him, and followed his steps, with indescribable affection, as he passed from cot to cot. The seven who were in such a condition that their removal was impossible, Napoleon for some time contemplated with most tender solicitude. He could not endure the thought of leaving them to be taken by the Turks; for the Turks tortured to death every prisoner who fell into their hands. He at last suggested to the physician the expediency of administering to them an opium pill, which would expedite, by a few hours, their death, and thus save them from the hands of their cruel foe. The physician gave the highly admired reply, “My profession is to cure, not to kill.” Napoleon reflected a moment in silence, and said no more upon the subject, but left a rear-guard of five hundred men to protect them, until the last should have expired. For this suggestion Napoleon has been most severely censured. However much it may indicate mistaken views of Christian duty, it certainly does not indicate a cruel disposition. It was his tenderness of heart, and his love for his soldiers, which led to the proposal. An unfeeling monster would not have troubled himself about these few valueless and dying men; but, without a thought, would have left them to their fate. In reference to the severity with which this transaction has been condemned, Napoleon remarked at St. Helena, “I do not think that it would have been a crime had opium been administered to them. On the contrary, I think it would have been a virtue. To leave a few unfortunate men, who could not recover, in order that they might be massacred by the Turks with the most dreadful tortures, as was their custom, would, I think, have been cruelty. A general ought to act with his soldiers, as he would wish should be done to himself. Now would not any man, under similar circumstances, who had his senses, have preferred dying easily, a few hours sooner, rather than expire under the tortures of those barbarians? If my own son, and I believe I love my son as well as any father does his child, were in a similar situation with these men, I would advise it to be done. And if so situated myself, I would insist upon it, if I had sense enough and strength enough to demand it. However, affairs were not so pressing as to prevent me from leaving a party to take care of them, which was done. If I had thought such a measure as that of giving opium necessary, I would have called a council of war, have stated the necessity of it, and have published it in the order of the day. It should have been no secret. Do you think, if I had been capable of secretly poisoning my soldiers, as doing a necessary action secretly would give it the appearance of a crime, or of such barbarities as driving my carriage over the dead, and the still bleeding bodies of the wounded, that my troops would have fought for me with an enthusiasm and affection without a parallel? No, no! I never should have done so a second time. Some would have shot me in passing. Even some of the wounded, who had sufficient strength left to pull a trigger, would have dispatched me. I never committed a crime in all my political career. At my last hour I can assert that. Had I done so, I should not have been here now. I should have dispatched the Bourbons. It only rested with me to give my consent, and they would have ceased to live. I have, however, often thought since on this point of morals, and, I believe, if thoroughly considered, it is always better to suffer a man to terminate his destiny, be it what it may. I judged so afterward in the case of my friend Duroc, who, when [pg 325] his bowels were falling out before my eyes, repeatedly cried to me to have him put out of his misery. I said to him ‘I pity you, my friend, but there is no remedy, it is necessary to suffer to the last.’ ”

Sir Robert Wilson recorded, that the merciless and blood-thirsty monster Napoleon, poisoned at Jaffa five hundred and eighty of his sick and wounded soldiers, merely to relieve himself of the encumbrance of taking care of them. The statement was circulated, and believed throughout Europe and America. And thousands still judge of Napoleon through the influence of such assertions. Sir Robert was afterward convinced of his error, and became the friend of Napoleon. When some one was speaking, in terms of indignation, of the author of the atrocious libel, Napoleon replied, “You know but little of men and of the passions by which they are actuated. What leads you to imagine that Sir Robert is not a man of enthusiasm and of violent passions, who wrote what he then believed to be true? He may have been misinformed and deceived, and may now be sorry for it. He may be as sincere now in wishing us well as he formerly was in seeking to injure us.” Again he said, “The fact is that I not only never committed any crime, but I never even thought of doing so. I have always marched with the opinions of five or six millions of men. In spite of all the libels, I have no fear whatever respecting my fame. Posterity will do me justice. The truth will be known, and the good which I have done will be compared with the faults which I have committed. I am not uneasy as to the result.”

Baron Larrey was the chief of the medical staff. “Larrey,” said Napoleon to O'Meara, “was the most honest man, and the best friend to the soldier whom I ever knew. Indefatigable in his exertions for the wounded, he was seen on the field of battle, immediately after an action, accompanied by a train of young surgeons, endeavoring to discover if any signs of life remained in the bodies. He scarcely allowed a moment of repose to his assistants, and kept them ever at their posts. He tormented the generals, and disturbed them out of their beds at night, whenever he wanted accommodations or assistance for the sick or wounded. They were all afraid of him, as they knew that if his wishes were not complied with, he would immediately come and make a complaint to me.” Larrey, on his return to Europe, published a medical work, which he dedicated to Napoleon as a tribute due to him for the care which he always took of the sick and wounded soldiers. Assulini, another eminent physician, records, “Napoleon, great in every emergence, braved on several occasions the danger of contagion. I have seen him in the hospitals at Jaffa, inspecting the wards, and talking familiarly with the soldiers attacked by the plague. This heroic example allayed the fears of the army, cheered the spirits of the sick, and encouraged the hospital attendants, whom the progress of the disease and the fear of contagion had considerably alarmed.”

The march over the burning desert was long and painful, and many of the sick and wounded perished. The sufferings of the army were inconceivable. Twelve hundred persons, faint with disease, or agonized with broken bones or ghastly wounds, were borne along, over the rough and weary way, on horseback. Many were so exhausted with debility and pain that they were tied to the saddles, and were thus hurried onward, with limbs freshly amputated and with bones shivered to splinters. The path of the army was marked by the bodies of the dead, which were dropped by the way-side. There were not horses enough for the sick and the wounded, though Napoleon and all his generals marched on foot. The artillery pieces were left among the sand hills, that the horses might be used for the relief of the sufferers. Many of the wounded were necessarily abandoned to perish by the way-side. Many who could not obtain a horse, knowing the horrible death by torture which awaited them, should they fall into the hands of the Turks, hobbled along with bleeding wounds in intolerable agony. With most affecting earnestness, though unavailingly, they implored their comrades to help them. Misery destroys humanity. Each one thought only of himself. Seldom have the demoralizing influences and the horrors of war been more signally displayed than in this march of twenty-five days. Napoleon was deeply moved by the spectacle of misery around him. One day as he was toiling along through the sands, at the head of a column, with the blazing sun of Syria pouring down upon his unprotected head, with the sick, the wounded, and the dying, all around him, he saw an officer, in perfect health, riding on horseback, refusing to surrender his saddle to the sick. The indignation of Napoleon was so aroused, that by one blow from the hilt of his sword he laid the officer prostrate upon the earth, and then helped a wounded soldier into his saddle. The deed was greeted with a shout of acclamation from the ranks. The “recording angel in heaven's chancery” will blot out the record of such violence with a tear.

The historian has no right to draw the vail over the revolting horrors of war. Though he may wish to preserve his pages from the repulsive recital, justice to humanity demands that the barbarism, the crime, and the cruelty of war should be faithfully portrayed. The soldiers refused to render the slightest assistance to the sick or the wounded. They feared that every one who was not well was attacked by the plague. These poor dying sufferers were not only objects of horror, but also of derision. The soldiers burst into immoderate fits of laughter in looking upon the convulsive efforts which the dying made to rise from the sands upon which they had fallen. “He has made up his account,” said one. “He will not get on far,” said another. And when the exhausted wretch fell to rise no more, they exclaimed, with perfect indifference, “His lodging is secured.” The troops were harassed upon their march by hordes of mounted [pg 326] Arabs, ever prowling around them. To protect themselves from assault, and to avenge attacks, they fired villages, and burned the fields of grain, and with bestial fury pursued shrieking maids and matrons. Such deeds almost invariably attend the progress of an army, for an army is ever the resort and the congenial home of the moral dregs of creation. Napoleon must at times have been horror-stricken in contemplating the infernal instrumentality which he was using for the accomplishment of his purposes. The only excuse which can be offered for him is, that it was then as now, the prevalent conviction of the world that war, with all its inevitable abominations, is a necessary evil. The soldiers were glad to be fired upon from a house, for it furnished them with an excuse for rushing in, and perpetrating deeds of atrocious violence in its secret chambers.

Those infected by the plague accompanied the army at some distance from the main body. Their encampment was always separated from the bivouacs of the troops, and was with terror avoided by those soldiers who, without the tremor of a nerve, could storm a battery. Napoleon, however, always pitched his tent by their side. Every night he visited them to see if their wants were attended to. And every morning he was present, with parental kindness, to see them file off at the moment of departure. Such tenderness, at the hands of one who was filling the world with his renown, won the hearts of the soldiers. He merited their love. Even to the present day the scarred and mutilated victims of these wars, still lingering in the Hotel des Invalides at Paris, will flame with enthusiastic admiration at the very mention of the name of Napoleon. There is no man, living or dead, who at the present moment is the object of such enthusiastic love as Napoleon Bonaparte. And they who knew him the best love him the most.

One day, on their return, an Arab tribe came to meet him, to show their respect and to offer their services as guides. The son of the chief of the tribe, a little boy about twelve years of age, was mounted on a dromedary, riding by the side of Napoleon, and chatting with great familiarity. “Sultan Kebir,” said the young Arab to Napoleon, “I could give you good advice, now that you are returning to Cairo.” “Well! speak, my friend,” said Napoleon; “if your advice is good I will follow it.” “I will tell you what I would do, were I in your place,” the young chief rejoined. “As soon as I got to Cairo, I would send for the richest slave-merchant in the market, and I would choose twenty of the prettiest women for myself. I would then send for the richest jewelers, and would make them give me up a good share of their stock. I would then do the same with all the other merchants. For what is the use of reigning, or being powerful, if not to acquire riches?” “But, my friend,” replied Napoleon, “suppose it were more noble to preserve these things for others?” The young barbarian was quite perplexed in endeavoring to comprehend ambition so lofty, intellectual, and refined. “He was, however,” said Napoleon, “very promising for an Arab. He was lively and courageous, and led his troops with dignity and order. He is perhaps destined one day or other, to carry his advice into execution in the market-place of Cairo.”

Illustration: Arrival of the Courier.

At length Napoleon arrived at Cairo, after an absence of three months. With great pomp and triumph he entered the city. He found, on his return to Egypt, that deep discontent pervaded the army. The soldiers had now been absent from France for a year. For six months they had heard no news whatever from home, as not [pg 327] a single French vessel had been able to cross the Mediterranean. Napoleon, finding his plans frustrated for establishing an empire which should overshadow all the East, began to turn his thoughts again to France. He knew, however, that there was another Turkish army collected at Rhodes, prepared, in co-operation with the fleets of Russia and England, to make a descent on Egypt. He could not think of leaving the army until that formidable foe was disposed of. He knew not when or where the landing would be attempted, and could only wait.

One evening, in July, he was walking with a friend in the environs of Cairo, beneath the shadow of the Pyramids, when an Arab horseman was seen, enveloped in a cloud of dust, rapidly approaching him over the desert. He brought dispatches from Alexandria, informing Napoleon that a powerful fleet had appeared in the Bay of Aboukir, that eighteen thousand Turks had landed, fierce and fearless soldiers, each armed with musket, pistol, and sabre; that their artillery was numerous, and well served by British officers; that the combined English, Russian, and Turkish fleets supported the armament in the bay; that Mourad Bey, with a numerous body of Mameluke cavalry, was crossing the desert from Upper Egypt to join the invaders; that the village of Aboukir had been taken by the Turks, the garrison cut to pieces, and the citadel compelled to capitulate. Thus the storm burst upon Egypt.

Napoleon immediately retired to his tent, where he remained till 3 o'clock the next morning, dictating orders for the instant advance of the troops; and for the conduct of those who were to remain in Cairo, and at the other military stations. At 4 o'clock in the morning he was on horseback, and the army in full march. The French troops were necessarily so scattered—some in Upper Egypt, eight hundred miles above Cairo, some upon the borders of the desert to prevent incursions from Syria, some at Alexandria—that Napoleon could take with him but eight thousand men. By night and by day, through smothering dust and burning sands, and beneath the rays of an almost blistering sun, his troops, hungry and thirsty, with iron sinews, almost rushed along, accomplishing one of those extraordinary marches which filled the world with wonder. In seven days he reached the Bay of Aboukir.

It was the hour of midnight, on the 25th of July, 1799, when Napoleon, with six thousand men, arrived within sight of the strongly intrenched camp of the Turks. They had thrown up intrenchments among the sand-hills on the shore of the bay. He ascended an eminence and carefully examined the position of his sleeping foes. By the bright moonlight he saw the vast fleet of the allies riding at anchor in the offing, and his practiced eye could count the mighty host, of infantry and artillery and horsemen, slumbering before him. He knew that the Turks were awaiting the arrival of the formidable Mameluke cavalry from Egypt, and for still greater reinforcements, of men and munitions of war, from Acre, and other parts of Syria. Kleber, with a division of two thousand of the army, had not yet arrived. Napoleon resolved immediately to attack his foes, though they were eighteen thousand strong. It was indeed an unequal conflict. These janizaries were the most fierce, merciless, and indomitable of men; and their energies were directed by English officers and by French engineers. Just one year before, Napoleon with his army had landed upon that beach. Where the allied fleet now rode so proudly, the French fleet had been utterly destroyed. The bosom of Napoleon burned with the desire to avenge this disaster. As Napoleon stood silently contemplating the scene, Murat by his side, he foresaw the long results depending upon the issue of the conflict. Utter defeat would be to him utter ruin. A partial victory would but prolong the conflict, and render it impossible for him, without dishonor, to abandon Egypt and return to France. The entire destruction of his foes would enable him, with the renown of an invincible conqueror, to leave the army in safety and embark for Paris, where he doubted not that, in the tumult of the unsettled times, avenues of glory would be opened before him. So strongly was he impressed with the great destinies for which he believed himself to be created, that, turning to Murat, he said, “This battle will decide the fate of the world.” The distinguished cavalry commander, unable to appreciate the grandeur of Napoleon's thoughts, replied, “At least of this army. But every French soldier feels now that he must conquer or die. And be assured, if ever infantry were charged to the teeth by cavalry, the Turks shall be to-morrow so charged by mine.”

The first gray of the morning was just appearing in the East, when the Turkish army was aroused by the tramp of the French columns, and by a shower of bomb-shells falling in the midst of their intrenchments. One of the most terrible battles recorded in history then ensued. The awful genius of Napoleon never shone forth more fearfully than on that bloody day. He stood upon a gentle eminence, calm, silent, unperturbed, pitiless, and guided, with resistless skill, the carnage. The onslaught of the French was like that of wolves. The Turks were driven like deer before them. Every man remembered that in that bay the proud fleet of France had perished. Every man felt that the kings of Europe had banded for the destruction of the French Republic. Every man exulted in the thought that there were but six thousand French Republicans to hurl themselves upon England, Russia, and Turkey combined, nearly twenty thousand strong. The Turks, perplexed and confounded by the skill and fury of the assault, were driven in upon each other in horrible confusion. The French, trained to load and fire with a rapidity which seemed miraculous, poured in upon them a perfect hurricane of bullets, balls, and shells. They were torn to pieces, mown down, bayoneted, and trampled under iron hoofs. In utter consternation, thousands of them plunged into [pg 328] the sea, horsemen and footmen, and struggled in the waves, in the insane attempt to swim to the ships, three miles distant from the shore. With terrible calmness of energy Napoleon opened upon the drowning host the tornado of his batteries, and the water was swept with grape-shot as by a hail-storm. The Turks were on the point of a peninsula. Escape by land was impossible. They would not ask for quarter. The silent and proud spirit of Napoleon was inflamed with the resolve to achieve a victory which should reclaim the name of Aboukir to the arms of France. Murat redeemed his pledge. Plunging with his cavalry into the densest throng of the enemy, he spurred his fiery steed, reckless of peril, to the very centre of the Turkish camp, where stood Mustapha Pacha, surrounded by his staff. The proud Turk had barely time to discharge a pistol at his audacious foe, which slightly wounded Murat, ere the dripping sabre of the French general severed half of his hand from the wrist. Thus wounded, the leader of the Turkish army was immediately captured, and sent in triumph to Napoleon. As Napoleon received his illustrious prisoner, magnanimously desiring to soothe the bitterness of his utter discomfiture, he courteously said, “I will take care to inform the Sultan of the courage you have displayed in this battle, though it has been your misfortune to lose it.” “Thou mayst save thyself that trouble,” the proud Turk haughtily replied. “My master knows me better than thou canst.”

Before 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the whole Turkish army was destroyed. Hardly an individual escaped. About two thousand prisoners were taken in the fort. All the rest perished, either drowned in the sea, or slain upon the land. Sir Sydney Smith, who had chosen the position occupied by the Turkish army, with the utmost [pg 329] difficulty avoided capture. In the midst of the terrible scene of tumult and death, the Commodore succeeded in getting on board a boat, and was rowed to his ships. More than twelve thousand corpses of the turbaned Turks were floating in the bay of Aboukir, beneath whose crimsoned waves, but a few months before, almost an equal number of the French had sunk in death. Such utter destruction of an army is perhaps unexampled in the annals of war. If God frowned upon France in the naval battle of Aboukir, He as signally frowned upon her foes in this terrific conflict on the land.

The cloudless sun descended peacefully, in the evening, beneath the blue waves of the Mediterranean. Napoleon stood at the door of his tent, calmly contemplating the scene, from whence all his foes had thus suddenly and utterly vanished. Just then Kleber arrived, with his division of two thousand men, for whom Napoleon had not waited. The distinguished soldier, who had long been an ardent admirer of Napoleon, was overwhelmed with amazement in contemplating the magnitude of the victory. In his enthusiasm he threw his arms around the neck of his adored chieftain, exclaiming, “Let me embrace you, my General, you are great as the universe.”

Egypt was now quiet. Not a foe remained to be encountered. No immediate attack, from any quarter, was to be feared. Nothing remained to be done but to carry on the routine of the administration of the infant colony. These duties required no especial genius, and could be very creditably performed by any respectable governor.

It was, however, but a barren victory which Napoleon had obtained, at such an enormous expenditure of suffering and of life. It was in vain for the isolated army, cut off, by the destruction of its fleet, from all intercourse with Europe, to think of the invasion of India. The French troops had exactly “caught the Tartar.” Egypt was of no possible avail as a colony, with the Mediterranean crowded with hostile English, and Russian, and Turkish cruisers. For the same reason, it was impossible for the army to leave those shores and return to France. Thus the victorious French, in the midst of all their triumphs, found that they had built up for themselves prison walls from which, though they could repel their enemies, there was no escape. The sovereignty of Egypt alone was too petty an affair to satisfy the boundless ambition of Napoleon. Destiny, he thought, deciding against an Empire in the East, was only guiding him back to an Empire in the West.

For ten months Napoleon had now received no certain intelligence respecting Europe. Sir Sydney Smith, either in the exercise of the spirit of gentlemanly courtesy, or enjoying a malicious pleasure in communicating to his victor tidings of disaster upon disaster falling upon France, sent to him a file of newspapers full of the most humiliating intelligence. The hostile fleet, leaving its whole army of eighteen thousand men, buried in the sands, or beneath the waves, weighed anchor and disappeared.

Napoleon spent the whole night, with intense interest, examining those papers. He learned that France was in a state of indescribable confusion; that the imbecile government of the Directory, resorting to the most absurd measures, was despised and disregarded; that plots and counter-plots, conspiracies and assassinations filled the land. He learned, to his astonishment, that France was again involved in war with monarchical Europe; that the Austrians had invaded Italy anew, and driven the French over the Alps; and that the banded armies of the European kings were crowding upon the frontiers of the distracted republic. “Ah!” he exclaimed to Bourrienne, “my forebodings have not deceived me. The fools have lost Italy. All the fruit of our victories has disappeared. I must leave Egypt. We must return to France immediately, and, if possible, repair these disasters, and save France from destruction.”

Illustration: The Return.

It was a signal peculiarity in the mind of Napoleon that his decisions appeared to be instinctive [pg 330] rather than deliberative. With the rapidity of the lightning's flash his mind contemplated all the considerations upon each side of a question, and instantaneously came to the result. These judgments, apparently so hasty, combined all the wisdom which others obtain by the slow and painful process of weeks of deliberation and uncertainty. Thus in the midst of the innumerable combinations of the field of battle, he never suffered from a moment of perplexity; he never hesitated between this plan and that plan, but instantaneously, and without the slightest misgivings, decided upon that very course, to which the most slow and mature deliberation would have guided him. This instinctive promptness of correct decision was one great secret of his mighty power. It pertained alike to every subject with which the human mind could be conversant. The promptness of his decision was only equaled by the energy of his execution. He therefore accomplished in hours that which would have engrossed the energies of other minds for days.

Thus, in the present case, he decided, upon the moment, to return to France. The details of his return, as to the disposition to be made of the army, the manner in which he would attempt to evade the British cruisers, and the individuals he would take with him, were all immediately settled in his mind. He called Bourrienne, Berthier, and Gantheaume before him, and informed them of his decision, enjoining upon them the most perfect secrecy, lest intelligence of his preparations should be communicated to the allied fleet. He ordered Gantheaume immediately to get ready for sea two frigates from the harbor of Alexandria, and two small vessels, with provisions for four hundred men for two months. Napoleon then returned with the army to Cairo. He arrived there on the 10th of August, and again, as a resistless conqueror, entered the city. He prevented any suspicion of his projected departure, from arising among the soldiers, by planning an expedition to explore Upper Egypt.

One morning he announced his intention of going down the Nile, to spend a few days in examining the Delta. He took with him a small retinue, and striking across the desert, proceeded with the utmost celerity to Alexandria, where they arrived on the 22d of August. Concealed by the shades of the evening of the same day, he left the town, with eight selected companions, and escorted by a few of his faithful guards. Silently and rapidly they rode to a solitary part of the bay, the party wondering what this movement could mean. Here they discovered, dimly in the distance, two frigates riding at anchor, and some fishing-boats near the shore, apparently waiting to receive them. Then Napoleon announced to his companions that their destination was France. The joy of the company was inconceivable. The horses were left upon the beach, to find their way back to Alexandria. The victorious fugitives crowded into the boats, and were rowed out, in the dim and silent night, to the frigates. The sails were immediately spread, and before the light of morning dawned, the low and sandy outline of the Egyptian shore had disappeared beneath the horizon of the sea.

There is nothing, however small, in nature that has not its appropriate use—nothing, however insignificant it may appear to us, that has not some important mission to fulfill. The living dust that swarms in clusters about our cheese—the mildew casting its emerald tint over our preserves—the lichen and the moss wearing away the words of grief and honor engraved upon the tombs of our forefathers, have each their appropriate work, and are all important in the great economy of nature. The little moss which so effectually aroused the emotions of Mungo Park when far away from his friends and kin, and when his spirits were almost failing, may teach a moral lesson to us all, and serve to inspire us with some of that perseverance and energy to travel through life, that it did Mungo Park in his journey through the African desert. By the steady and long-continued efforts of this fragile little plant, high mountains have been leveled, which no human power could have brought from their towering heights. Adamantine rocks have been reduced to pebbles; cliffs have mouldered in heaps upon the shore; and castles and strongholds raised by the hand of man have proved weak and powerless under the ravages of this tiny agent, and become scenes of ruin and desolation—the habitations of the owl and the bat. Yet who, to look upon the lichen, would think it could do all this?—so modest that we might almost take it for a part of the ground upon which we tread. Can this, we exclaim, be a leveler of mountains and mausoleums! Contemplate its unobtrusive, humble course; endowed by nature with an organization capable of vegetating in the most unpropitious circumstances—requiring indeed little more than the mere moisture of the atmosphere to sustain it, the lichen sends forth its small filamentous roots and clings to the hard, dry rock with a most determined pertinacity. These little fibres, which can scarcely be discerned with the naked eye, find their way into the minute crevices of the stone; now, firmly attached, the rain-drops lodge upon their fronds or membranaceous scales on the surface, and filtering to their roots, moisten the space which they occupy, and the little plant is then enabled to work itself further into the rock; the dimensions of the aperture become enlarged, and the water runs in in greater quantities. This work, carried on by a legion ten thousand strong, soon pierces the stony cliff with innumerable fissures, which being filled with rain, the frost causes it to split, and large pieces roll down to the levels beneath, reduced to sand, or to become soil for the growth of a more exalted vegetation.—This, of course, is a work of time—of generations, perhaps, measured by the span of human life; but, undaunted, the mission of the humble lichen goes on and prospers. Is not this a lesson [pg 331] worth learning from the book of nature? Does it not contain much that we might profit by, and set us an example that we should do well to imitate? “Persevere, and despise not little things,” is the lesson we draw from it ourselves, and the poorest and humblest reader of this page will be able to accomplish great things, if he will take the precept to himself, engrave it upon his heart, or hold it constantly before him; depend upon it, you will gain more inspiration from these words than from half the wise sayings of the philosophers of old.

But nature is full of examples to stimulate us to perseverance, and beautiful illustrations of how much can be achieved by little things—trifles unheeded by the multitude. The worms that we tread in the dust beneath our feet, are the choicest friends of the husbandman. A tract of land rendered barren by the incrustation of stones upon its surface, becomes by their labors a rich and fertile plain; they loosen and throw up in nutritious mealy hillocks the hardest and most unprofitable soil—the stones disappear, and where all was sterility and worthlessness, is soon rich with a luxurious vegetation. We may call to mind, too, the worm upon the mulberry-tree, and its miles of fine-spun glistening silk; we may watch the process of its transformation till the choice fabric which its patient industry had produced is dyed by an infusion gained from another little insect (the Cochineal), and then, endowed with the glory of tint and softness of texture, it is cut into robes to deck the beauty of our English wives and daughters. Yet, those ignorant of their usefulness would despise these little laborers, as they do others equally valuable. The bee and the ant, again, are instances which we may all observe—but how few will spare five minutes to contemplate them. Yet, where is the man, sluggard though he be, who would not shake off his slothfulness on observing the patient industry and frugal economy of the little ant? or where is the drunkard and spendthrift who could watch the bee, so busy in garnering up a rich store for the coming winter—laboring while the sun shone, to sustain them when the frost and rain, and the flowerless plants shut out all means of gaining their daily bread; and not put his shoulder to the wheel, and think of old age, and the clouds that are gathering in the heavens? The worth of all the delicious sweets we have derived from the industry of the little bee, is nothing, when compared with the value of this moral which they teach us.

If we turn from the book of Nature and open the annals of discovery and science, many instances of the importance of little things will start up and crowd around us—of events which appear in the lowest degree insignificant, being the cause of vast and stupendous discoveries. “The smallest thing becomes respectable,” says Foster, “when regarded as the commencement of what has advanced or is advancing into magnificence. The first rude settlement of Romulus would have been an insignificant circumstance, and might justly have sunk into oblivion, if Rome had not at length commanded the world. The little rill near the source of one of the great American rivers is an interesting object to the traveler, who is apprised as he steps across it, or walks a few miles along its bank, that this is the stream which runs so far, and gradually swells into so immense a flood.” By the accidental mixing of a little nitre and potash, gunpowder was discovered. In ancient times, before the days of Pliny, some merchants traveling across a sandy desert, could find no rock at hand on which to kindle a fire to prepare their food; as a substitute, they took a block of alkali from among their heaps of merchandise, and lit a fire thereon. The merchants stared with surprise when they saw the huge block melting beneath the heat, and running down in a glistening stream as it mingled with the sand, and still more so, when they discovered into what a hard and shining substance it had been transformed. From this, says Pliny, originated the making of glass. The sunbeams dazzling on a crystal prism unfolded the whole theory of colors. A few rude types carved from a wooden block have been the means of revolutionizing nations, overthrowing dynasties, and rooting out the most hardened despotisms—of driving away a multitude of imps of superstition, which for ages had been the terror of the learned, and of spreading the light of truth and knowledge from the frontiers of civilization to the coasts of darkness and barbarism. “We must destroy the Press,” exclaimed the furious Wolsey, “or the Press will destroy us.” The battle was fought, the Press was triumphant, and Popery banished from the shores of Britain. The swinging of a lamp suspended from a ceiling led Galileo to search into the laws of oscillation of the pendulum; and by the fall of an apple the great Newton was led to unfold what had hitherto been deemed one of the secrets of the Deity—a mystery over which God had thrown a vail, which it would be presumption for man to lift or dare to pry beneath. Had Newton disregarded little things, and failed to profit by gentle hints, we should perhaps have thought so still, and our minds would not have been so filled with the glory of Him who made the heavens; but with these great truths revealed to our understandings, we exclaim from our hearts, “Manifold, O God! are thy works; in wisdom hast thou made them all.”

When the heart of the woolspinner of Genoa was sickening with “hope deferred,” and his men, who had long been straining their eyes in vain to catch a glimpse of land, were about to burst into open mutiny, and were shouting fearfully to their leader to steer the vessel back again, Columbus picked up a piece of wood which he found floating upon the waters. The shore must be nigh, he thought, from whence this branch has wafted, and the inference inspired the fainting hearts of his crew to persevere and gain the hoped-for land; had it not been for this trifling occurrence, Columbus would perhaps have returned to Spain an unsuccessful adventurer. But such trifles have often befriended genius. Accidentally observing a red-hot iron become elongated [pg 332] by passing between iron cylinders, suggested the improvements effected by Arkwright in the spinning machinery. A piece of thread and a few small beads were means sufficient in the hands of Ferguson, to ascertain the situation of the stars in the heavens. The discovery of Galvani was made by a trifling occurrence; a knife happened to be brought in contact with a dead frog which was lying upon the board of the chemist's laboratory, the muscles of the reptile were observed to be severely convulsed—experiments soon unfolded the whole theory of Galvanism. The history of the gas-light is curious, and illustrates our subject. Dr. Clayton distilled some coal in a retort, and confining the vapor in a bladder, amused his friends by burning it as it issued from a pin-hole; little did the worthy doctor think to what purposes the principle of that experiment was capable of being applied. It was left for Murdoch to suggest its adoption as a means of illuminating our streets and adding to the splendor of our shops. Had Clayton not made known his humble experiment, we probably should still be depending on the mercy of a jovial watchman for a light to guide us through the dark thoroughfares of the city, or to the dim glimmer of an oil lamp to display the luxury of our merchandise.

These facts, which we have gleaned from the fields of nature and from the annals of science, may be useful to us all. If God has instilled the instinct of frugality into the ant, and told us, in his written word, to go learn her ways and be wise, think you he will be displeased to observe the same habits of economy in us, or deny us the favor of his countenance, because we use with care the talents he has intrusted to our keeping, or the wealth he has placed within our reach? Let not instances of the abuse of this feeling, which spendthrifts in derision will be sure to point out to you, deter you from saving, in times of plenty, a little for a time of need. Avarice is always despicable—the crime of the miser is greater than that of the spendthrift; both are extremes, both abuse the legitimate purposes of wealth. It is equally revolting to read of two avaricious souls, whose coffers could have disgorged ten times ten thousand guineas, growing angry over a penny, or fretting at the loss of a farthing rushlight; but it is a sight quite as sad and painful to observe the spendthrift squandering in the mire the last shilling of an ample fortune, and reducing his wife and children to beggary for ever. Save, then, a little, although the thoughtless and the gay may sneer. Throw nothing away, for there is nothing that is purely worthless; the refuse from your table is worth its price, and if you are not wanting it yourself, remember there are hundreds of your kind, your brethren by the laws of God, who are groaning under a poverty which it would help to mitigate, and pale with a hunger which it might help to satisfy. Where can you find your prescriptive right to squander that which would fill the belly of a hungry brother? A gentleman, some years ago, married the daughter of a public contractor, whose carts carried away the dust from our habitations; he was promised a portion with his bride, and on his nuptial day was referred to a large heap of dust and offal as the promised dowry. He little thought, as he received it with some reluctance, that it would put two thousand pounds into his pocket.

To achieve independence, then, you must practise an habitual frugality, and while enjoying the present, look forward to old age, and think now and then of the possibility of a rainy day. Do not fancy, because you can only save an occasional penny now, that you will never become the possessor of pounds. Small things increase by union. Recollect, too, the precepts and life of Franklin, and a thousand others who rose to wealth and honor by looking after little things: be resolute, persevere, and prosper. Do not wait for the assistance of others in your progress through life; you will grow hungry, depend upon it, if you look to the charity or kindness of friends for your daily bread. It is far more noble to gird up your loins, and meet the difficulties and troubles of human life with a dauntless courage. The wheel of fortune turns as swiftly as that of a mill, and the rich friend who has the power, you think, to help you to-day, may become poor tomorrow—many such instances of the mutability of fortune must occur to every reader. If he be rich, let him take the inference to himself. If he has plenty, let him save a little, lest the wheel should turn against him; and if he be poor and penniless, let him draw from such cases consolation and hope.

You are desirous of promotion in your worldly position—you are ambitious of rising from indigence to affluence?—resist, then, every temptation that may allure you to indolence or every fascination that may lead to prodigality. Think not that the path to wealth or knowledge is all sunshine and honey; look for it only by long years of vigorous and well-directed activity; let no opportunity pass for self-improvement. Keep your mind a total stranger to the ennui of the slothful. The dove, recollect, did not return to Noah with the olive-branch till the second time of her going forth; why, then, should you despond at the failure of a first attempt? Persevere, and above all, despise not little things; for, you see, they sometimes lead to great matters in the end.

The Sublime Porte.

In offering a few remarks upon the government of Turkey, which, by common accord, is known in Europe and the United States as “The Sublime Porte,” it is not intended to quote history, but rather to speak of it only in reference to the present period. It is nevertheless necessary to state that the Turks themselves call the Turkish Empire As regards the title, “The Sublime Porte,” this has a different origin. In the earlier days of Ottoman rule, the reigning sovereign, as is still the case in some parts of the East, held courts of justice and levees at the entrance of his residence. The palace of the Sultan is always surrounded by a high wall, and not unfrequently defended by lofty towers and bastions. The chief entrance is an elevated portal, with some pretensions to magnificence and showy architecture. It is guarded by soldiers or door-keepers well armed; it may also contain some apartments for certain officers, or even for the Sultan himself; its covering or roof, projecting beyond the walls, offers an agreeable shade, and in its external alcoves are sofas more or less rich or gaudy. Numerous loiterers are usually found lingering about the portal, applicants for justice; and there, in former times, when the Ottomans were indeed Turks, scenes of injustice and cruelty were not unfrequently witnessed by the passer-by.

This lofty portal generally bears a distinct title. At Constantinople it has even grown into one which has given a name to the whole government of the Sultan. I am not aware, however, that the custom here alluded to was ever in force in that capital, though it certainly was in other parts of the empire of Othman. It is not improbable that it was usual with all the Sultans, who, at the head of their armies, seldom had any permanent fixed residence worthy of the name of palace. Mahomet the Second, who conquered Constantinople from the degenerate Greeks, may, for some time after his entrance into the city of Constantine—still called in all the official documents, such as “ Long since, the Ottoman Sultans have ceased administering justice before their palaces, or indeed any where else, in person. The office is delegated to a deputy, who presides over the whole Ottoman government, with the title of Grand Vezir, or in Turkish, The title of The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire is known by his subjects under the title of Until the reign of the late Sultan, Mahmoud the Second, the Ottoman sovereigns had their residence in the “Seraglio” before alluded to, in the city of Constantinople. Its high walls were not, however, sufficiently strong to protect them against the violence of the Janizaries, and after their destruction the remembrance of the scenes of their cruelty induced the late and present Sultan to forsake it for the safer and more agreeable banks of the Bosphorus. The extensive and very picturesque buildings of the Seraglio are now left to decay; they offer only the spectacle of [pg 334] the “dark ages” of Turkey, gloomy in their aspect, as in their history, and yet occupying one of the most favored spots in the world, on which the eyes of the traveler are fixed as by a charm in approaching the great capital of the East, and on which they dwell with a parting feeling of regret as he bids the magnificent “City of the Sultan” farewell.

On the Bosphorus are two splendid palaces, one on the Asiatic and the other on the European shore. The first is called The Turkish Sultan, in theory, is a despotic sovereign, while in practice he is a very paternal one. As the supreme head of the government, he may exercise unlimited power; few checks exist to preserve the lives and property of his subjects against an influence which he might exercise over them. His ancestors conquered the country, and subjugated its inhabitants to his rule with his troops; consequently it all belonged to him, and could only be possessed by his gift: thus, in fact, the empire is his, and the concessions made by him to his subjects are free-will offerings, which are not drawn from him by compulsion on their part, but are grants on his, in behalf of reform and civilization. The feudal system of land-tenure was abolished by his father, and there is now scarcely a feature of it remaining. It is several years since the present Sultan spontaneously renounced all the arbitrary power hitherto possessed and frequently exercised by his predecessors; at the same time he granted all his subjects a “Charter of Rights,” called the The present Sultan, Abd-ul-Mejid, which name is Arabic, and signifies “Servant of the Glorious” (God), is now in his twenty-ninth year: he succeeded his late illustrious father, Mahmoud II., in 1839, when he was but seventeen years of age. His father had inspired him with the desire to improve his empire and promote the welfare of his people by salutary reforms, and frequently carried him with him to observe the result of the new system which he had introduced into the different branches of the public service. Previous to his accession to the throne, but little is known of his life, or the way in which he was brought up. It may be supposed to have been much like that of all Oriental princes. Except when he attended his parent, he seldom left the palace. He had several sisters and one brother, all by other mothers than his own. The former have, since his accession, died, with the exception of one, the wife of the present Minister of War. His brother still lives, and resides with the Sultan in his palace. The mother of the Sultan, who was a Circassian slave of his father, is said to be a woman of a strong mind and an excellent judgment. She exercised much influence over her son when he ascended the throne, and her counsels were greatly to his benefit. He entertains for her feelings of the deepest respect, and has always evinced the warmest concern for her health and happiness. She is a large, portly lady, yet in the prime of life; and although she possesses a fine palace of her own, near to that of her son, she mostly resides with him. Her revenues are derived from the islands of Chio and Samos.

In person the Sultan is of middle stature, slender, and of a delicate frame. In his youth he suffered from illness, and it was thought that his constitution had been severely affected by it. His features are slightly marked with the small pox. His countenance denotes great benevolence and goodness of heart, and the frankness and earnestness of character which are its chief traits. He does not possess the dignified and commanding figure which eminently characterized his father, and in conduct is simple and diffident. His address, when unrestrained by official forms and ceremony, is gentle and kind in the extreme—more affable and engaging than that of his Pachas; and no one can approach him without being won by the goodness of heart which his demeanor indicates. He has never been known to commit an act of severity or injustice; his purse and his hand have always been open for the indigent and the unfortunate, and he takes a peculiar pride in bestowing his honors upon men of science and talent. Among his own subjects he is very popular and much beloved; they perceive and acknowledge the benefit of the reforms which he has instituted, and he no longer need apprehend any opposition on their part. In some of the more distant portions of his empire, such as Albania, where perhaps foreign influence is exerted to thwart his plans, his new system of military rule has not yet been carried out; but it evidently soon will be, especially when its advantage over the old is felt by the inhabitants.

The palaces of the Sultan, on both banks of the Bosphorus, though externally showy, are [pg 335] very plain and simple in their interior arrangement. They are surrounded by high walls, and guarded by soldiery. The first block of buildings which the traveler approaches on visiting them, up the Bosphorus, are the apartments of the eunuchs; the second his The Sultan's palace is peculiarly his private home, and no officers of high rank occupy it with him. He has four private secretaries and as many chamberlains. He has also two aids-de-camp, who are generally in command of the body-guard, which has its quarters in the vicinity of the palace. He seldom, however, commands their attendance; their duties are to keep watch at the principal entrances, and to salute him or any other higher officers who may arrive at or leave the royal residence. The secretaries write out his orders, and the chief of their number receives all foreign functionaries or Turkish dignitaries who visit the palace on business. One of them is the Sultan's interpreter, and translates articles for his perusal from the many foreign papers received from Europe and America by the Sultan. All official documents are sent to the chief secretary by the different ministers of the Sublime Porte, and those received from the foreign embassies and legations are translated there, previous to being transmitted to the Sultan. No foreign legation ever transacts any official business directly with the Sultan, or through the chief (private) secretary; but the latter may be visited on matters relating to the sovereign personally. Documents from the Sublime Porte are always communicated through the Grand Vezir, who has a number of portfolios in which these are placed, and he sends them to the palace by certain functionaries charged especially with their conveyance. Of these the Vezir possesses one key, and the Sultan, or his chief secretary, another. The sultan passes several hours of the day, from eleven till three, in perusing these papers, and in hearing their perusal by the private secretary before him; and his imperial commands are traced on their broad margin, either by his own hand in red ink (as is customary in China), or he directs his secretary to do it for him. So very sacred are all manuscripts coming from his pen, that these papers seldom ever leave the bureaux to which they belong, except after his decease. It is only on such documents that the autograph of the Sultan is ever seen.

At about three o'clock the Sultan generally leaves the palace in a caÏque or barge, which, being smaller than that used for official purposes, is called the incognito ( Mordant Lindsay threw off the long black crape scarf and hat-band which, in the character of chief mourner, he had that day worn at the funeral of his wife, as he entered one of the apartments at Langford, and moodily sought a seat. The room was spacious, and filled with [pg 336] every luxury which wealth could procure or ingenuity invent to add to its comfort or its ornament. Pictures, mirrors, silken curtains, and warm carpets; statues in marble and bronze were scattered about in rich profusion in the saloon, and its owner, in the deep mourning of a widower, sat there—grieving truly—thinking deeply; but not, as might have been supposed, of the lady who had that day been laid in the vault of his ancestors—no, he was regretting the loss of a much brighter spirit than ever lived in her pale proud face, or in the coldness of her calm blue eye. Mordant Lindsay was apparently a man of past fifty; his hair was streaked with gray, though its dark locks still curled thickly round his head; he bore on his face the marks of more than common beauty, but time had left its traces there, in the furrows on his brow; and even more deeply than time, care. As a young man, he had been very handsome, richly endowed by nature with all those graces which too often make captive only to kill; but fortune, less generous, had gifted him but with the heritage of a good name—nothing more—and his early life had been passed in an attempt, by his own means, to remedy the slight she had put upon him at his birth. The object of his ambition was gained—had been now for some years: he was wealthy, the possessor of all the fair lands stretched out before him as far as his eye could reach, and a rent-roll not unworthy of one in a higher station in life. Looked up to by the poor of Langford as the lord of the manor, courted by his equals as a man of some consequence. Was he happy? See the lines so deeply marked on his countenance, and listen to the sigh which seems to break from the bottom of his heart. You will find in them an answer.

How brightly the sun shines in through the windows of the room, gilding all around with its own radiance, and giving life and light to the very statues! It shines even on his head, but fails in warming his bosom; it annoys him, uncongenial as it is with his sad thoughts, and he rises and pulls down the blind, and then restlessly wanders forth into the open air. The day is close, for summer is still at its height, and Mordant Lindsay seeks the shade of a group of trees and lies down, and presently he sleeps, and the sun (as it declines) throws its shadows on nearer objects; and now it rests on him, and as it hovers there, takes the form of that companion of his childhood, who for long, with a pertinacity he could not account for, seemed ever avoiding his path, and flying from him when most anxiously pursued; and he sees again those scenes of his past life before him dimly pictured through the vista of many years, and his dream runs thus:

He is a child at play, young and innocent, as yet untainted by worldly ambition, and standing by him is a beautiful figure, with long golden hair, very bright, and shining like spun glass or the rays of the summer sun. Her eyes seem born for laughter, so clear, so mirthful, so full of joy, and her spotless robe flows around her, making every thing it comes in contact with graceful as itself; and she has wings, for Happiness is fickle and flies away, so soon as man proves false to himself and unworthy of her. She joins the child in his gambols, and hand in hand with him sports beside him, gathering the same flowers that he gathers, looking through his smiling eyes as she echoes his happy laughter; and then over meadow, past ditches, and through tangled bushes, in full chase after a butterfly. In the eagerness of the sport he falls, and the gaudy insect (all unconscious of being the originator of so many conflicting hopes and fears) flutters onward in full enjoyment of the sun and the light, and soon it is too far off to renew the chase. Tears, like dewdrops, fill the child's eyes, and he looks around in vain for his companion of the day. The grass is not so green without her; even the bird's song is discordant, and, tired, he sadly wends his way toward home. “Oh, dear mamma!” he exclaims, brightening up, as he sees his mother coming toward him, and running to her finds a ready sympathy in his disappointment as she clasps her boy to her bosom and dries his little tearful face, closely pressing him to a heart whose best hopes are centred in his well-being. Happiness is in her arms, and he feels her warm breath upon his cheek as she kisses and fondles him; and anon he is as cheerful as he was, for his playmate of the day, now returned with his own good-humor, accompanies him for all the hours he will encourage her to remain; sometimes hiding within the purple flower of the scented violet, or nodding from beneath the yellow cups of the cowslip, as the breeze sends her laden with perfume back to him again. And in such childish play and innocent enjoyment time rolls on, until the child has reached his ninth year, and becomes the subject and lawful slave of all the rules in Murray's Grammar, and those who instill them into the youthful mind. And then the boy finds his early friend (although ready at all times to share his hours of relaxation) very shy and distant; when studies are difficult or lessons long, keeping away until the task is accomplished; but cricket and bat and ball invariably summon her, and then she is bright and kind as of yore, content to forget old quarrels in present enjoyment; and as Mordant dreamed, he sighed in his sleep, and the shadow of Happiness went still further off, as if frightened by his grief.

The picture changes: and now more than twenty years are past since the time when the boy first saw the light, and he is sitting in the room of a little cottage. The glass door leading to the garden is open, and the flowers come clustering in at the windows. The loveliness of the child has flown, it is true, but in its place a fond mother gazes on the form of a son whose every feature is calculated to inspire love. The short dark curls are parted from off his sunburnt forehead, and the bright hazel eyes (in which merriment predominates) glance quickly toward the door, as if expecting some one. The book he has been pretending to read lies idly on his lap, and bending his head upon his hand, his eyes had [pg 337] shut in the earnestness of his reverie, he does not hear the light footstep which presently comes stealing softly behind him. The new-comer is a young and very pretty girl, with a pale Madonna-looking face, seriously thoughtful beyond her years. She may be seventeen or eighteen, not more. Her hands have been busy with the flowers in the garden, and now, as she comes up behind the youth, she plucks the leaves from off a rose-bud, and drops them on his open book. A slight start, and a look upward, and then (his arms around her slight form) he kisses her fondly and often. And Happiness clings about them, and nestles closely by their side, as if jealous of being separated from either, and they were happy in their young love. How happy! caring for naught besides, thinking of no future, but in each other—taking no account of time so long as they should be together, contented to receive the evils of life with the good, and to suffer side by side (if God willed it) sooner than be parted. They were engaged to be married. At present, neither possessed sufficient to live comfortably upon, and they must wait and hope; and she did hope, and was reconciled almost to his departure, which must soon take place, for he has been studying for a barrister, and will leave his mother's house to find a solitary home in a bachelor's chambers in London. Mordant saw himself (as he had been then) sitting with his first love in that old familiar place, her hand clasped in his, her fair hair falling around her, and vailing the face she hid upon his shoulder, and even more vividly still, the remembrance of that Happiness which had ever been attendant on them then, when the most trivial incidents of the day were turned into matters of importance, colored and embellished as they were by love. He saw himself in possession of the reality, which, alas! he had thrown away for the shadow of it, and he longed for the recovery of those past years which had been so unprofitably spent, in a vain attempt at regaining it. The girl still sat by him; they did not seem to speak, and throughout that long summer afternoon still they sat, she pulling the flowers (so lately gathered) in pieces, and he playing with the ringlets of her hair. And now the door opens, and his mother enters, older by many years than when she last appeared to him, but still the same kind smile and earnest look of affection as she turns toward her son. Her hand is laid upon his arm (as he rises to meet her), and her soft voice utters his name, coupled with endearment. “Mordant, dearest, Edith and myself wish to walk, if you will accompany us?” “Certainly,” is the reply, and the three set out, and the dreamer watched their fast receding forms down a shady lane, until a turn lost them to his sight, and the retrospective view had vanished, but quickly to be replaced by another.

Again he sees the same youth, this time impatiently walking up and down a close, dismal room. The furniture is smoke-dried and dusty, once red, now of a dark ambiguous color. The sofa is of horse-hair, shining (almost white in places) from constant friction. On the mantlepiece hangs a looking-glass, the frame wrapped round with yellow gauze to protect it from dirt and here and there a fly-catcher, suspended from the ceiling, annoys the inmate of the dusky room by its constant motion. It is a lodging-house, ready furnished, and the young man, who has not left his home many months, is not yet accustomed to the change, and he is wearied and unhappy. He has just been writing to Edith, and the thought of her causes him uneasiness; he is longing to be with her again. Restlessly he paces up and down the narrow chamber, unwilling to resume studies, by the mastery of which he could alone hope to be with her again, until a knock at the hall-door makes him pause and sit down; another knock (as if the visitor did not care to be kept waiting). Mordant knew what was coming; he remembered it all, and felt no surprise at seeing in his dream a friend (now long since dead) enter the apartment, with the exclamation of “What, Lindsay! all alone? I had expected to find you out, I was kept so long knocking at your door. How are you, old fellow?” and Charles Vernon threw himself into a chair. “We are all going to the play,” continued he, “and a supper afterward. You know Leclerque? he will be one of the party—will you come?” and Vernon waited for an answer. The one addressed replied in the affirmative, and Mordant saw (with a shudder) the same figure which had lured him on in Pleasure to seek lost Happiness, now tempting the youth before him. The two were so like each other in outward appearance, that he wondered not that he too was deceived, and followed her with even more eagerness than he had ever done her more retiring sister. And then with that gay creature ever in mind, Mordant saw the young man led on from one place of amusement to another—from supper and wine to dice and a gambling-table—until ruin stared him in the face, and that mind, which had once been pure and untarnished, was fast becoming defaced by a too close connection with vice.

Mordant was wiser now, and he saw how flimsy and unreal this figure of Pleasure appeared—how her gold was tinsel, and her laughter but the hollow echo of a forced merriment—unlike his own once possessed Happiness, whose treasures were those of a contented spirit—whose gayety proceeded from an innocent heart and untroubled conscience. Strange that he should have been so blinded to her beauties, and so unmindful of the other's defects; but so it had been. Mordant sympathized with the young man as he watched him running headlong toward his own misery; but the scene continued before him—he had no power to prevent it—and now the last stake is to be played. On that throw of the dice rests the ruin of the small property he has inherited from his father. It is lost! and he beggared of the little he could call his own; and forth from the hell (in which he has been passing the night) rushes into the street. It wants but one stroke to complete the wreck of heart as well as of fortune, and that stroke is not long in coming.

[pg 338]

Miserable, he returned to his lodgings, and alone he thought of his position. He thought of Edith. “Love in a cottage, even could I by my own means regain what I have lost. Pshaw! the thing is ridiculous. Without money there can not be Happiness for her or for me.” A few months had sadly changed him, who before saw it only in her society. But now the Goddess of his fancy stands before him—her golden curls of the precious metal he covets—her eyes receiving their brightness from its lustre, and in his heart a new feeling asserts superiority, and he wishes to be rich. With money to meet every want he will command her presence—not sue for it; and Mordant remembered how, in pursuance of this ambition, gradually cooling toward her, he had at last broken off his engagement with Edith—how for some years, day and night had seen him toiling at his profession, ever with the same object in view, and how at last he had married a woman in every way what he desired: rich in gold and lands and worldly possessions, but poor in heart compared with Edith.

The crowd jostle each other to get a nearer view of the bride as she passes (leaning on her father's arm) from the carriage to the church-door. The bridegroom is waiting for her, and now joins her, and they kneel side by side at the altar. Mordant remembers his wedding-day. He is not happy, notwithstanding the feeling of gratified pride he experiences as he places the ring upon the fair hand of the Lady Blanche. No emotion of a very deep kind tinges her cheek; she is calm and cold throughout the ceremony. She admires Mordant Lindsay very much; he was of a good family, so was she; he very handsome and young, and she past thirty. Matches more incongruous have been made, and with less apparent reason, and this needs no farther explanation on her side. They are married now, and about to leave the church. The young man turns as he passes out (amidst the congratulations of his friends), attracted by scarcely suppressed sobs; but the cloaked figure from whom they proceed does not move, and he recognizes her not. It is Edith, and Mordant, as he gazes on the scene before him, sees Happiness standing afar off, afraid to approach too near to any one of the party, but still keeping her eyes fixed on the pale young mourner at that bridal, who, bowed down with grief, sat there until the clock warned her to go, as the doors were being closed. The married pair (after a month spent abroad) settles down at Langford; and the husband—was he happy now? No, not yet—but expecting to be from day to day, hoping that time would alter for the better what was wanting to the happiness of his home; but time flew on, and, regardless of his hopes, left him the same disappointed man that it found him—disappointed in his wife, in his expectations of children—feeling a void in his heart which money was inefficient to supply. The drama was drawing to a close; Mordant felt that the present time had arrived. His wife was dead, and he in possession of every thing which had been hers, but still an anxious, unsatisfied mind prevented all enjoyment of life; but yet one more scene, and this time Mordant was puzzled, for he did not recognize either the place or the actors.

On a bed on one side was stretched the figure of a young woman. Her features were so drawn and sharpened by illness, that he could not recall them to his mind, although he had an idea that he ought to know her face. She was very pale, and the heat seemed to oppress her, for in a languid voice she begged the lady (who was sitting by her side) to open the window. She rose to do so, and then Mordant saw that the scenery beyond was not English, for hedges of myrtle and scarlet geranium grew around in profusion, and the odor of orange flowers came thickly into the chamber of the dying girl. Raising herself with difficulty, she called to her companion, and then she said,

“I know I shall not now get better; I feel I am dying, and I am glad of it. My life has been a living death to me for some years. When I am dead I would wish to be buried in England—not here—not in this place, which has proved a grave to so many of my countrymen. Let me find my last resting-place, dearest mother, at home, in our own little church-yard.”

The lady wept as she promised her child to fulfill her last request, and Mordant saw that Happiness had flown from the bed (around which she had been hovering for some minutes) straight up to heaven, to await there the spirit of the broken-hearted girl, who was breathing her last under the clear and sunny sky of Madeira.

Mordant shuddered as he awoke, for he had been asleep for some time, and the evening was closing in as he rose from the damp grass. It was to a lonely hearth that he returned, and during the long night which followed, as he thought of his dream and of an ill-spent life, he resolved to revisit his early home, in the hope that amidst old scenes he might bring back the days when he was happy. Was Edith still alive? He knew not. He had heard she had gone abroad; she might be there still. He did not confess it to himself, but it was Edith of whom he thought most; and it was the hope of again seeing her which induced him to take a long journey to the place where he had been born. The bells were ringing for some merry-making as Mordant Lindsay left his traveling carriage, to walk up the one street of which Bower's Gifford boasted. He must go through the church-yard to gain the new inn, and passing (by one of the inhabitants' directions) through the turnstile, he soon found himself amidst the memorials of its dead. Mordant, as he pensively walked along, read the names of those whose virtues were recorded on their grave-stones, and as he read, reflected. And now he stops, for it is a well-known name which attracts his attention, and as he parts the weeds which have grown high over that grave, he sees inscribed on the broken pillar which marks the spot, “Edith Graham, who died at Madeira, aged 21.” And Mordant, as he looks, sinks down upon the grass, and sheds the first tears which for [pg 339] years have been wept by him, and in sorrow of heart, when too late, acknowledges that it is not money or gratified ambition which brings Happiness in this world, but a contented and cheerful mind; and from that lonely grave he leaves an altered man, and a better one.

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Contents

The Sublime Porte.