would not venture any, but offered him a plank! He seized it to leap overboard: it was split-Barbarians! and death must inevitably have been his fate, had he plunged with it into the sea. He remonstrated, but before much altercation could ensue, the ship was driven too far to sea to allow of any hope of reaching the island in any smaller vessel than itself. Despair overwhelmed the generous young man. None understood his feelings; all gratitude seemed to have departed with their danger. The blackness of the night, and the rapidity with which the ship bore away, soon deprived him of all traces of land: and when morning dawned, not even on the line of the horizon could he perceive the smallest vestige of the spot which contained all his happiness.

His misery can better be conceived than described. To be thus recompensed for all his personal risks! It was a cruelty beyond his imagination. Surely the captain might have kept the sea till the storm had subsided, and then in justice he ought to have returned with his deliverer, and given him back to his country and family. He had endangered his life to save theirs. They had no claims on him, but the common ones of compassion; and yet for them he had plunged into the waves, had braved every peril, and hazarded every thing dear. He had every demand upon their gratitude, and they betrayed him! Such conduct was as unmanly as inhuman: it was base to the lowest pitch of detestation. Surely the loss of a few days to have effected their benefactor's return, could have made no great difference in a year's voyage. Besides, should the captain of these navigators, like ours, give an account of his discoveries to the world; so honourable a behaviour to the man who had saved his ship and crew, would have told more for the character of his heart, and perhaps have gained him more fame, than the discovery of half a dozen islands. Honour is a man's own act, a discovery is fortune's; and each, in the estimation of reflection, is valued according to its intrinsic worth.

The unhappy chief begged to be put on shore somewhere in European settlements, hoping there to hear of a ship going to the quarter of the globe that now contained his country. With this poor request, his ungrateful companions acquiesced, and

landed him on the coast of Kamtschatka: whence he travelled, enduring the severest hardships, to Mosco.

He has been a few weeks only arrived, merely resting here, in his way to St. Petersburgh; meaning to lay his case before the emperor, whose benevolence, he trusts, will enable him to regain his family. He was forwarded from Kamtschatka hither, by a passport from governor to governor. Tedious has been his voyage, and tedious his journeys, you will readily believe, when I add that he has already been three years an exile from his wife and children. During this long period, what may not have befallen them? Probably, his wife has sunk a victim to sorrow for her own folly, and her husband's loss: or war may have desolated the country, and the family of the European chief have been the first sacrificed to the sanguinary appetites of the victors!

These thoughts rack him day and night, and give him an air of such deep melancholy, that it is impossible to look on his countenance without being sensible that a more than ordinary grief absorbs his soul. He must be about two and thirty, although he does not look five and twenty. His figure is fine, with a most commanding deportment: but when he talks of his wife, all is subdued: he throws himself along the ground, and either remains for a considerable time afterwards profoundly silent, or weeps with all the bitterness of hopeless sorrow. But when he names those who brought him away, indignation, reproaches, accusations, seem to inflame him to madness; and he walks from side to side with an energy of step, and vehemence of action perfectly savage, but wonderfully striking and grand.

As he found me so ready to enter into his feelings, he spoke with the greater unreserve, and consulted me on his plans. I advised him, should he find, on application to the emperor, that it would be long ere a vessel could be sent out to the South Seas, to go directly from St. Petersburgh to England; where, I told him, I was sure he would meet not only with the most generous sympathy, but very probably an immediate opportunity of reaching the Friendly Isles.

He heard me as gratefully as if I had had the power myself

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to transport him to his country; and declared, that were he doomed never again to see it, his life would be misery and his death wretched. "Even to have been cast back again, bleeding on the rocks," said he, " on the fatal night I left it; to have been carried to my home, to have died amidst the embraces of my wife and children, that would have been happiness! But now, my life is cheerless, I must close my eyes alone!" His tears rolled over his cheek; and he turned his back, while I heard him sob almost to suffocation.

I hope for the honour of affection, that this feeling, this resolution may last. But man is so mutable! Besides, this unfortunate is in the meridian of his days, evidently of the liveliest passions: he is also a European who, having left his country when a boy, knew nothing of the fascinating luxuries of civilization. When he becomes more intimately acquainted with our habits and our comforts; and when, perhaps, some tender European female, like Desdemona, may listen to his story, and love him for the dangers he has past! may not he then, too, probably forget the Otaheitan islands. If he do not; should I hear that he has indeed sailed for their distant shores; I shall for ever after admire, as much as I now pity, him; and regard him as a most extraordinary example of constancy and firmness. But should he become reconciled to Europe, and cease to sigh for the simple pleasures of his early years; he will only add another proof to the many already existing of human faithlessness and frailty.

I know you will hoot me for this doubt; and tell me that three years of constancy is quite probation enough to insure him for the remainder. But those years were past, part on sea, and part in miserable journeys. Ease, I dread as the foe to his resolution. Some, that fight like lions when you attempt them by storm, by the sap fall as quietly into your hands as an infant child. So I fear that repose, and the pleasures of society, may undermine the fidelity of our young chief; and then, what is to blame? He was a man, and he fell! "True," you will say, "but as he is a man he ought to stand: boys may plead the vice of human nature; it is the business of men to conquer it."

A noble principle: and he who aims at it, is more likely to maintain his ground, than he who strikes lower. I acknow

ledge, that in judging of ourselves, it should be our standard: ⚫ but when of others, mercy bids us measure by erring mortality, and pity while we condemn. However, I know you would rather have occasion to admire than to pity, when pity is to be alloyed with disesteem; therefore I am happy in the story of my young mariner, as he is yet a hero under all his misfortunes, to give you an object for both sentiments in their purest degree. Should he go to England, I will send him to you; and then I need not doubt all that has been represented to him of my country, being honoured to the word of your faithful friend.

LETTER XXXI.

Mosco, January, 1807

THE month of December has elapsed. What momentous tidings has it not brought to Russia! Even the inveteracy of a severe winter is no check to the persevering arms of the French nation. Prussia, with her ill advised policy, and as ill placed confidence, has paid dear for her affected neutrality and double conduct. The country, the army, and what few patriots stood forward in defence of their freedom, are all sacrificed.

The determined ambition of Bonaparte, and the gradual coming to maturity of his deep and widely grasping plans, have lit the torch of war on the frontiers of a deluded prince: and the blood of the people, with the extinction of their greatness, can alone extinguish the flame. Well might the fable of the Lion and the Beasts be applied to this conqueror. Many are invited to his court as friends, but when they reemerge, it is with mangled members. Friendship with the ambitious, is ever more destructive than their enmity. With an open foe we are prepared for injury; but who can guard against a false friend! And what sovereign ever yet found an ambitious monarch not ready to rise upon the necks of all his neighbours, whether enemies or allies? Bonaparte has evinced this spirit:

and wo to the next king who, with such an example as Prussia before him, submits to the yoke of his pretended friendship.* The sovereign that would be at peace, and maintain his dignity, must be able to control him. If a confederate nation be not beyond France in power it will soon be within its chains.

In the course of ten days, the military power of Prussia was annihilated; the duke of Brunswick killed; and a hundred thousand men lost and taken prisoners. French bayonets glittered in the heart of the kingdom. Berlin, Stettin, Custrine, and Magdeburgh, were garrisoned with the troops of France; and cowardice, bribery and treachery, spread themselves over the country. So many betrayed, that all feared to trust; and thus every individual fell an easy prey into the iron grasp of the conqueror.

The only resource left for the unfortunate Frederick, was to throw himself upon the generosity of the emperor of Russia; and, with the shattered remnant of his once great army, implore his protection. Indeed, so hot was the pursuit directed against him, that, at the head of not more than twenty thousand men, he found he had retreated so near to the confines of Russia, that the enemy now stood in check. Alexander's troops had already moved towards the Vistula to cover the remains of unhappy fugitive Prussia. The monarch who had been duped by the flattery of Bonaparte, and the corruption of his own ministers, now saw his error too late; and hailed the approach of his deliverers with the liveliest expressions of gratitude.

The energy with which reinforcements are collecting in the interior, is as surprising as admirable. All seem actuated by one spirit; and every district is busied in forming regiments for the new levies. So wide is the zeal, so general the detestation against the great usurper, that from the regions of Cau casus to the frontiers of China, little armies are pouring into Mosco, to be led against the universal enemy. Report says, that an army of four hundred thousand men from Russia, is

The unhappy fate of the royal family of Spain is a striking example of this simple prediction. It was not read in the stars, but gathered from a common calculation on the tendency of human actions.-R. K. P. 1808