work for her, and assist in bringing up her family."

The resolution was no sooner made, than acted upon; they determined to return by Liverpool, and on the 19th of that month, took their sorrowful departure. This was a scene not easily to be forgotten. Isabella wept bitterly" But I know," she said, "we shall meet in heaven." Mrs. Sorell dropped upon her knees, and clasped her hands, as if her gratitude could no otherwise be expressed, than by praying for her benefactors. One of my daughters accompanied them as far as Leeds. In the chaise, Mrs. Sorell was seized with convulsions, from extreme distress of mind, and it appeared for some time, as if these sufferings would have been her last.

They were in this city five months, and although Mrs. Sorell generally appeared tranquil, yet the affecting melancholy of her countenance never varied. Remarking this one day to her sister, she replied, "Yes, but you would wonder if you had known Jane before she knew Sorell.-She was the most lively girl in the whole town; and then she was so admired! there was a very good young man would gladly have had her-but she was so taken with Sorell! She never would see him once after she married; and then he did not know how it was, poor young man! and so he fretted till he grew sick and left the country."

These young women were both perfectly uneducated, yet was there always a propriety in their behaviour, and a delicacy in their sentiments,

which would have done honour to the most cultivated minds.

We heard afterwards, that they were received by their relations with great kindness and affection, but that they had both suffered greatly from grief, anxiety, and fatigue. They found their poor widowed sister with her four infants, just returned to Rathfryland, of whom M'Clanaghan thus writes to my daughter. "If my dear Miss Sarah had seen Mary and her four poor children on a car, travelling 200 miles, and every minute expecting to be murdered by the rebels, and the horse and car pressed three times by the army, and herself and her children left on the road, without a friend to speak to, and broken-hearted for the loss of her husband, it would have made her drop many a tear; for although the people in the west are all rebels, yet they respected sorrow and distress such as hers."

The answers from the two Irish civilians did not arrive till the following November. They did not object to the minister, the place or the hour; such irregularities as we should call them, occurring every day in Ireland, in respect of marriages, which are never disputed. But they both demurred a little, in the true lawyer style, (filling their letters with quotations from different Acts of Parliament) whether the privilege was granted to dissenting ministers, by this statute and the other clauses of marrying persons who are not both of them dissenters.-They admit indeed, that the right of doing it is never called in question; and that such marriages do actually take

place every day, but they are not quite certain whether a marriage so circumstanced, would stand a formal trial.

This doubt of theirs whether well or ill-founded, was exceedingly discouraging, and determined us not to proceed with the prosecution. It was obvious however, that if there were just cause for it, this case of Sorell's would involve in it a great national question; it being one instance only, among a thousand others, of persons who stand in exactly the same predicament, and to whom and to their children, it is a matter of the first importance, that the legality of their marriage should be completely decided.

Had I been otherwise circumstanced, either in respect to leisure, composure of mind, or pecuniary resources, the risk should have been run; but upon mature consideration, it was thought to be more decidedly for the advantage of Mrs. Sorell, to remit her the money we had collected for them, to establish herself and her sister in business; than to expend it in a contest, the issue of which, as it turned upon an ambiguous expression in an obscure Act of Parliament, might admit of some doubt.

The reader will be gratified by hearing that so great has been their industry, so exemplary their conduct, and so universal the sympathy excited by the wrongs of Mrs. Sorell, and the generous attachment of her incomparable sister, who for her sake refused an advantageous marriage, that she might remain with her, and assist in her support, that they are respected and patronized by

the ladies of the whole district. I continue to correspond occasionally with Mr. Barber, and am told by him in a letter received September, 1806, that they now entirely maintain their aged father, and that they are likewise supporting and educating three of the children of "poor widowed Mary."

In the following year, Sir Lawrence Parsons being in York, I stated to him the particulars above related, respecting Sorell's marriage, and the doubts of the civilians; remarking, that it behoved all those who were in similar circumstances, to inquire into their legitimacy, and to adopt some method of finally settling the question. He saw the subject in the same light, and had the goodness to state the case to his brother, who is eminent in the law, and who told him in reply, that the statute which created the doubt in the mind of the two civilians, relates principally to the case of minors and papists, and is therefore irrelevant, in his opinion, to the present case.— He adds, "I am confident there is no law here prohibiting such marriages, and the case may be considered as if the marriage had been in England, before statute 26, George II."

Unfortunately I did not receive this opinion from Sir L. Parsons, till near the close of the year 1800. The money had long been transmitted to Ireland; Sorell had quitted the 31st regiment, as I was informed, had been sent abroad, and I was farther incapacitated from resuming the prosecution, by the very declining state of of my dear husband's health. Thus did Sorell,

for this time escape with impunity, from the threatened earthly tribunal; * but, if I mistake not, there is a warning voice in his own bosom, which as health fails, and youth glides away, will assume a louder and still louder tone, and which eventually in this world or in another, will insist upon being heard.

CHAPTER 36.

Sale of property....First introduction to the daughters of the late eminent Dr. Cullen... Anecdotes of a distressed Flemish family....Unseasonable weather... Various per plexities....Death of Mrs. Lindsey's mother....Mr. Cappe's third afflicting seizure....His imperfect recovery....Last visit of Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey....Their sudden departure. ...Mr. Cappe's picture taken....His rapidly declining health....Dr. Cappe appointed a Physician to the Dispensary....The account of Charity Schools published....Last sickness and death of Mrs. Rayner....Her extraordinary character.

WHILST I was engaged in the fruitless endeavour to obtain some imperfect redress for this cruelly injured young woman, and indeed throughout the whole of that year, my time was much

Some years after the writing of this Memoir, Col. Sorell was cast in an action for Crim. Con. brought against him by Lieut. Kent, to whom £3000 damages were awarded. The case was justly described by Mr. Brougham, as one of the most aggravated that had ever come before a court of justice. See the Observer of July 7, 1817.-Ed.