fatigue he had undergone, and dismayed with the width of this mighty stream, he stood for a moment hesitating on the brink; but the approach of morning, and the danger behind him being so urgent, he stretched out his arms to the flood, and pressed for the shore. How long he was in crossing he could not ascertain; he thinks he must have slept by the way, from some confused remembrance, as a person awaking from a state of insensibility, which he supposed had lasted half an hour at least. However, with the light of the morning he reached the land, flattering himself that all his dangers were past, and his liberty secured. When, after passing a jungle that led to the sea-side, he ascended a sandbank to look around him, there, to his terror and surprise, he perceived a party of Hyder's horse Scouring the coast; and being discovered by them, they galloped up to him. In a moment, before he could either fly or resist, they seized and stripped him naked, and tying his hands behind his back, fastened a rope to them, and thus drove him before them to their headquarters, several miles distant, under a burning sun, and covered with blisters. He supposes he must have gone that night and day more than forty miles, besides all the rivers he had crossed. But to what efforts will not the hope of life and liberty prompt? What sufferings and dangers will men not brave to secure them? Yet these were but the beginning of his sorrows! The officer at the headquarters was a Mahommedan, one of Hyder's chieftains. He interrogated the poor prisoner sharply, as to who he was, whence he came, and whither he was going. Wilson gave him an ingenuous account of his flight. The officer with wrath looked at him, and said: 'That is a lie, because no man ever yet passed the Coleroon by swimming; for had he but dipped the tip of his finger in it, the alligators would have seized him.' The captain assured him the truth was so, and gave him such indubitable evidence of the fact, that he could no longer doubt the relation; when, lifting up both hands, he cried out, 'This is God's man!' immediately Wilson was marched back, naked and blistered as he was, to his former prison. In aggravated punishment for his flight, Hyder refused him permission to join his fellow-officers, his former companions, and thrust him into a dungeon among the meanest captives. Chained to a common soldier, he was next day led out, almost famished and nearly naked, to march on foot to Seringapatam, in that burning climate, about five hundred miles distant. The officers beheld his forlorn condition with great concern, unable to procure him any redress; they endeavoured to alleviate his misery by supplying him with immediate necessaries. One gave him a shirt, another a waistcoat, another stockings and shoes, so that he was once more covered and equipped for his toilsome journey. But his inhuman conductors had no sooner marched him off to the first halting-place, than they again stripped him to his skin, and left only a sorry rag to wrap round his waist. In this wretched state, chained to another fellow-sufferer, under a vertical sun, with a scanty provision of rice only, he had to travel, naked and barefoot, five hundred miles, insulted by his guards, who goaded him on all the day, and at night thrust him into a damp, unwholesome prison, crowded with other miserable objects. On their way, they were brought into Hyder's presence, and strongly urged to enlist in his service, and profess his religion, and thus obtain their liberty. To induce them to comply, these horrible severities were inflicted on them; and to escape these sufferings, some of the poor creatures consented. But the captain rejected these offers with disdain; and though a stranger to a nobler principle, and destitute of all religion, so great a sense of honour impressed him, that he resolved to prefer death, with all its horrors, to desertion and Mahommedanism. In consequence of the hardships of this march, exposed by day to the heat, and cooped up in a damp prison by night, without clothes, and almost without food, covered with sores, and the irons entering into his flesh, he was, in addition to all the rest of his sufferings, attacked with the flux; how he ever arrived at Seringapatam alive, so weakened with disease and fatigue, was wonderful. Yet greater miseries awaited him there. Naked, diseased, half-. starved, he was thrust into a noisome prison, destitute of food and medicine, with one hundred and fifty-three fellowsufferers, chiefly Highlanders of Captain Macleod's regiment, men of remarkable size and vigour. The very irons which Colonel Bailey had worn were put on him, weighing thirtytwo pounds; and this peculiar rigour, he was informed, was the punishment for his daring to attempt an escape, as well as for his resolute rejection of all the tempting offers made him. The other officers were at large; and among them was General Baird, who soon after became the avenger of all their wrongs, and stormed the very city itself. Poor Captain Wilson was imprisoned with the common soldiers, and chained to one of them night and day. It is hardly possible to express the scenes of unwearied misery that, for two-and-twenty months, he suffered in this horrible place. The prison was square, and around the walls was a kind of barrack for the from the flux which he carried into prison, and for a year maintained a state of health above his fellows; but worn down with misery, cold, hunger, and nakedness, he was attacked with the usual symptoms which had carried off so many others. His body enormously distended, his thighs as big as his waist was before, and his face enor guard. In the middle was a covered place open on all sides, exposed to the wind and rain. There, without any bed but the earth, or covering but the rags wrapped round him, he was chained to a fellow-sufferer, and often so cold that they would dig a hole in the earth, and bury themselves in it, as some defence from the chilling blast of the night. The whole allow-mously bloated; death seemed ance was only a pound of rice to have seized him for his prey. a day per man, and one rupee How he survived such accumufor forty days, or one pice a lated misery, exhausted with day, less than a penny, to pro- famine and disease, the unvide salt and firing to cook the wholesome vapour of a prison rice. It will hardly be believed, thickening around him, and the that it was among their eager iron entering into his flesh, is employments to collect the white next to a miracle. ants which pestered them in the prison, and fry them to procure a spoonful or two of their buttery substance. A state of raging hunger was never appeased by an allowance scarce able to maintain life; and the rice was so full of stones that he could not chew, but must swallow it; and often, he said, he was afraid to trust his own fingers in his mouth, lest he should be tempted to bite them. The noble and athletic Highlanders were among the first victims. The flux and dropsy daily diminished their numbers. Often the dead body was unchained from his arm in the morning, that another living sufferer might take his place, and fall by the same disease. How his constitution could endure such sufferings is astonishing. Yet he had recovered Reduced now to the extremity of weakness, his chains too strait to be endured, and threatening mortification, he seemed to touch the moment of his dissolution, and was released from them to lie down and die. The soldier to whom he had been last Seeing chained served him with great affection; whilst the others who had been linked together often quarrelled, and rendered mad by their suffering, blasphemed and aggravated each other's miseries. him thus to all appearance near his end, and thinking it might alleviate his pain, Sam entreated he might spend for oil the daily pice, about three farthings, paid them, and anoint his legs; but the captain objected, saying that he should then have nothing to buy firing and salt to cook his next day's provision. Sam shook his head and said, 'Master, before that I fear you will be dead, and never want it.' But who can tell what a day may bring forth? He had exchanged his allowance of rice that day for a small species of grain, called ratchepier, which he eagerly devoured, and being very thirsty he drank the liquor in which they were boiled; and this produced such an amazing effect, that in the course of a few hours his legs, thighs, and body, from being bloated and ready to burst, were reduced to a skeleton; and though greatly weakened, he was completely relieved. He afterwards recommended the trial with success to many of his fellowprisoners. His irons were now replaced, though less heavy; and being reduced to skin and bone, they would slip over his knees, and leave his legs at liberty. The ravages of death had now thinned the ranks of the poor prisoners, and few remained the living monuments of Hyder Ali's cruelty and malignity. Nor would these probably have conflicted with their miseries many more months or days; but the victories of Sir Eyre Coote happily humbled this potentate, and compelled him reluctantly to submit, as one of the conditions of peace, to the release of all the British captives. With these glad tidings, after twenty-two months spent on the verge of the grave, Mr. Law, son of the Bishop of Carlisle, arrived at Seringapatam, and to him the prison doors flew open; but what a scene presented itself! Emaciated, naked, covered with ulcers, more than half dead, only thirtytwo remained out of one hundred and fifty-three brave men, to tell the dismal tale of the sufferings of their prison house. Their humane and compassionate deliverer immediately provided them with clothes, dressings for their wounds, and food for their hunger. But now their mercies threatened to be more fatal to them even than their miseries. The ravenousness of their appetite could not be restrained; and though cautioned and warned against excess, they devoured the meat provided with such keen avidity, that their stomachs, long unaccustomed to animal food, were incapable of digestion. Captain Wilson was of the number who could not bridle his cravings; the sad effects immediately followed. He was seized that night with a violent fever, became delirious, and for a fortnight his life was despaired of. In his prison, under sufferings more than human nature seemed capable of enduring, he had struggled through, and for the most part enjoyed a state of health and strength; but now, in the moment of liberty, joy, and abundance, he received a stroke more severe than any he had before undergone. How | little can we determine of the good or evil before us under the sun! He was more wretched when surrounded by kind friends and every humane attention, than he had been when destitute, famished, covered with sores, and lying naked on the floor of a dungeon. so altered. They left him thus sound asleep till the evening, when the lustres were lighted, and several friends assembled, curious to hear the story of his miserable captivity. When he awoke and saw the glare of light, and the persons around him, he could scarce recover his recollection, and for a moment seemed as if he had dropped into some enchanted abode. The welcome and kind treat Being now restored, and capable of accompanying his countrymen, he descended the Ghauts, and proceeded on to Madras. Lord Macartney had forwarded a supply of clothes to meet them; but there not being a sufficiency for all, some had one thing and some another.ment of his friends, who supplied To Captain Wilson's share a all his wants, soon restored him very large military hat fell, which, to his former life and spirits; and with a banyan and pantaloons he began to think of new service, with many a breach, made his as he had yet obtained but a meagre figure very much re- scanty provision, which his long semble a maniac. Impatient captivity had not much increased, to visit his friends, he walked though he had received the aron from the last halting-place, rears of his pay. He accordwhile the sentries would hardly ingly shipped himself as first let him pass. He hastened to mate in the 'Intelligence,' Capa friend, whose name was Ellis, tain Pennington, for Bencoolen and knocking at the door, in- and Batavia. quired of the servants for their master and mistress. The footmen stared at him, said they were not at home, and were shutting the door against him, when he pressed in, rushed by them, and threw himself down upon a sofa. The servants were Mahommedans, who hold the insane in much reverence, and such they supposed him. Without any violence, therefore, used to remove him, Captain Wilson was permitted quietly to rest himself, and being tired, he fell into the most profound sleep, in which state his friends on their return found him, and hardly recognised him, he was In his passage through the Straits of Malacca, they were surrounded with waterspouts, one of which was very near them, and they fired to disperse it. The roaring was tremendous, and presently a torrent of rain came pouring down on the ship, which brought down with it many fish and seaweeds; yet the water was perfectly fresh,-a phenomenon singularly curious. During the voyage to Bencoolen, the white ants and cockroaches, with other insects, multiplied in the most prodigious manner, so that it was resolved to run the ship down from Bencoolen to Puley Bay, and lay |