impression upon my mind; it unexpectedly and suddenly broke down the most pleasing fabric my imagination had ever built. The surprise occasioned by the appearance of the irons, and the precautionary manner in which it was undertaken, was indeed great: still more was I surprised to observe, that the person who was employed to see this put in execution, manifested unusual emotions, seemed much affected, and even shed tears as he looked on: and while the suddenness and cautionary mode of doing it convinced me that some resistance on our part was apprehended, the sorrow which the officer who superintended it disclosed, portended in my mind a fatal, or at least a very serious issue.

Unfortunately, poor Mr. Hall had for some time been afflicted with a return of his dreadful disorder, the dysentery; and our being shackled together increased an unconquerable mortification of feelings which he had before undergone, from a delicacy of nature that would have done honour to the most modest virgin, be her sensibility ever so exquisite, or her delicacy ever so extreme. From this unlucky event, I received a temporary depression; and the rapidly increasing illness of poor Hall rendered my situation more than ever calamitous; when, again, my spirits, eagerly prone to grasp at every thing that gave a momentary hope of support, were a little recruited by confused rumours of the English army having made a descent on the Malabar coast: and so powerful is the influence of mind on the animal system, that Mr. Hall enjoyed from the report a momentary alleviation of his malady; but, having no medical assistance, nor even sufficient sustenance to further the favourable operations of nature, he relapsed again; the disease fell upon him with redoubled fury: a very scanty portion of boiled rice, with a more scanty morsel of stinking salt fish or putrid flesh, was a very inadequate support for me, who, though emaciated, was in health-and very improper medicine for a person labouring under a malady such as Mr. Hall's, which required comfort, good medical skill, and delicious nutritious food. The tea which Hyat Sahib had given me was expended; and we were not allowed to be shaved from the hour we were put in irons, an indulgence of that

kind being forbidden by the barbarous rules of the prison: and, to refine upon our tortures, sleep, "the balm of hurt minds," was not allowed us uninterrupted; for, in conformity to another regulation, we were disturbed every half hour by a noise something resembling a watchman's rattle, and a fellow who, striking every part of our irons with a kind of hammer, and examining them lest they should be cut, broke in upon that kind of restorative, and awoke our souls to fresh horrors.

'As it must be much more naturally matter of astonishment that any bodily strength could support itself under such complicated calamities, that infirmity should sink beneath them, you will be rather grieved than surprised to hear that poor Mr. Hall was now approaching to his end with hourly accelerated steps. Every application that I made in his favour was refused, or rather treated with cruel neglect and contemptuous silence; and I foresaw, with inexpressible anguish and indignation, that the barbarians would not abate him in his last minutes one jot of misery, and that my most amiable friend was fated to expire under every attendant horror that mere sublunary circumstances could create. But that pity which the mighty, the powerful, and enlightened denied, natural benevolence operating upon an uniformed mind, and scanty means, afforded us. Hyat Sahib, the powerful, the wealthy, the governor of a great and opulent province, refused to an expiring fellow-creature a little cheap relief-while a poor sepoy taxed his little means to supply it: one who guarded us, of his own accord, at hazard of imminent punishment, purchased us a lamp and a little oil, which we burned for the last few nights.

Philosophers and divines have declaimed upon the advantages of a well-spent life, as felt in articulo mortis; and their efforts have had, I hope, some effect upon the lives of many. To witness one example such as Mr. Hall set forth, would be worth volumes of precepts on this subject. The unfeigned resignation with which he met his dissolution, and the majestic fortitude with which he looked in the face the various circumstances of horror that surrounded him, rendered him the most dignified object I ever beheld or conceived, and the

most glorious instance of conscious virtue triumphing over the terrors of death, and the cunning barbarity of mankind. About a quarter of an hour before he died, Mr. Hall broached a most tender subject of conversation, which he followed up with a series of observations, so truly refined, so exquisitely turned, so delicate, and so pathetic, that it seemed almost the language of inspiration, as if, in proportion to the decay of the body, intellect increased, and the dying man had become all mind. Such a conversation I never remembered to have heard, or heard of. Its effects upon me were wonderful; for, though the combination of melancholy circumstances attending my now critical situation had almost raised my mind to frenzy, the salutary influence of his words and example controled the excesses of my sensations; and I met the afflicting moment of his departure with a degree of tranquillity, which, though not to be compared to his, has on reflection appeared to me astonishing. This conversation continued to the very instant of his death; during which time he held my hand clasped in his, frequently enforcing the kind expressions to me with a squeeze while my sorrow, taking its most easy channel, bedewed my face with tears. As he proceeded, my voice was choaked with my feelings; and I attempted once or twice in vain to speak. His hand grew cold: he said his lower limbs were all lifeless, and that he felt death coming over him with slow creeping steps---He again moralized, thanking God with pathetic fervour for his great mercy in leaving him his intellects unclouded, and the organ of communication (the tongue) unenfeebled, that, to the last, he might solace his friend and fellow-sufferer.---"Ah! Campbell!" continued he, "to what a series of miseries am I now leaving you! Death in such circumstances is a blessing-I view mine as such; and should think it more so, if it contributed, by awakening those people to a sense of their cruelty, to soften their rigour to you: but cruelty like their's is systematic, and stoops not to the control of the feelings. Could I hope that you would yet escape from their clutches, and that you would once more press your family to your bosom, the thought would brighten still the moment of our separation: and, ob! my friend! could I still

further hope that you would one day see my most beloved and honoured parents, and tell them of my death without wringing their hearts with its horrid circumstances, offer them my last duties, and tell how I revered them--If, too, you could see and tell her how far, far more dear than .....

my !" Here he turned his eyes towards the lamp, then faintly on me--made a convulsive effort to squeeze my hand ---cried out, "Campbell! oh, Campbell! the lamp is going out!" and expired without a groan.

For some time I was lost in grief for the death of Mr. Hall. No partner to share, no social converse to alleviate, no friend to console me under my afflictions, I looked at the body of my friend with envy, and lamented that death had not afforded me, too, a shelter from the cruelties which fate seemed determined to heap upon me.

It is impossible for me to express to you the agonies of mind I underwent during the rest of the night. In the morning, a report was made to the commandant, of the death of Mr. Hall; and in about an hour after, he passed me by, but kept his face purposely turned away from me to the other side. I patiently waited for the removal of the dead body till the evening, when I desired the sepoys who guarded me to apply for it being removed. They returned, and told me that they could get no answer respecting it. Night came on, but there was no appearance of an intention to unfetter me from the corpse. The commandant was sitting in his court, administering, in the manner I have before described, justice! I called out to him myself with all my might, but could get no answer from him. Nothing could equal my rage and consternation; for, exclusive of the painful idea of being shackled to the dead body of a friend I loved, another circumstance contributed to make it a serious subject of horror. In those climates, the weather is so intensively hot, that putrefaction almost instantly succeeds death; and meat that is killed in the morning, and kept in the shade, will be unfit for dressing at night. In a subject, then, on which putrefaction had made advances even before death, and which remained exposed to the open air, the process must have been much more rapid. So far, however,

from compassionating my situation, or indulging me by a removal of the body, their barbarity suggested to them to make it an instrument of punishment; and they pertinaciously adhered to the most mortifying silence and disregard of my complaints. For several days and nights it remained attached to me by the irons. I grew almost distracted-wished for the means of putting an end to my miseries by death, and could not move without witnessing some new stage of putrescence it attained, or breathe without inhaling the putrid effluvia that arose from it while myriads of flies and loathsome insects rested on it, the former of which every now and then visited me, crawling over my face and hands, and lighting in hundreds on my victuals. I never look back at this crisis without confusion, horror, and even astonishment; and, were it not connected with a chain of events preceding and subsequent to it, too well known by respectable people to be doubted, and too much interwoven with a part of the history of the last war in India to admit of doubt, I should not only be afraid to tell, but absolutely doubt myself whether the whole was not the illusion of a dream, rather than credit the possibility of my enduring such unheard-of hardships without loss of life or deprivation of senses.

At last, when the body had reached that shocking loathsome state of putrefaction which threatened that further delay would render removal abominable, if not impossible, the monsters agreed to take it away from me--and I was so far relieved: but the mortification and injury I underwent from it, joined to the agitation of the preceding week, made a visible inroad on my health. I totally lost my spirits; my appetite entirely forsook me my long-nourished hopes fled; and I looked forward to death as the only desirable event that was within the verge of likelihood or possibility.

• One day, my opposite friend (the native prisoner) gave me a look of the most interesting and encouraging kind; and I perceived a more than usual bustle in the citadel, while the sepoys informed me that they were ordered on immediate service, and that some events of great importance had taken place. From this feeble gleam, my mind, naturally active,