Such toils as meaner souls had quell'd; But souls like these, such toils impell'd To soar. Hail to the morn, when first they stood On Bunker's height; And fearless stemm'd th' invading flood, O! 'twas a proud, exulting day, There is no other land like thee, Thou art the shelter of the free; Ere I forget to think upon My land, shall mother curse the son Thou art the firm, unshaken rock, And, rising from the hardy stock, All who the wreath of freedom twine We love thy rude and rocky shore, Let foreign navies hasten o'er, They still shall find our lives are giv'n TORNADO IN BARBADOES. 1. Ir was now the month of October, 1780, and the inhabitants of the islands were in the enjoyment of that unexpected tranquillity which resulted from the cessation of arms, when their shores, and the seas that washed them, were assailed by so dreadful a tempest, that scarcely would there be found a similar example in the whole series of maritime records, however replete with shocking disasters and pitiable shipwrecks. If this fearful scourge fell with more or less violence upon all the islands of the West Indies, it no where raged with more destructive energy than in the flourishing island of Barbadoes. It was on the morning of the tenth, that the tornado set in, and it hardly began to abate fortyeight hours after. The vessels that were moored in the port, where they were considered in safety, were wrenched from their anchors, launched into the open sea, and abandoned to the mercy of the tempest. Nor was the condition of the inhabitants on shore less worthy of compassion. 2. In the following night, the vehemence of the hurricane became yet more extreme; houses were demolished, trees uprooted, men and animals tossed hither and thither, or overwhelmed by the ruins. The capital of the island was well nigh rased to a level with the ground. The mansion of the governor, the walls of which were three feet in thickness, was shaken to its foundations, and every moment threatened to crumble in ruins. Those within had hastened to barricade the doors and windows, to resist the whirlwinds; all their efforts were of no avail. The doors were rent from their hinges, the bars and fastenings forced; and chasms started in the very walls. The governor, with his family, sought refuge in the subterraneous vaults; but they were soon driven from that shelter, by the torrents of water that poured like a new deluge from the sky. 3. They issued then into the open country; and, with extreme difficulty and continual perils, repaired under the covert of a mound, upon which the flag-staff was erected; but that mass being itself rocked by the excessive fury of the wind, the apprehension of being buried under the stones that were detached from it, compelled them again to remove, and to retire from all habitation. Happily for them, they held together; for without the mutual aid they lent each other, they must all inevitably have perished. After a long and toilsome march in the midst of ruins, they succeeded in gaining a battery, where they stretched themselves, face downward, on the ground, behind the carriages of the heaviest cannon, still a wretched and doubtful asylum, since those very carriages were continually put in motion by the impetuosity of the vortical gusts. 4. The other houses of the city being less solid, had been prostrated before that of the governor, and their unhappy inhabitants wandered as chance directed during that merciless night, without shelter and without succor. Many perished under the ruins of their dwellings; others were the victims of the sudden inundation; several were suffocated in the mire. The thickness of the darkness, the lurid fire of the lightning, the continual peal of the thunder, the horrible whistling of the winds and rain, the doleful cries of the dying, the despondent moans of those who were unable to succor them, the shrieks and wailings of women and children, all seemed to announce the destruction of the world. But the return of day presented to the view of the survivors a spectacle which the imagination scarcely dares to depict. 5. This island, lately so rich, so flourishing, so covered with enchanting landscapes, appeared all of a sudden transformed into one of those polar regions, where an eternal winter reigns. Not an edifice left standing; wrecks and ruins every where; every tree subverted; not an animal alive; the earth strown with their remains, intermingled with those of human beings; the very surface of the soil appeared no longer the same. Not merely the crops that were in prospect, and those already gathered, had been devoured by the hurricane; the gardens, the fields, those sources of the delight and opulence of the colonists, had ceased to exist. In their place were found deep sand, or steril clay; the enclosures had disappeared; the ditches were filled up; the roads cut with deep ravines. The dead amounted to some thousands; thus much is known, though the precise number is not ascertained. 6. In effect, besides those whose fallen houses became their tombs, how many were swept away by the waves of the swoln sea and by the torrents, resembling rivers, which gushed from the hills! The wind blew with a violence so unheard of, that, if credit be given to the most solemn docu ments, a piece of cannon, which threw twelve pound balls, was transported from one battery to another at more than three hundred yards distance. Much of what escaped the fury of the tempest, fell a prey to the frantic violence of men. As soon as the gates of the prisons were burst, the criminals sallied forth, and joining the negroes, always prepared for nefarious deeds, they seemed to brave the wrath of heaven, and put every thing to sack and plunder. 7. And perhaps the whites would have been all massacred, and the whole island consigned to perdition, if general Vaughan, who happened to be there at the time, had not watched over the public safety at the head of a body of regu lar troops. His cares were successful in saving a considerable quantity of provision, but for which resource the inhabitants would only have escaped the ravages of the hurricane, to be victims of the no less horrible scourge of famine. Nor should it be passed over in silence, by a sincere friend of truth and honorable deeds, that the Spanish prisoners of war, at this time considerably numerous in Barbadoes, under the conduct of Don Pedro San Jago, did every thing that could be expected of brave and generous soldiers. Far from profiting of this calamitous conjuncture to abuse their liberty, they voluntarily encountered perils of every kind to succor the unfortunate islanders, who warmly acknowledged their services. AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. He that outliv'd that day, and came safe back They who liv'd through those times and see old age, And some shall strip their sleeves and show their scars. Familiar in our mouths, as household words, Knox, Franklin, Lincoln; and full many others FRENCH BASTILE. 1. WHILE the Bastile remained in the power of the crown, the revolutionists could not think themselves in security. On the 14th of July, A. D. 1789, that awful fortress of des potism, of which the name for ages inspired terror, was in vested by a mixed multitude of citizens, and soldiers who ha joined the popular banner. De Launay, the governor, dis played a flag of truce, and demanded a parley; but, abusin the confidence which that signal inspired, he discharged heavy fire of cannon and musketry on the besiegers. Thi aci of treachery, far from intimidating the people, only inflamed their rage, and rendered them desperate. They re newed the attack with a valor raised to frenzy. The Bastile was carried by assault. The governor being seized, was instantly massacred, and his head carried in triumph through the streets of the capital. 2. In the gloomy apartments of this justly dreaded state prison, which had so long been sacred to silence and despair, was found, amongst other engines of cruelty, an iron cage, containing the skeleton of a man, who had probably lingered out a considerable part of his existence in that horrid abode. Amongst the prisoners released by the destruction of this fortress, were major White, a native of Scotland, and the count de Lorges; the former appeared to have his intelleetual faculties greatly impaired by long confinement and misery, and, from being unaccustomed to converse with mankind, he had forgotten the use of speech; the latter was exhibited to the public in the Palais Royal; and his squalid appearance, his white beard, which descended to his waist, and his imbecility, the direful effect of imprisonment for thirty-two When was the French Bastile destroyed?What conduct in the governor greatly enraged the populace ?-What was the fate of the governor |