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clamation-" mark these two mendown with them!"

poor blacks again," said Tailtackle, who still lingered on deck; small space for remark, for the slaver again fired his broadside at us, with the same cool precision as before.

"Down with the helm, and let her come round," said I; "that will domaster, run across his stern-out sweeps forward, and keep her there -get the other carronade over to leeward-that is it-now, blaze away while he is becalmed-fire, smallarm-men, and take good aim."

We were now right across his stern, with his spanker boom within ten yards of us; and although he worked his two stern-chasers with great determination, and poured whole showers of musketry from his rigging, and poop, and cabin-windows, yet, from the cleverness with which our sweeps were pulled, and the accuracy with which we were kept in our position, right athwart his stern, our fire, both from the cannon and musketry, the former loaded with round and grape, was telling, I could see, with fearful effect.

Crash" There, my lads, down goes his maintopmast-pepper him well, while they are blinded and confused among the wreck. Fire away-there goes the peak, shot away cleverly, close by the throat. Don't cease firing, although his flag be down-it was none of his doing. There, my lads, there he has it again; you have shot away the weather foretopsail sheet, and he cannot get from under you."

Two men at this moment lay out on his larboard foreyard-arm, apparently with the intention of splicing the sheet, and getting the clew of the foretopsail once more down to the sheaf-block; if they had succeeded in this, the vessel would again have fetched way, and drawn out from under our fire. Mr Bang and Paul Gelid had all this time been firing with murderous precision, from where they had ensconced themselves under the shelter of the larboard bulwark, close to the taffril, with their three black servants in the cabin, loading the six muskets, and little Wagtail, who was no great shot, sitting on the deck, handing them up and down.

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Now, Mr Bang," cried I, “for the love of Heaven"-and may Heaven forgive me for the ill-placed ex

Bang turned towards me with all the coolness in the world-" What, those chaps on the end of the long stick ?"

"Yes-yes," (I here spoke of the larboard foreyardarm,)" yes, down with them." He lifted his piece as steadily as if he had really been duck-shooting.

"I say, Gelid, my lad, take you the innermost."

"Ah!" quoth Paul. They firedand down dropped both men, and squattered for a moment in the water, like wounded waterfowl, and then sank for ever, leaving two small puddles of blood on the surface.

"Now, master," shouted I, " now put the helm up and lay him alongside-there-stand by with the grapnels-one round the backstay-the other through the chainplate thereso, you have it." As we ranged under his counter-" Mainchains are your chance, men-boarders, follow me." And in the enthusiasm of the moment I jumped into the slaver's main channel, followed by twentyeight men. We were in the act of getting over the netting when the enemy rallied, and fired a volley of small arms, which sent four out of the twenty-eight to their account, and wounded three more. We gained the quarter-deck, where the Spanish captain, and about forty of his crew, shewed a determined front, cutlass and pistol in hand-we char ged them-they stood their ground. Tailtackle, (who, the moment he heard the boarders called, had jumped out of the magazine, and followed me,) at a blow cut the Spanish captain down to the chine; the lieutenant, or second in command, was my bird, and I had disabled him by a sabre-cut on the sword-arm, when he drew his pistol, and shot me through the left shoulder. I felt no pain, but a pinch, as it were, and then a cold sensation, as if water had been poured down my neck.

Jigmaree was close by me with a boarding-pike, and our fellows were fighting with all the gallantry inherent in British sailors. For a moment the battle was poised in equal scales. At length our antagonists gave way, when about fifteen of the slaves, naked barbarians, who had been ranged

with muskets in their hands on the forecastle, suddenly jumped down into the waist with a yell, and came to the rescue of the Spanish part of

the crew.

I thought we were lost. Our people, all but Tailtackle and Jigmaree, held back. The Spaniards rallied, and fought with renewed courage, and it was now, not for glory, but for dear life, as all retreat was cut off by the parting of the grapnels, or warps, that had lashed the schooner alongside of the slaver, for the Wave had by this time forged ahead, and lay across the brig's bows, in place of being on her quarter, with her foremast jammed against the slaver's bowsprit, whose spritsail - yard crossed our deck between the masts. We could not therefore retreat to our own vessel if we had wished it, as the Spaniards had possession of the waist and forecastle; all at once, however, a discharge of round and grape crashed through the bowsprit of the brig, and swept off three of the black auxiliaries before mentioned, and wounded as many more, and the next moment an unexpected ally appeared on the field. When we boarded, the Wave had been left with only Peter Mangrove; the five dockyard negroes; Pearl, one of the captain's gigs, the handsome black already introduced on the scene; poor little Reefpoint, who, as already stated, was badly hurt; Aaron Bang, Paul Gelid, and Wagtail. But this Pearl without price, at the very moment of time when I thought the game was up, jumped on deck through the bowport, cutlass in hand, followed by the five black carpenters and Peter Mangrove, after whom appeared no less a personage than Aaron Bang himself, and the three blackamoor valets, all armed with boarding-pikes. Bang flourished his cutlass for an instant.

"Now, Pearl, my darling, shout to them in Coromantee,-shout;" and forthwith the black quartermaster sung out," Coromantee Sheik Cocoloo, kockernony populorum fiz;" which, as I afterwards learned, being interpreted, is," Behold the sultan Cocoloo, the great ostrich, with a feather in his tail like a palm branch; fight for him, you sons of female dogs." In an instant the black Spanish auxiliaries sided with Pearl, and Bang, and the negroes, and joined in charging the white Spaniards,

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"Load and fire again." My people were now furious, and fought more like incarnate fiends broke loose from hell, than human beings.

""

"Run the gun up to the hatchway once more.' They ran the carronade so furiously forward, that the coaming or ledge round the hatchway was split off, and down went the gun, carriage and all, with a crash, into the hold. Presently smoke appeared rising up the fore hatchway.

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They have set fire to the brig; overboard !-regain the schooner, or we shall all be blown into the air like peels of onions!" sung out little Jigmaree. But where was the Wave? She had broke away, and was now a cable's length ahead, apparently fast leaving us, with Paul Gelid and Wagtail, and poor little Reefpoint, who, badly wounded as he was, had left his hammock, and come on deck in the emergency, making signs of their inability to cut away the halyards; and the tiller being shot away, the schooner was utterly unmanageable.

"Let fall the foresail, men-down with the foretack-cheerily nowget way on the brig, and overhaul the Wave promptly, or we are lost,”

cried I. It was done with all the coolness of desperate men. I took the helm, and presently we were once more alongside of our own vessel. Time we were so, for about one hundred and fifty of the slaves, whose shackles had been knocked off, now scrambled up the fore hatchway, and we had only time to jump overboard, when they made a rush aft; and no doubt, exhausted as we were, they would have massacred us on the spot, frantic and furious as they evidently were from the murderous fire of grape that had been directed down the hatchway.

and rose like a balloon, rolling slowly upwards, until it reached a little way above our mast-heads, where it melted and spread out into a dark pall, that overhung the scene of death, as if the incense of such a horrible and polluted sacrifice could not ascend into the pure heaven, but had been again crushed back upon our devoted heads, as a palpable manifestation of the wrath of Him who hath said "Thou shalt not kill."

For a few moments all was silent as the grave, and I felt as if the air had become too thick for breathing, while I looked up like another Cain.

Presently, about one hundred and fifty of the slaves, men, women, and children, who had been drawn down by the vortex, rose amidst numberless pieces of smoking wreck, to the surface of the sea; the strongest yelling like fiends in their despair, while the weaker, the women, and the helpless gasping little ones, were choking, and gurgling, and sinking all around. Yea, the small thin expiring cry of the innocent sucking infant torn from its sinking mother's breast, as she held it for a brief moment above the waters, which had already for ever closed over herself, was there.-But we could not perceive one single individual of her white crew; like desperate men, they had all gone down with the brig. We picked up about one half of the miserable Africans, and-my pen trembles as I write it fell necessity compelled us to fire on the remainder, as it was utterly impossible for us to take them on board. Oh that I could erase such a scene for ever from my memory! One incident I cannot help relating. We had saved a woman, a handsome clear-skinned girl, of about sixteen years of age. She was very faint when we got her in, and was lying with her head over a port-sill, when a strong athletic young negro swam to the part of the schooner where she was. She held down her hand to him; he was in the act of grasping it, when he was shot through the heart from above. She instantly jumped overboard, and, clasping him in her arms, they sank, and disappeared together. "Oh, woman, whatever may be the colour of your skin, your heart is of one only!" said Aaron.

But the fire was as quick as they were. The cloud of smouldering smoke that was rising like a pillar of cloud from the fore-hatchway, was now streaked with tongues of red flame, which, licking the masts and spars, ran up and caught the sails and rigging. In an instant, the flames spread to every part of the gear aloft, while the other element, the sea, was also striving for the mastery in the destruction of the doomed vessel; for our shot, or the fall of the carronade into the hold, had started some of the bottom planks, and she was fast settling down by the head. We could hear the water rushing in like a mill stream. The fire increased-her guns went off as they became heated-she gave a sudden heel-and while five hundred human beings, pent up in her noisome hold, split the heavens with their piercing death-yells, down she went with a heavy lurch, head foremost, right in the wake of the setting sun, whose level rays made the thick dun wreaths that burst from her as she disappeared, glow with the hue of the amethyst; and while the whirling clouds, gilded by his dying radiance, curled up into the blue sky, in rolling masses, growing thinner and thinner, until they vanished away, even like the wreck whereout they arose, and the circling eddies, created by her sinking, no longer sparkled and flashed in the red light,and the stilled waters where she had gone down, as if oil had been cast on them, were spread out like polished silver, shining like a mirror, while all around was dark blue ripple,-a puff of fat black smoke, denser than any we had yet seen, suddenly emerged with a loud gurgling noise, from out the deep bosom of the calmed sea,

Soon all was quiet; a wounded black here and there was shrieking in his great agony, and struggling for a moment before he sank into his watery grave for ever; a few pieces of wreck were floating and sparkling on the surface of the deep in the blood-red sunbeams, which streamed in a flood of glorious light on the bloody deck, and shattered hull, and torn rigging of the Wave, and on the dead bodies and mangled limbs of those who had fallen; while a few heavy scattering drops of rain fell sparkling from a passing cloud, as if Nature had wept in pity over the dismal scene; or as if they had been blessed tears, shed by an angel, in his heavenward course, as he hovered for a moment, and looked down in pity on the fan

tastic tricks played by the worm of a day-by weak man, in his little moment of power and ferocity. I said something ill and hastily. Aaron was close beside me, sitting on a carronade slide, while the surgeon was dressing the pike wound in his neck. He looked up solemnly in my face, and then pointed to the blessed luminary, that was now sinking in the sea, and blazing up into the resplendent heavens- Cringle, for shame-for shame-your impatience is blasphemous. Remember this morning-and thank Him"-here he looked up and crossed himself— "thank Him who has mercifully brought us to the end of this fearful day, that you have seen the sun set once more!"

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TO THE YEAR 1832.

THOU art gone to the past, wicked Year,
Dark period of trouble and dread!
The curse of a nation has stamp'd thy career,

Thou hast left her, in tumult, in shame, and in fear;
Her anathema rests on thine head!

Then begone to the past, wicked Year!

Oh, ne'er from the records of Time

Oblivion thy foul page shall sever;

To futurity, mark'd, through each country and clime, As the reign of disorder, dishonour, and crime,

1

A rebuke and a hissing for ever,
Thou shalt live to the outstretch of time!
Thou hast left us a token of woe,

Thou hast open'd the floodgates of wrath,
Thou hast trampled the noble, exalted the low,
The throne and the altar reel under thy blow;
Thy successor shall tread in thy path,
And redeem thy dark earnest of woe!

Oh! what hast thou left us, dark Year?
Wild thoughts of destruction and evil,

For the land, of thy seed, the black harvest shall bear,
Indignation and anguish, confusion and fear,

While fiends in thy harvest-home revel! And this thou hast left us, dark Year.

Dost thou sink, unendear'd, to the grave?
Hast thou died without glory, dark Year?
Ask the yells of the madman, blasphemer, and knave,
Their hoarse lo pæans to thee as they rave,

And their plaudits resound o'er thy bier,
Meet homage to hallow thy grave!

SHARON, Jan. 1, 1833.

Oh! would that Oblivion, dark Year,

Could smother thy deeds in her breast!
Then England, in hope, might renew her career,
Again look to Heaven, in faith, love, and fear,

For the blessings wherewith she was bless'd-
But thy blight is upon her, dark Year!

M. H.

SCOTCH AND YANKEES. A CARICATURE.

BY THE AUTHOr of annals of the parish, &c.

CHAPTER VII.

"WELL, I guess, squire, that I aint such a snag in the stream that you need have tried whether you could make a pancake of my head. Howsomever I am glad to see you; but, I guess, yours is a pretty considerable disappointment; for our Tavy is, as you sees, almighty obstinacious."

"Oh," replied the young Glasgowegian," I think not of her; I have changed my mind.”

"That there is a right good move," replied Peabody, "for as she aint going to have you, you can't do better than not have her; but, squire, I have been making my calculations -What would you think of the old ladye for a spec.?"

Shortridge stepped two paces back, and exclaimed-" Mrs Clatterpenny! are you in earnest ?"

Peabody coolly and seriously answered, "She's a shocking clever, nice woman, is that there old ladye, my cousin, though she ben't college learned."

"How could such an imagination," exclaimed the young man, 66 enter your head ?" "Because she is tarnation rich," replied Peabody.

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Ah, you Yankees," said the son of the Lord Provost of Glasgowyou Yankees are a money-seeking people; who but you would think of riches in affairs of the heart?"

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The old man made no immediate reply to this, but, as if he snuffed a smell in the air, said, "Well, that's slick; but I guess it was an affair of the purse that brought you a-courting to our Tavy, and therefore, squire, as one purse is as good as another, so be they are of one bigness, you might do worse than take Dame Clatterpenny under the arm. You came with her in that there kettle-ship, and I reckon you knows somewhat 'bout her."

"Yes," replied Shortridge drily, "I know her worth."

Upon this Peabody turned round briskly, and said

"6

"How much, squire, may it be?" Ah, Mr Peabody, she's too well stricken in years."

"I guess not, for a spec.," replied the citizen. "I'd have you, squire, to do think on't, for though she ben't so young as an angel, she aint quite so everlasting."

Shortridge thought to himself that many a young man had shot at worse game, and half seriously said

"How old do you think she is?" “Why, in the way of such a trade,” said Peabody, "I calculate a year or two don't signify nothing."

"But how can I make love to her?" said Shortridge more gravely. "No, no, it won't suit; it would be so queer; it's no go."

"Now, I say, squire, if you think prudent, I'll bet a goose to a gallon of punch that we'll make a match on't in less than no time and jemini."

"But," replied Shortridge seriously, "what would my acquaintance say?"

This put mettle in the old man, and he replied with redoubled energy

"C

Why let them do their damndest. Come, come, squire, don't be 'feminate; and if so be as you aint so bold as to speak for yourself, I'll be 'sponsible for you, and speak to her right away to see how the land lies, while you make your own calculations."

This proposition, which seemed at first so absurd, by iteration appeared to the young man not quite so unlikely as it at first seemed; and instead of going back with Peabody to Fludyer Street, he walked with him towards Buckingham Palace, discoursing, as they went along, from less to more about the wealth of Mrs Clatterpenny. For good and substantial reasons, best known to himself, the Vermont farmer urged her merits with all his eloquence, and said not a word of the news that he had received that morning from Mr M'Gab, respecting his own priority of claim, or the more formidable

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