"Who did this?" enquired the king, with a tone of anguish and indignation, that would have made the most courageous tremble.

"I, Sire," answered the surgeon, certain of the goodness of his cause: then drawing the toe from his pocket, he added, “And here, Sire, it is."

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Presumptuous man!" said Augustus, "how durst you do it unknown to me, and contrary to my orders ?"

"Pardon me, Sire," said Weisse," a faithful and a grateful subject, who sees you in the most imminent danger, hazards every thing in order to preserve your precious life. If the advice of your first physicians had been followed; if I had delayed amputation till the distant arrival of Monsieur Petit, the mortification would have certainly extended to your foot; and neither my utmost zeal, nor any human assistance, could have done any thing more for your majesty."

"And was there no other method than amputation?" said Augustus.

"No;" answered Weisse, "there was no other. Petit will say the same: I will answer for it with my head."

"Who was present at the operation ?" asked Augustus, in a milder tone. "Your majesty's valet-de-chambre," replied the surgeon.

“Very well, then," said the king, "observe both of you, then, till farther orders, the most inviolable secrecy." And then, taking his gold snuff-box, and throwing away the snuff, and putting therein the amputated toe, "Receive this, in the mean time, as a remembrance."

The strictest secrecy was observed, and not a person in the court had the least suspicion of what had passed. Twelve days after, arrives Petit. The physicians are instantly assembled; they describe the situation in which they had found the king when they sent for him, and awkwardly enough, the situation in which they suppose him to be at present. The French surgeon, struck with astonishment, and certain of the mortification, from the symptoms which had been observed so many days, exclaimed, that he could not conceive how the king was still alive, and why, in such an emergency, that admitted not a moment's delay, they had sent to such a distance for useless advice. He added, that no other means could now be thought of but the most immediate amputation, if, indeed, there were still time for it.

Not one of the enemies of Weisse, overwhelmed with shame, could now meet the king's looks; but how much greater was their confusion and surprise, when Weisse went to Petit, and taking the king's snuff-box from his pocket, said to him, "The method, Sir, which you recommend, has been already hazarded: here is the toe, with all the symptoms of an incurable mortification."

The just praises of the French surgeon, his repeated assurances that his majesty was under the most skilful hands, and that, being attended by a pupil who had excelled his master, he had no farther occasion for his advice, crowned the merit of a faithful subject, whom the king did not fail to reward with truly royal munificence.

A MAN OF TEN THOUSAND.

Edward Drinker, was born in a cottage, in 1680, on the spot where the city of Philadelphia now stands, which was inhabited at the time of his birth by Indians, and a few Swedes and Hollanders. He often talked of picking blackberries and catching wild rabbits where this populous city is now seated. He

He remembered William Penn arriving there his second time, and used to point out the spot where the cabin stood in which Mr. Penn and his friends were accommodated on their arrival.

The life of this aged citizen is marked with circumstances which never befel any other individual; for he saw greater events than any other man, at least since the Patriarchs. He saw the same spot of earth, in the course of his own life, covered with wood and bushes, the receptacles of wild beasts, and birds of prey, afterwards become the seat of a great city, not only the first in wealth and arts in America, but equalled but by few in Europe: he saw great and regular streets where he had often pursued hares and wild rabbits: he saw fine churches rise upon morasses, where he used to hear nothing but the croaking of frogs; great wharfs and warehouses, where he had so often seen the Indian savages draw their fish from the river; and that river afterwards full of great ships from all the world, which in his youth had nothing bigger than an Indian canoe; and on the spot where he had gathered huckleberry he saw their magnificent City-hall erected, and that hall filled with legislators astonishing the world with their wisdom and virtue. He also saw the first treaty ratified between the United Powers of America and the most powerful Prince of Europe, with all the formality of parchment and seals, and on the same spot where he once saw William Penn ratify his first and last treaty with the Indians. And to conclude, he saw the beginning and the end of the British Empire in Pensylvania. He had been the subject of many crowned heads; but when he heard of the many oppressive and unconstitutional Acts passed in Britain, he bought them all, and gave them to his great grandsons to make kites of; and embracing the liberty and independence of his country in his withered arms, and triumphing in the last year of his life in the salvation of his country, he died on the 17th of November, 1782, aged 103 years.

SHIPWRECKS AND DISASTERS AT SEA.

DEPLORABLE FATE OF THE RAMILIES AND CONVOY FROM JAMAICA.

The unfortunate fleet and convoy which took its departure for Europe from Blue Fields in Jamaica, on the 26th of July, 1782, consisted at first of nine ships of the line; the Pallas frigate of 36 guns, and about a hundred sail of merchantmen, being all under the conduct of Admiral Graves, in the Ramilies, of 74 guns. The ships of the line were, however, reduced in number before they got clear of the island, to seven; the Ardent, of 64 guns, having (fortunately for those on board) sprung a leak at Blue Fields, was protested against by her officers, and left behind; and the Jason, of the same force, being detained through some other cause, proceeded on her voyage alone.

As a part of the convoy were bound to New York, the admiral was obliged, in order to see them out of danger, to shape his course to a more northern direction than he otherwise would have done. Even before the bad weather commenced, Le Hector, a French prize of 74 guns, commanded by Captain Bourchier, not being above half manned, and her masts, sails, and rigging in very bad condition, hung so far astern, that she lost, on the night of the 22nd of August, company with the fleet, and was never after able to recover it. On the 8th of September a heavy gale came on, in which Le Caton, another prize of 64 guns, sprung a leak, and was obliged to throw out a signal of dis

tress; in consequence of which, the admiral ordered both her and the Pallas frigate, which was likewise leaky, on the following day to proceed in company to Halifax.

This was only a light prelude to what was coming on. For on the 16th of September, in the afternoon, the fleet and convoy (which were still little short of 90 sail) being off the banks of Newfoundland, in lat. 42° 15′, long. 48° 55', with the wind at east-south-east, a violent gale came on, which continued to increase through the evening and night, until it had exceeded the state of the greatest storms before known in that quarter. The various sufferings and distresses of the ships through the night were sufficiently grievous and calamitous; but about three o'clock in the morning, the wind, without the smallest warning, instantaneously shifted, and was as suddenly succeeded by the most violent squall from the NN.W. that the oldest seamen in the fleet had ever experienced; exceeding a degree whatever they had known in the tropical regions, to which such sudden shifts of wind and hurricanes are deemed peculiar; but from which those northern latitudes were at all times hitherto supposed to be exempted.

From the immediate effect which this fatal shift and hurricane produced on the admiral's ship, the Ramilies, which, along with being excellently manned and officered, was otherwise neither bad in kind nor condition, some idea may be formed of the ruin which it spread through the fleet in general. For this purpose, we shall give the following short extract from the journal of Mr. Nash, the first lieutenant of the Ramilies, and the officer of the watch at the time that it happened. Having stated the unaccountable change of the wind to the opposite side of the compass in an instant, he proceeds thus in professional language:- "The main-sail aback; all hands turned up; the main-clue garnets manned; the captain and officers called up; before we could let go the tack or sheet, the main mast, mizen mast, fore topmast and fore yard carried over the ship's side, and the tiller broke, from the strong sea in the rudder's head; the water in the well 4 feet 4 inches, and still gaining on us, all the pumps being choaked, the greatest part of the crew being turned to hatchways bailing; Lieutenants Turnbull, Larcolm, and Silly had charge, and assisted at this fatiguing duty; Captain Moriarty and the other officers employed in cutting away the wreck, securing the rudder, and shipping a new tiller in the ward room. At daylight, no sail to keep the ship to; 5 feet 8 inches water, and still increasing; the ship labouring in exceeding distress, and going at random."

To increase the miseries of the night, the hurricane was accompanied with so furious a rain, that at that instant when their utmost exertions were called for, to oppose fate even for a moment, it was not possible for the seamen to face the weather. The imagination could not conceive any thing more dreadfully grievous, or more distressing even to those who were in the least danger themselves, than the scene which the morning light disclosed. Signals of distress in every quarter; the men of war nearly stripped of every thing abové deck; destruction, in its most hideous forms, spread all around; the sea covered with wrecks, and numbers of miserable wretches, of both sexes, strugling for life, either lashed or clinging to them; while their piteous efforts to attract attention, and to obtain a relief which was impossible to be given, rent every heart with grief and spread universal horror and dismay through all the spectators.

At ten o'clock in the morning the Ramilies had six feet water in her hold, and to ease her in the course of that day, several of her guns and other heavy

articles were thrown overboard. The weather still continuing very bad, though not equal in degree to the hurricane, it was only through the great and continual exertions of the officers and crew that she was kept above water till the 21st. On that day at noon she had ten feet water in her hold; but some hours before that extremity, the remaining merchant ships (amounting to about nineteen that were still able to keep in company) being summoned by signal, the admiral began to shift the people on board them; which being finished by four o'clock, when she had 15 feet water in her hold, she was so effectually set on fire, that Captain Moriarty and the last boats had quitted her only a few minutes before she blew up.

The fate of the Ramilies was, however, to be considered as happy, when opposed to that of the other ships of war in company. The Centaur, Captain Inglefield, had already made much water in the night, and was under bare poles, and in every possible state of defence against the worst weather that could be supposed to happen, at the instant that the hurricane came on. But all preparations and defence were fruitless against that irresistible squall; which laid the ship at once in such a manner upon her beam ends, that the water burst through from the hold between decks, while she lay motionless, and seemed to be irrecoverably overset. She was, however, righted, but with the loss of all her masts and rudder, and with a shock of such extreme violence, as caused unspeakable mischief and confusion. The guns broke loose, the shot was thrown out of the lockers, and the water that came up from the hold swept every thing away between decks, as effectually as the waves and the wreck had from the upper. The officers, who had run up naked from their beds when the ship overset, had not an article of clothes to put on in the morning, nor had their friends any left to assist them with.

The unshaken fortitude of the ship's company, and their unwearied exertions, under every degree of distress, and with scarcely the possibility of a hope remaining, while it heightens the merit of the sufferers, only serves to render their fate the more grievous. By these means they kept the ship above water until the 23rd; but the struggle was then at an end. In the midst of the wide Atlantic Ocean, without a possibility of any effectual succour, (for the accidental falling in with a ship, or even a few, could only have afforded a partial and very incompetent relief) at several hundred miles distance from the nearest land, they perceived, on that morning, that all their efforts were fruitless; that the ship was filling fast with water, and going gradually down; that her swimming in any manner could not outlast the day; while the terrible aspect of the sea sufficiently indicated that neither boat nor raft could live many hours upon it. That last shadow of hope, faint as it was, in which the heart had till then sought for refuge, being thus at once dissipated, the immediate effects, though various, were in every instance highly deplorable. Many brave seamen who had hitherto persevered in their sufferings and labour without a murmur or a fear, seeing that all was over, and being suddenly struck with a melancholy and tender recollection of their country, and of every thing that was most dear to them, burst out openly into tears, and wept like children. Others, appearing perfectly resigned to their fate, as if disdaining to contend with impossibility, went to their hammocks, and called to their messmates to lash them in; a great number were lashing themselves to gratings and small rafts; but the putting on their best and cleanest clothing was an idea generally prevalent. In the meantime the water in the hold had blown up the orlop decks; the cables floated to the gun-deck; the people left off bailing; and the ship was left to her fate.

It would have seemed almost ridiculous at that time to imagine that any memorial of such a situation could possibly have come to the knowledge of the world. Indeed, the escape of Captain Inglefield, with ten of his people, may be considered among the most remarkable deliverances of which we have any record; and affords a most admirable encouragement to mankind never to sink in their spirits, or fail in their exertions, under any weight of danger, or hopelessness of condition.

It appears that although the booms were prepared, rafts made, and boats put over the ship's side, with a small guard to each, to prevent disorder, yet, that almost all the officers, and a great majority of the crew, (including probably the most experienced seamen) felt such a conviction of the impossibility of saving themselves in such a sea, and under such circumstances, that they deemed it more eligible to resign themselves quietly to their fate, than, for the chance of prolonging a wretched existence for a few hours, to expose themselves to new miseries, and to disturb and embitter their last moments by vain and fruitless exertions. That this was the general disposition, seems clearly established from the following circumstance, that when, at so late an hour as five o'clock in the evening, Captain Inglefield (who had yet formed no determination with respect to himself) went upon deck, the five lieutenants, with all the other officers of so large a ship, excepting only the master, were then below. The five-oared yawl, which was the best boat, had been already staved; and upon the Captain's coming up he perceived that a few of the people had forced their way into the pinnace, that others were preparing to follow, and a greater number looking wistfully over the ship's side at what was going forward. This appearance revived the love of life in the captain, who instantly beckoning to the master, they both got into the boat; but had the greatest difficulty in getting her clear of the ship; for, besides the violence of the waves, the whole crowd that were then in sight were precipitately endeavouring to follow their example. Mr. Baylis, a young gentleman of only fifteen years of age, throwing himself headlong into the sea, had the fortune to reach the boat, and was taken in.

They were now twelve in number in the boat, and we are to look to their condition for facing the dreadful encounter to which they were exposed; from whence a question will naturally arise, which every person will solve for himself, whether their situation was apparently preferable to that of their numerous friends who continued in the ship? They were, at the approach of a dreadful night, in a leaky boat, with one of her gun-wales staved, nearly in the middle of the Western Ocean, without compass, without quadrant, without sail, a heavy gale of wind blowing, and a great sea driving. Their provision consisted of a bag of bread, a small ham, a single piece of pork, and a few French cordials; but of water, that most indispensable of all necessaries, they had only two quart bottles. The weather, along with its other severities, being extremely cold, it was no small aggravation of their immediate distresses, that they were all very thinly clothed, and not so much as a cloak or great coat amongst them; and in this condition, excepting those who were bailing, they were condemned to sit through the night, in the bottom of the boat, with the water generally up to the middle, as they could scarcely clear her of the relics of one great sea, before the coming on of another; while they still expected to be swallowed by every succeeding wave.

It happened most fortunately that a blanket had been thrown in, and was discovered before it grew dark, in the bottom of the boat; this they immediately bent to one of the stretchers, and used as a sail, under which they