have some little money; which this wretch (the Negro) obferving, and being in want, he refolved to murder her, and to take what she had. She was a widow, and had only a nephew living with her in her little cottage. This nephew, one evening, at a jovial carouse, got excessively drunk, and was carried home, and put to bed. The Negro thought this a favourable opportunity to put his villainous design in execution. He got to the top of the house, and being totally stript, got into the cottage through the chimney; marched immediately up stairs, and entered the woman's bedchamber, when he foon murdered her, but not without her making a hard ftruggle for her life, and also some noise; which fuddenly awakening the nephew, in the next room, out of his dead fleep, forced him to get up, in order to fave his aunt. But, before he could get himself ready, the villain choked the woman, cut off her ring-finger, and flew directly to the nephew's apartment; who, difabled as he then was, being a strong young fellow, grappled with the murderer for a confiderable time, the moon that night fhining in bright at the window (as the unhappy man afterwards declared at his trial), and discovering the shape and colour of the villain; whom the poor ignorant wretch contesting with him took to be the Devil. The Negro at laft, finding that he could not get the better of this intoxicated fellow, ran away from him, carrying in his hand the woman's finger, and the money which he had found in her box, and running up the chimney at which he had come in, the drunken man pursuing him, and feeing him make his escape that way, which he looked upon as miraculous, declaring, when brought to the bar, that his devil, in a moment, flew up into the air through that tunnel of conveyance, and he faw him no more.-By the way I fhould obferve, that this devil, in the fcuffle, had befmeared the nephew's fhirt in many places with blood, be

OF A SINGULAR MURDER.

377

ing the blood of the murdered aunt; in which the execrable flaughterer had imbrued his atrocious hands. The drunken wretch, her nephew, went to bed again, and foon fell into his former profound fleep. The next morning, the neighbours, obferving the door and the window-fhutters to remain unopened, (contrary to custom) at a late hour (nine of the clock or after), and having fome fufpicion, broke in, found the woman murdered, and her nephew, in the next room, ftill afleep, and his fhirt blooded; which was to them, as they thought, a fufficient evidence that he was the murderer. And accordingly, being brought before a magistrate, and examined, he was committed to prison, still perfifting in the declaration of his innocence, and in his story of the Devil, which nobody could beat out of his head. At his trial he was condemned, and foon after executed, protefting his total ignorance of the murder to the last, and throwing it wholly upon his black antagonist, whom he formerly believed to be no other than Satan.

[By the way, it was great pity, that fome fenfible and fagacious perfon, efpecially the clergyman, if any, who attended him after his condemnation, did not take the hint, from his filly notions and affertions, to make farther inquiry, and, if poffible, to find out the skulking villain, so plainly defcribed by the poor wretch, who knew no better.]

The Negro, with his little booty (the price of blood) decamped, as foon as he well could, for Carolina; came back the next year, went thither again the year following, and fo on reciprocally for about nine years running, being always uneafy, and never able to quiet his confcience, whitherfoever he went.

At laft, as providence would have it, he came back for the last time into England, landing at Rotherhith; whither he was no fooner arrived, but a prefs-gang advancing towards the fhip alarmed his fears, and convinced hist VOL. I. No. 8.

3 C

guilty

guilty mind that they were coming to feize him for the murder above mentioned, He immediately flipt into the hold, or under-decks, crying out aloud, that vengeance had at last overtaken him, and that he was the perfon that had committed the fact. Inquiry being made what fact, he confeffed the whole; fo that he had, in effect, murdered two perfons. The aunt he difpatched with his own hands; of the death of her nephew, he was the principal caufe, and underwent the punishment he deferved.

This guilt (especially that of blood) often difcovers itself on the fudden, contrary to all human expectations, and when it would not have been in the power of man to make the discovery. There is a fecret hand of Providence in all fuch difcoveries,

The Miraculous Deliverance of Mr. BLANCH, and three Others from the fudden Wreck of the DERADE.

ON N the 16th of December, 1798, the Clyde frigate, of 38 guns, commanded by captain Cunningham, cruizing in the Bay of Biscay, captured, at two o'clock, A. M. a beautiful French fhip of 22 guns and 100 men, named the Derade; having taken most of the prifoners on board, a part of the crew, confifting of 21 perfons, including two officers, a lieutenant, and mafter's-mate, was fent on board the captured veffel. The weather being extremely boisterous, it became an undertaking of confiderable difficulty and danger to man the prize. The number of perfons allotted to the Derade were 31, among whom were ten of its former crew. Thefe veffels remained in company till between two and three o'clock, P. M. when the prize failed for England; the officer, by too much inattention to the violence of the weather, fuffered more fails to be fet than caution could approve, and before the was out

of

OF MR. BLANCH, &c.

379

of fight of her confort a tremendous guft of wind in an inftant upfet her with fo much violence that it not only became inverted but, in fome degree, afcended on the fide oppofite the one where they had funk. In the moment of this awful catastrophe, Mr. Blanch (the perfon who furnished the writer with materials for this narration) was in the hold with fome others: they immediately approached the hatchway in which the water was rushing in, and filling, by an impetuous column, its whole fize, through which they were precipitated by a cafk of brandy falling at the fame inftant. Having afcended in the water, Mr. Blanch difcovered himself at the mizen-top, the fhip being then on its fide: he afterwards gained the chains, where he remained three-quarters of an hour, holding by which, his hands were extremely mangled: he then reached the bottom of the wreck, where he found about twenty more. of his wretched companions; the waves at that time running mountainous high, and carrying away fome with every roll. As Mr. Blanch was a perfon of athletic habit, two of thefe victims of diftrefs feized him by the legs; one, a Spaniard, held him half an hour, and was with difficulty obliged to quit his hold; the other, an Englishman, remained about an hour and a quarter, and at last, unable, through exceffive fatigue, to fupport himself even with that help any longer, he uttered a trembling benediction, and was enveloped by the fwelling ocean, leaving to deplore his fate a wife and five children.

The clamorous invocations of the unhappy fufferers, and the difficulty with which the Clyde was hove to, after repeated attempts, rendered the scene truly diftreffing. Captain Cunningham would have fent out the barge, but it was objected to by the officers, as rifking too many lives. The jolly-boat was then manned by four, who, notwithstanding the danger, proceeded towards the wreck, taking log-lines,

&c. to facilitate their enterprize; but it was impoffible to approach it nearer than about a quarter of a mile. By the inverted pofition of the ship, the ballaft and stores had broke through the decks, and difcoloured the water; the cafks floating about, and fometimes driven against the wreck, very much endangered the few furvivors, who were now reduced to only five. Mr. Blanch had been once dislodged from his fituation, but was returned to it again by a kinder fwell. Seeing it impoffible that the boat could approach any nearer without encountering the most imminent danger of being dafhed to pieces, four of these wretched fufferers formed the determination of attempting to swim to the boat, which they thus arrived at, with barely an existence, having been much bruifed and exhaufted with exertion and fatigue. The other poor fufferer, left on the wreck, being unable to swim, was deprived of the only hope of efcape, and he perished in fight of the others, who had been thus providentially faved, and who were kindly received on board the Clyde, which was at this time happily to windward, and thus enabled to preserve them; though the apprehenfion of their not furviving was fhewn in ftreams of tears; indeed, the crew of the Clyde had, during the time, been in frantic diftrefs.

The four perfons thus miraculously fnatched from the arms of death, were of various nations, Mr. Blanch an Englishman, a Frenchman belonging to the Clyde; an Italian, and an African black, prifoners. Clerkenwell, Feb. 15.

Anecdote of CORNISH LONGEVITY.

J. D.

MR. Carew, in his furvey of Cornwall, acquaints us, that the men of that country are very long-lived; and mentions one Polirew, who, he fays, lived to 130 years; and a kinfman of his, who attained to 105. And one Brawne, a Cornish