well fortified, they proceeded to the western shore, where they suddenly seized and silenced the sentry who guarded the boats; and taking a tenoared boat took him with them across the channel to Dorchester, where they released him on his promise not to betray them, and separated into two companies. Burroughs with four others, proceeding about a mile found a barn, where all hid in the haymow; but were discovered the next day by children hunting hens' nests,—through the snoring of the stupidest of their number; and by their prison garb being recognized as convicts, they were taken by eight or nine men, who kept them till soldiers from the island arrived and conducted them back. The other three prisoners were taken the same day, and the eight were sentenced to receive thirty-nine lashes each, with the cat-o'nine-tails, for each of five counts against them; of which however, nearly half were remitted, one hundred lashes being received by each prisoner. The blacksmith's shop was now enlarged, and the prisoners, now about forty in number set to making wrought nails, Burroughs included, much against his will, for he was determined to oppose every effort to make him profitable to the authorities, and to defeat the whole business of making nails by the prisoners' labor; inciting his fellow-prisoners to break up the nail-rods into short pieces, and on every opportunity to throw the pieces into the waterpail, and to empty them into the prison well whenever they brought water. This trick was discovered within a few days, and stopped; and Burroughs' next plan was to induce the prisoners to rise upon their guards, when the doors were opened early in the morning for the prisoners to go out to work; the most of the garrison being at that time still asleep; Burroughs with the bravest ten engaging to disarm the guards, and twenty-five others to support the attack. Burroughs rushing forward succeeded in seizing the guns of two guards; but no one following, he ran back to the prison, where he was shackled, and received one hundred lashes, which were laid on so seriously as to disable him for nearly three months. This, perhaps for the first time in his life, brought Burroughs to his senses; thereafter he was on his good behavior; namely, from June, 1787, for above a year; his whole term being three years and five weeks.

About three weeks before his release, his uncle Ebenezer David, previously mentioned, brought him decent clothes, and enough money to provide for his wants till he could reach his uncle's home in Charlton, Mass. Burroughs had also received visits in the prison and many kindnesses from Captain Summers, his father's sister's son; and a consider

able degree of freedom-after he had shown that he would not abuse it, -from Major Perkins, the officer in command of the Castle Island garrison.

In September, 1788, he reached his uncle's farm, and began work with his uncle; and in November was engaged to teach a school in Charlton; yet the parents at first having some misgivings, sent only fifteen pupils; these misgivings were overcome, for Burroughs could be very smooth and pleasing when he chose, and his school increased in the two months of his term to eighty-four pupils. So abundant was this success that Burroughs was engaged for the coming year, having gained the complete confidence of his pupils; which he shamefully abused in the case of one of his girl pupils, by taking gross liberties with her when they two were for a little time after the afternoon session left alone in the school house; but persuading her to keep silence, by his solemn assurance that she should not suffer, since it should never be known. What peculiarly aggravates the case is the fact that Burroughs was already engaged and soon to be married to his uncle's daughter Sally; so that it was impossible to avoid injustice to both girls, or give full justice to either. The burden of the secret so wrought on the mind of the pupil, that at length she shared her secret. Burroughs did not fail to take advantage of her silence and delay, when about six months after the occurrence, he was charged with assault with intent to ravish, and held for trial at the next term of the Superior Court; and as his friends could not raise the bail of £500 he was lodged in jail. During the previous six months, however, he had been married to his cousin Sally. At Burroughs' trial, pleading the silence of the girl, he was exonerated from assault, but the first charge having brought up others, he was charged with and convicted of grossly lewd and lascivious conduct with a young woman and two girls, and was sentenced to receive one hundred and seventeen stripes on the bare back; to stand two hours in the pillory, and one hour on the gallows with a rope around his neck; then to be imprisoned for three months, procure bonds for good behavior for seven years, and pay the cost of prosecution. The distress this occasioned to his young and loyal bride cannot easily be measured. The imprisonment was in Worcester jail; but before the expiration of the three months, a company of his friends forced the jail door at midnight, and told him to depart. He tried to hasten to leave the State, but got lost in the darkness the next night, not daring to travel by day; the next day being very rainy he traveled, and at

evening reached Gloucester, R. I. Having met Worcester people there, he did not dare to stop; but in proceeding painfully, his shoes being worn out, he was seized by three men who suspected him of being an accomplice to George Irish, held in Providence on suspicion of counterfeiting bank bills. Burroughs bought them off for eleven dollars, almost all the money he had in the world. After this he did not dare to pass as an American, but posed as a Londoner, and traveled in a pair of shoes which had been given to him by a kind woman, to Stonington Point, thence by way of New London and packet, to Sag Harbor, L. I., where he gave his name as Stephen Edenson, looking for a school where a schoolmaster was wanted; and obtained a school on Shelter Island at six dollars per month, with board, washing and lodging, but by pretending to an acquaintance with the English Lord Montague, and by adopting the suggestion of his landlord to write for the press, he got himself into a position more prominent than safe, which made it an object to withdraw. He found a position in Bridghampton parish in the town of Southampton, L. I., as teacher at $12 per month, he to pay all his own expenses. He intended to spend the two weeks between the end of one school and the beginning of the other, at Charlton; but had a narrow escape from arrest at New London; then passed by boat to Norwich and on foot to Canterbury, thence to Plainfield; when a remittent fever from which he had suffered before leaving Long Island, recurred with such force that he gave up the journey; intending to return to Bridghampton to begin his school as soon as his health permitted, as he had already put it off for two weeks beyond the original arrangement; after further delay he began school, and about three weeks after received a visit from his wife's father, with a view to bring Burroughs' family to Bridghampton.

Burroughs shrewdly judged that under the circumstances it would be wise, before he was unwittingly exposed by his relatives, to appear under his real name; this was effected by the friendly assistance of the Bridghampton minister and a Dr. Havens; and Burroughs worked hard here to make an honest living, and even to start a library for public benefit; yet his former bad reputation turned up to thwart his efforts, and he was reduced to abject poverty. He made his way to New York City, where he received from his friend Huntington ten dollars, with the advice to join him in Georgia where he was practising law; he received from another friend three dollars; these two gifts taking him to the borders of Maryland; and by other gifts he succeeded in reaching

Baltimore, and soon after Alexandria, Va.; where he was offered a tract of land in the back part of Virginia at a shilling per acre; he soon had the good fortune to sell it for cash, upon receipt of which his creditor allowed him $150 discount, for prompt payment; but in passing through North Carolina, he was robbed of $110, leaving him at Wilmington with nothing but his trunk, which was accepted by the master of a sloop as security for four dollars fare to Charleston, S. C., whence he crossed into Georgia to find his friend Huntington (with his family) absent, and soon after dead; but was offered the principalship of the town academy, and an invitation to make his abode with General Williamson. Meanwhile Burroughs' wife on Long Island was obliged to apply to the overseers of the poor for support, till her father brought her home to Charlton, with her three children, the third born after its father left for Georgia. The oldest of the three was soon after taken by Burroughs' father. After teaching the academy at Washington, Ga., for eight months, Burroughs received a more promising offer from Robert Morris & Co., of Philadelphia, as a land-office agent, surveyor, and speculator, and succeeded beyond his expectations; having, he claims, property to the amount of $400,000 in the office at the time when reports against his former life, circulating in Philadelphia, caused the firm to take the business from his hands; Mr. Morris, however, securing to him his commission, reported by Burroughs to be about $30,000, which through an agent was invested in mortgages in Philadelphia; while Burroughs returned to his father's, taking his family. Whatever his investment was, the agent, professing need of special power of attorney in managing the business, made use of it to convert the mortgages into money, with which he absconded to France. Burroughs remained on his father's farm till the spring of 1799, about two and one-half years, during which he wrote his "Memoirs." The Burroughs families in that year being embarrassed by erecting a new house larger than they were able to pay for, Stephen departed to Shipton in Canada East, and commenced making and dealing on a large scale in counterfeit money, the province at that time having no law to prevent it.

The final report concerning him is that late in life he repented, joined the Catholic church, and took private pupils; but in his old age became dependent on his sons, one of whom was a prominent lawyer, the other a merchant, in Montreal; the father living in Three Rivers, between Montreal and Quebec, where one of his daughters

entered the Ursuline convent, as Sister St. Clair; the other daughter was a teacher. He died at Three Rivers in 1840, about seventy-four years of age. His character has been pronounced an enigma; but one trait of his father, as noted by Prof. F. B. Dexter in his "Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College" shows one of the influences which contributed to this strange character. In speaking of Rev. Eden Burroughs' administration of discipline he writes, "Mr. Burroughs showed himself to be of an arrogant and contemptuous nature." This lofty opinion of his own superiority, is a clew to Stephen's way of seeking his own pleasure, which, if it had no great regard to consequences to himself had no regard at all to the consequences to others. The way of the transgressor was hard on both. The days of Burroughs' adventures were the days when the minister was the intellectual and moral leader of the community, usually farmers; he received from about $200 to $400 salary, often partly in farm products, and often added to by taking pupils preparing for college. The common schools were short; and mostly limited to the "three R's". Traveling was by horseback on land, and coasters on sea. News travelled by messenger, and very slowly. Punishments were severe.

NEW HAVEN, CONN.

JOEL N. ENO. A.M.