to proceed farther than this? Yes; several confessors were found to comply with the order of his excellency!! The king took an undisguised part in all these infamies, and appointed judges belonging to the criminal tribunals to aid in the inquisitorial examinations.

With regard to trials like these, it may easily be imagined that contradictions, absurdities, and falsehoods, were their customary foundation. Whether a prisoner denied the pretended crime, or in despair suffered himself to avow it, he was sure to be sent back to his confinement. The only indulgence shewn was to those who were base enough to denounce fresh victims.

Some account remains to be given of the inhuman conduct of the jailors towards the incarcerated on Ferdinand's revival of the Inquisition. What shall we say when we hear the case of an unhappy chaplain, in the regiment of Lorena, whilst in Murcia, who, after a popular commotion had restored him to liberty, took the violent alternative of drowning himself in a well rather than return to the Inquisition? What shall we say when informed, that a young officer of the same regiment was driven to madness and suicide at Valencia? The most complete information, however, with which we can supply our readers on this head, will be a condensed account of what has been communicated to us by a patriotic magistrate, who was shut up during fifteen months in the Inquisition at Valencia, and is at this moment in London.

M. G. was arrested the 27th or January, 1819, whilst in bed, at two o'clock in the morning. His papers were sealed up, and all explanation was withheld. He was conducted to the Inquisition, distant only fifty paces from his house, by endless turnings and windings. When there, he was made to halt suddenly before a little private door. The chief of the escort, a judge of the criminal court, gave a mysterious and preconcerted kind of knock. A jailor presented himself, and demanded, with solemnity of utterance, which was the judge and which the accused. This point ascertained, he took the two in with him, leaving the others outside. The door closed on them, and all was involved in darkness and silence. The jailor, groping along, and without a syllable of speech, conducted his two companions through the intricate labyrinth of corriders, now ascending staircases, and now descending. This course of involutions occupied about twenty minutes. Their conductor suddenly stopped, and clapping thrice

with his hands, was answered in like manner from above. Two folding-doors opened with a startling sound, and wide, well-lighted staircase was displaye to view. This brought them to a hall hung with black velvet, having a table in its centre covered with the like sabk colour, a silver crucifix, and two candles of green wax. At this table stood two inquisitors, habited in full ceremonythe square cap, the cross of honou.. green neck-kerchiefs, and green sleeves. One of these personages was recognisea by M. G as one of the friends of his boyhood, a fellow-collegian; the other was a man whom he was in the daily habit of seeing, and who had, indeed, discoursed with him but a few hours before in the most amicable way. Neither of them, however, gave him the least sign of recognition, or shewed, either then or in the sequel, the least disposition to soften his state of suffering. They began by gravely chanting forth some verses of the Psalm Exsurge Dei, &c. and then demanded of the criminal his name and profession. The jailor was thereupon told to do his duty. This consisted in conducting M. G- to a dungeon, eight feet square, (having a grated skylight without glass), and in leaving him there without a candle, or even a pitcher of water. After remaining thus for three days, he was supplied with a wretched mattress and a chair. These formed, during fifteen months, the whole of his furniture. His sustenance was a dish of rice every twenty-four hours, with half-a-pound of brown bread, and, in the mornings, a cup of diluted stuff miscalled chocolate. His jailors, seen only at these periods, always maintained the silence of statues. The light of the day in this living tomb was but of five hours' duration.

De

On one occasion, the barber who was sent to shave the unfortunate prisoner, contrived to slip into his hands a letter from his wife, together with a pencil and a bit of paper to facilitate a reply. lighted at this unexpected consolation, M. G-perused and kissed a thousand times the cherished lines. His reply was soon prepared-but, alas! the Arguseyed turnkeys had conceived suspicions, the result of which was a discovery, and the consignment of the poor barber to one of the prison-rooms, where he was kept until 1820. His successor in office shewed none of the zeal of pity. After three months' incarceration, M. Gunderwent his first regular examination in the same hall, and with the same ceremony. One of the inquisitors made a sort of opening oration on the justice and

benignity of the Holy Office (these were wonderfully borne witness to by the livid and haggard countenance of their victim), and proceeded to tell him that the tribunal knew already the whole, even to the precise day, place, and hour, when M. G- had been present, with other accomplices, at a masonic meeting; that it was, consequently, useless to deny it ; and that the tribunal, in calling on him now for his confession, desired merely to find a pretext for extending towards him the indulgence allowed to penitents, &c. &c. M. G—, not to be duped by this mode of address, protested openly against it. The addition of menaces and insults could not shake his firmness; and he was taken back to his confinement. Some months afterwards he was again summoned into the same presence, but with the like result; and from that period he was no longer interrogated. Being seized with illness, through the various miseries and horrors of his situation, he several times implored the aid of a physician; but was answered that when his life should be in danger, that would be granted him! When reduced to the extreme of weakness, and no longer able to rise from his mattress, he requested the presence of the inquisitors, and besought them most touchingly for some nourishment of a more wholesome kind, adding that his family would remunerate such attention. "Your family has abandoned you, Sir," replied these impostors ; they will listen to no application on the part of a reprobate; and, as for the tribunal, it has no funds for the amelioration of your treatment !!"

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Such a series of infamous usage must inevitably have proved fatal to M. G- had not these dens of horror been thrown open by the effect of the king's oath to the Constitution on the 9th of March, 1820. The following day brought the decree to Valencia, and the people went en masse to burst open the gates of the Inquisition. Half an hour previously, and when the news was already known every where, one of the jailors had the inhuman assurance to tell M. G that he, at least, should never escape from his place of lodging!-New Monthly Magazine.

THE GHOST.

IN all ages, persons of weak intellects have believed in apparitions: yet we may confidently affirm, that stories of ghosts are mistakes, or impositions, and that they may always be detected by a proper exercise of the mental faculty. In all narations of this kind, there is manifestly

an endeavour to make the events as supernatural, wonderful, and as well attested as possible, to prevent the suspicion of trick, and to silence all objections which might be made to their credibility. In compliance with this custom, we will recount a story of a ghost, which seems to possess all the desired requisites.

At a town in the west of England, twenty-four persons were accustomed to assemble once a week, to drink, smoke tobacco, and talk politics. Like the academy of Rubens, at Antwerp, each member had his peculiar chair, and the president's was more elevated than the rest. As one of the members had been in a dying state for some time, his chair, whilst he was absent, remained vacant.

When the club met on the usual night, inquiries were naturally made after their associate. As he lived in the adjoining house, a particular friend went to inquire after him, and returned with the melancholy intelligence, that he could not survive the night. This threw a gloom on the company, and all efforts to turn the conversation from the sad subject before them were ineffectual. About midnight the door opened; and the form, in white, of the dying or the dead man, walked into the room, and took his seat in his accustomed chair. There he remained in silence, and in silence was he gazed at. The apparition continued a sufficient time in the chair to assure all who were present of the reality of the vision. At length he arose, and stalked towards the door, which he opened, as if living-went out, and shut the door after him. After a long pause, some one, at last, had the resolution to say, "If only one of us had seen this, he would not have been believed; but it is impossible that so many of us can have been deceived." The company, by degrees, recovered their speech, and the whole conversation, as may be imagined, was upon the dreadful object which had engaged their attention. They broke up, and went home. In the morning, inquiry was made after their sick friend. It was answered by an account of his death, which happened nearly about the time of his appearance in the club-room. There could be little doubt before; but, now, nothing could be more certain than the reality of the apparition, which had been simultaneously seen by so many persons. It is unnecessary to say, that such a story spread over the country, and found credit even from infidels; for in this case, all reasoning became superfluous, when opposed to a plain fact, attested by three-and-twenty witnesses. To assert the doctrine of the fixed laws

of nature, was ridiculous, when there were so many people of credit to prove that they might be unfixed. Years rolled on, and the story was almost forgotten.

One of the club was an apothecary. In the course of his practice, he was called to an old woman, whose business it was to attend sick persons. She told him that she could leave the world with a quiet conscience, but for one thing, which lay upon her mind. "Do you not remember Mr. ***, whose ghost has been so much talked of? I was his nurse. On the night of his death, I left his room for something I wanted. I am sure I had not been absent long; but, at my return, I found the bed without my patient! He was delirious, and I feared that he had thrown himself out of the window. I was so frightened that I had no power to stir; but, after some time, to my great astonishment, he entered the room, shivering, and his teeth chattering, laid himself down on the bed, and died! Considering my negligence as the cause of his death, I kept this a secret, for fear of what might be done to me. Though I could have contradicted all the story of the ghost, I dared not to do it. I knew, by what had happened, that it was he himself who had been in the club-room (perhaps recollecting it was the night of meeting): but I hope God and the poor gentleman's friends will forgive me, and I shall die contented."-Lady's Magazine.

Miscellanies.

cause a good while after, which causeth my heart to be full heavy; and if that ye come, and the matter take to none effect, then should I be much more sorry, and full of heaviness.

"And as for myself, I have done, and understand in the matter that I can or may, as God knoweth; and I let you plainly understand that my father will no more money part withal in that behalf, but an 100%. and five marks, [37. 6s. 8d.] which is right far from the acomplishment of your desire.

"Wherefore, if that ye should be content with that good, and my poor person, I would be the merriest maiden on ground; and if ye think not yourself so satisfied, or that ye might have much more good, as I have understood by you afore; good, true, and loving Valentine, that ye take no such labour upon you, as to come more for that matter. But let [what] is, pass, and never more to be spoken of, as I may be your true lover and beadwoman during my life.

"No more unto you at this time, but Almighty Jesu preserve you both body and soul, &c.

"By your Valentine,

"MARGERY BREWS."

"Topcroft, 1476-7.”

THE BEGGAR OF ALGIERS. ABOUT the beginning of the last century, a Greek merchant resided at Algiers, who used every year to make a voyage to Tunis, or Egypt, to dispose of the commodities he had purchased from the Moors and the trading ships from Europe. While he continued to carry on this

TEENTH CENTURY.

"To my right well-beloved cousin, John Paston, Esq. be this letter delivered, &c.

"Right worshipful and well-beloved Valentine.

"In my most humble wise, I recommend me unto you, &c. And heartily I thank you for the letter, which that ye send me by John Beckerton, whereby I understand and know, that ye be purposed to come to Topcroft in short time, and without any errand or matter, but only to have a conclusion of the matter betwixt my father and you; I would be the most glad of any creature alive, so that the matter may grow to effect. And thereas [whereas] ye say, and [if] ye come and find the matter no more towards you than ye did aforetime, ye would no more put my father and my lady, my mother, to no cost nor business, for that

paid the debt of nature, left him his executor, and, among his legacies, ordered a certain sum of money to be disposed of among the indigent and distressed. One morning, as the merchant was passing through the street, he saw a Moor sitting on a piece of mat, lame, and almost blind Struck with an object that seemed an epitome of human miseries, the Greek listened to his moving tale, and beheld, with a pleasing satisfaction, that this deplorable object employed himself in making thread laces, by which, and the charity of the benevolent, he procured a scanty subsistence. So unusual a sight, where wretchedness and industry were so remarkably blended in the same object, excited the compassion of the merchant, who, with a generous tear of humanity, dropped him a handful of aspers. Astonished at so unexpected an instance of kindness, the beggar followed the merchant on his crutches, calling upon Heaven

THE recent intelligence from the Gold Coast, as to the defeat of the British troops at Accra, by the Ashantees, has drawn the public attention to our settle ments on the coast of Africa, and we have, therefore, determined to give some account of them, and also an interesting view in Sierra Leone, which is remarkable for the colony formed there by the British nation, rather from motives of generosity and philanthropy, than from those of political and commercial advantage. It is traversed by a large river, derived from an unknown source, in the interior, called the Mitomba, or Sierra Leone. The country fully equals in point of fertility and population any other part of Africa, but there is scarcely any principle of unity among the natives, who are divided into several independent tribes. Cultivation has made little progress, unless where introduced by Europeans. It consists, in general, of one vast and almost impenetrable forest, only particular spots of which have been cleared and cultivated. The houses are low, little huts, built with wooden posts fastened in the ground, and thatched with straw: they are moved, without the least difficulty, from place to place. There is VOL. III. 2 D

a great abundance of the most delicate fruits; and the palm-tree yields a liquor which is eagerly drank, and possesses intoxicating qualities. The woods and mountains are much infested with wild animals, particularly lions.

It was not until towards the close of the 18th century, that the British nation began to turn their attention towards Sierra Leone, with a view towards coloni. zation, and in order to provide for such negroes as, having been dismissed from the army and navy, found their way to London during the American war. The first colony consisted of 400 blacks and 60 whites, who arrived at Sierra Leone, on the 9th of May, 1787; but it was very unfortunate, for after their numbers had been much reduced by a dreadful mortality, the town which they had raised was plundered by an African Chief, in 1789, and they were dispersed. Such, however, was the zeal felt at home for the civilization of Africa, that fresh slaves were sent out, the colonists collected together, and an addition of 1,200 free negroes, who had adhered to the loyal standard during the American revolution, and taken refuge in Nova Scotia, were

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