a smile of exultation; while Amica, displeased at the manner in which the introduction had been prcduced, felt a reluctance to be included in it: she was, however, obliged to follow the example of her mother. Valmont muttered a few unintelligible words, which were necessary to break the ice of ceremony between the ladies; and lady Dellaval, still looking through her glass, said, "hope you are quite well; I am excessively rude not to rise, but I am really exhausted to death with walking almost the whole way down St. James's-street this morning; won't you sit down."

With one of her best courtesies lady Buckhurst placed herself on the sofa, by the side of her new acquaintance; who immediately jumping up, said "Valmont, call my servants, will you? I'll drive through the park." Then turning to lady Buckhurst and Amica, with something between a bow and a courtesy, she pronounced, "good morning," in scarcely intelligible accents, and left the room: before, however, she had reached the stairs, her tones were sufficiently audible in a lengthened ha! ha! ha!

Lady Buckhurst knew not whether to consider that she had received a compliment, or an affront. Amica had no hesitation in determining, what real good manners would have sanctioned it, as easy, elegant, and very proper.

Having made their purchases they returned to the shop, where they were detained some minutes till the different articles were put up in papers and boxes, as her ladyship chose to have them home with her

in her carriage, she whispered Amica, "That she had heard that things that were left, after they were once bought, to be sent home, were often changed for the same kind of articles made of inferior materials; and that she was resolved to be upon her guard against the tricks of the London shopkeepers, as far as she was able."

Or interesting adventures of Lady H. Ackland, with some particulars of the American General Gates.

THIS venerable officer, (General Gates) paid the debt of nature on the 10th of March, 1806, full of honours and greatly lamented in America He had attained the seventy-eighth year of his age, and, like his great commander, Washington, passed the winter of his life in retirement on his estate.

General Horatio Gates was by birth an Englishman, and when very young, entered into the British army, where he acquired his first knowledge of military tactics, under the late Duke of Bruuswick, at that time Prince Ferdinand. He went to America as a captain of infantry, under General Braddock, and continued in that service till the peace of 1763, when

he returned to his native country. It appears, that, during this time he had imbibed so great a partiality for the new world, that he sold his commission,

and purchased an estate in the colony of Virginia, where he resided till the breaking out of the unfortunate war, and upon that event he joined the standard of his adopted country. The qualifications he possessed, gained him so rapid a promotion, that he was appointed commander in chief of the Northern American army; and in this situation he obtained distinguished celebrity, by the capture of General Burgoyne, and the English army under his command.

His humanity to his captives was equal to his success; and the attention he shewed to Lady Harriet Acland, will ever render his name respected in England. The complicated distresses, the extraordinary fatigues, and the heroic resolution of that amiable lady, were subjects of astonishment to the contending armies. The particulars of her adventures were given in the publications of that day. Thirty years having, however, elapsed since the fatal turn of this conflict, and her history being in some measure connected with that of her generous enemy, a brief sketch of it will give the reader, then unborn, some idea of the miseries attending that unnatural

war.

In the year 1775, the regiment of which John Dyke Acland, Esq. of Devonshire, was major, was ordered on the American station, and his wife, Lady Harriet Ackland, determined to accompany him. This resolution was not to be shaken by any entreaties to relinquish so dangerous a project; and in the beginning of the ensuing year she was in Canada, where during the first campaign, she travers

S

ed a vast extent of country, in different extremities of the season; encountering difficulties that an European traveller will not easily conceive, for the purpose of attending the major, who was confined by sickness in a wretched hut in Chamblee.

On the opening of the campaign of 1777, she was restrained from offering to share the fatigue and hazard expected before Ticonderago, by the positive injunctions of her husband. The day after the conquest of that place, he was badly wounded, and she crossed the lake Champlain to join him.

As soon as he recovered, Lady Harriet insisted on following his fortunes through the campaign. The artificers of the artillery, for this purpose made her a two wheel tumbril. Major Acland commanded the grenadiers, who were always the advanced post of the army. From their situation, these troops were obliged to be so often on the alert, that none of them slept out of their clothes. In one of these positions, a tent, in which the major and Lady Harriet were asleep, suddenly took fire. An orderly serjeant of grenadiers, with great hazard of suffocation, dragged out the first person he laid hold of. It proved to be the major: at the same instant his wife, unconscious of what she did, and perhaps not perfectly awake, providentially made her escape by creeping under the walls of the back part of the tent. The first object she beheld on the recovery of her senses was the major on the other side, and in the same instant again in the fire, in search of her. The serjeant once more saved him, but not before the major was very severely burned in the face, and different

parts of the body; every thing they had with them in the tent, was consumed.

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This misfortune befel them shortly before the army passed Hudson's River. It neither altered the resolution nor the cheerfulness of Lady Harriet; and she continued her progress, sharing on every occasion the fatigues of the advanced corps. The next trial of her fortitude was of a different nature, and more distressing, as it was of longer duration. the march of the 9th of September, the grenadiers became liable to the hazard of an action, at every step; she had been directed by the major to follow the route of the artillery and baggage, which was not exposed. At the commencement of the action she found herself near a small uninhabited hut where she alighted. When the engagement was becoming general and bloody, the surgeons of the hospital took possession of the same place, as the most convenient for the care of the wounded. Thus was the lady in hearing of one continual fire of cannon and musquetry for four hours together, with the presumption, from the post of her husband, at the head of the grenadiers, that he was in the most exposed part of the action. She had here three female companions, the Baroness of Riedesel, and the wives of Major Harnage, and Lieutenant Reynell. Major Harnage was soon brought to the surgeons very badly wounded; and a little afterwards came intelligenee that Lieutenant Reynell was shot dead. Imagination can scarcely conceive the state of the whole groupe.