he determined that very night if possible, to attempt his escape from a captivity which appeared to him worse than death. He had observed as he walked the ramparts, the possibility of dropping down into the river; and though he neither knew the height of the wall, nor the width of the rivers which were to be crossed, before he could reach a neutral settlement, he determined to seize the moment of delay and risk the consequences whatever danger or difficulty might be in the way.

He communicated his resolution to a brother officer and a Bengalese boy, his servant, who both resolved to accompany him in his flight. It was concerted between them to meet on the ramparts, just before the guard was set, as it grew dark, and silently drop down from the battlement. Before the hour appointed his companion's heart failed him. About seven o'clock, he with his boy Toby, softly ascended the rampart unperceived, and the Captain leaping down uncertain of the depth, pitched on his feet; but the shock of so great a descent, about forty feet, made his chin strike against his knees, and tumbled him headlong into the river, which ran at the foot of the wall, and he dreaded least the noise of the dash into the water would discover him. He recovered himself however as soon as possible, and returning to the foot of the wall where there was a dry bank, bid the boy drop down, and caught him safe in his arms.

All that part of the Tanjore country is low and intersected with a number of rivers, branching off from the great Coleroon: these must all be necessarily crossed. He enquired therefore of the boy if he could swim; but found he could not. This was very embarrassing, but he resolved not to leave him behind, and therefore took him on his back, being an excellent swimmer, and carried him over. They pushed towards Porto Nuovo, about four leagues and a half from Cuddalore. They had passed three arms of the river, and advanced at as great a pace as they possibly could, to make use of the night, since their hope of safety depended chiefly on the distance they could reach before the morning light. Not far from Porto Nuovo, a seapoy sentry challenged. Who goes there? on which they shrunk back and concealed themselves, turning down to the river side. The river in that place was very wide, and being near the sea, the tide ran in with great rapidity. He took however the boy on his back as he had done before, and bid him be sure to hold only by his hands and cast his legs behind him; but when they came into the breakers the boy was frightened, and clung around the Captain with his legs so fast as almost to sink him. With difficulty he struggled with the waves, and turning back to the shore, found they must inevitably perish together if they

thus attempted to proceed. Therefore setting the boy safe on land he bid him go back to Doctor Mein, who would take care of him, but the poor lad has never since been heard of, though the most diligent enquiries were made after him. As delay was death to him, he plunged again into the stream, and buffeting the waves, pushed for the opposite shore; but he found the tide running upwards so strong, that in spite of all his efforts, he was carried along with the current, and constrained at a considerable distance to return to the same side of the river. Providentially, at the place where he landed, he discovered by the moon light, dry on the beach, a canoe, which he immediately seized, and was drawing down to the river, when two black men rushed upon him and demanded whither he was going with that boat. He seized the outrigger of the canoe as his only weapon of defence against the paddles which they had secured, and told them he had lost his way; had urgent business to Tranquebar, and thither he must and would go; and launching with all his remaining strength, the canoe into the river; the good-natured Indians laid down their paddles on the shafts, and whilst he stood in the stern rowed him to the opposite shore He returned them many thanks, having nothing else to give them, and leaping on the beach, immediately pushed forward with all his might. He found he had as great a distance to pass to the Coleroon as he had already travelled, and therefore continued his course with full speed, the moon shining bright; and before break of day reached this largest arm of the river of which those which he had crossed were branches. Exhausted with the fatigue he had undergone, and dismayed with the width of this mighty stream, he stood for a moment hesitating on the brink; but the approach of morning, and the danger behind him being so urgent he stretched out his arms to the flood, and pressed for the shore. How long he was in crossing he cannot ascertain, for somewhat near the centre of the river he came in contact with a mast of a ship or a great tree floating with the stream, on this he reclined his hands and his head, in which perilous position, he thinks he must have slept by the way, from some contused remembrance as of a person awaking from a state of insensibility, and which he supposes had lasted half an hour at least. However, with the light of the morning he had reached the land and flattered himself that all his dangers were past and his liberty secured; when after passing a jungle which led to the sea-side, he ascended a sand-bank to took around him-There, to his terror and surprise, he perceived a party of Hyder's horse scouring the coast, and being discovered by them they gailoped up to him; in a moment seized and stripped him naked, unable to fly or resist, and tying

his hands behind his back, fastened a rope to them, and thus drove him before them to the head-quarters, several miles distant under a burning sun, and covered with blisters. He supposes he must have gone that night and day more than forty miles, besides all the rivers he had crossed. But to what ef forts will not the hope of life and liberty prompt? What suf ferings and dangers will not men brave to secure them? Yet these were but the beginning of his sorrows.

The officer at the Head-quarters was a Mahometan, one of Hyder's chieftains. He interrogated the poor-prisoner sharply, who he was, whence he came, and whither going? Mr. Wilson gave him an ingenuous account of his escape from Cuddalore, and the reasons for it, with all the circumstances attending his flight. The Moorman, with wrath, looked at him and said, Jute bat," that is a lie," as no man ever yet passed the Coleroon by swimming; for if he had but dipped the tip of his fingers in it, the alligators would have seized him The Captain assured him the truth was so, and gave him such indubitable evidence of the fact that he could no longer doubt the relation; when lifting up both his hands he cried out, Gouda ka Adamı!" this is God's man." So Caiaphas prophesied. He was indeed God's man. The Lord had marked him for his own, though as yet he knew him not

He was immediately marched back, naked and blistered all over, to the former house of his prison, and in aggravated punishment for his flight, Hyder refused him permission to join his fellow officers, his former companions, and thrust him into a dungeon among the meanest captives. Chained to a common soldier, he was next day led out, almost famished, and nearly naked, to march on foot to Seringapatam, in that burning climate, and 500 miles distant. The officers beheld his forlorn condition with great concern, unable to procure him any redress; but they endeavoured to alleviate his misery by supplying him with immediate necessaries. One gave him a shirt, another a waistcoat, another stockings and shoes, so that he was once more covered and equipped for his toilsome journey. But the brutes, his conductors, had no sooner marched him off to the first halting place, than they again stripped him to the skin, and left him only a sorry rag to wrap round his middle.

In this wretched state, chained to another fellow sufferer, under a vertical sun, with a scanty provision of rice only, he had to travel naked and barefoot, five hundred miles, insulted by the brutes who goaded him on all the day, and at night thrust him into a damp unwholesome prison, crowded with other miserable objects.

On their way they were brought into Hyder's presence,

and strongly urged to enlist in his service, and profess his religion, and thus obtain their liberty: to induce them to which, these horrible severities were inflicted on them, and to escape these at any rate, some of the poor creatures consented. But the Captain rejected these offers with disdain; and though a stranger to a nobler principle, and destitute of all religion, so great a sense of honour impressed him, that he resolved to prefer death, with all its horrors, to desertion and Mahomedism. In various villages through which they passed, in their long march, he was placed under cover, and exhibited to the country people as an object of curiosity. many of them never having seen a white man before. There he was forced to present himself in all possible positions, and to display all the antics of which he was capable, that his conductors might obtain money from these poor villagers at the expence of their captive.

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In consequence of the dreadful nature of this march, posed by day to the heat, and cooped up in a damp prison by night, without clothes, and almost without food, covered with sores, and the irons entering into his flesh, he was, in addition to all the rest of his sufferings, attacked with the flux; and how he arrived at Seringapatam alive, so weakened with disease is wonderful. Yet greater miseries awaited him there -naked, diseased, and half starved, he was thrust into a noisome prison, destitute of food and medicine, with one hundred and fifty-three fellow sufferers, chiefly Highlanders of Colonel Macleod's regiment, men of remarkable size and vigour. The very irons which Colonel Baily had worn, weighing thirtytwo pounds, werc fastened on him; and this peculiar rigour he was informed was the punishment for his daring to attempt an escape, as well as for his resolute rejection of all the tempting offers made him. The other officers were at large, and among them was General Sir David Baird, so lately the avenger of their wrongs. When he stormed this very city, poor Wilson was imprisoned with the common soldiers, and chained to one of them night and day.

It is hardly possible to express the scenes of unvaried misery that for two and twenty months he suffered in this horrible place. The prison was a square, around the walls of which was a kind of barrack for the guard. In the middle was a covered place open on all sides, exposed to the wind and rain. There without any bed but the earth, or covering but the rags wrapped around him, he was cha.ned to a fellow sufferer, and often so cold, that they have dug a hole in the earth, and buried themselves in it, as some defence from the chilling blasts of the night. Their whole allowance was only a pound of rice a-day per man, and one rupee for forty days, or one

piece a-day, less than a penny, to provide salt and firing to cook their rice. It will hardly be believed that it was among their eager employments to collect the white ants, which pestered them in the prison, and fry them to procure a spoonful or two of their buttery substance. A state of raging hunger was never appeased by an allowance scarcely able to maintain life; and the rice so full of stones, that he could not chew but must swallow it; and often (he said) he was afraid to trust his own fingers in his mouth, lest he should be tempted to bite them. Their rice was brought in a large bowl containing the portion of a given number; but that none might take more than his share, they provided themselves with a small piece of wood rudely formed into a spoon, which no one was suffered to use but in his turn; and such was the keenness of hunger, and his eagerness to obtain the food, that his jaws often snapped the spoon by an involuntary motion, as though forced together by a spring.

(To be continued.)

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THE PUBLIC MANNER IN WHICH DIVINE. REVELATION HAS BEEN COMMUNICATED TO MANKIND..

The day has dawned, the shadows are fled. By the light of day we survey surrounding objects without any effort. From the commencement of the Christian æra, to what has been denominated the dark ages of the church, we trace with ease, the mighty display of divine mercy, to impart to man the knowledge of salvation. It is therefore, unnecessary to dwell long on this part of our subject-The ministry of the Baptist was perhaps an event of greater magnitude, as it respected the extension and establishment of the kingdom of righteousness, than any one which had taken place from the creation of the world. To a superficial observer, his ministry may seem to have been limited to Judea; but if we remember the relation in which that country stood to the Roman Empire, and the general disperson of the Jews (a subject to which we have already referred) it will be manifest, that the influence of his labours was universal. He was a burning and shining light; a star of the first magnitude-resembling the ancient prophets in dress and manners, he seemed inferior to them in qualifications, which promised success; for he was destitute of the power to perform miracles. Nevertheless, it is plain that he possessed greater fitness for his office than any of them; for how otherwise, can we account for the astonishing effects of his ministry recorded by the sacred writers. In the extent of his knowledge, transcendant powers of utter