of sensations than rush into an American's bosom when he first comes in sight of Europe. There is a volume of associations in the very name. It is that land of promise, teeming with every thing of which his childhood has heard, or on which his studious years have pondered.

From that time until the period of our arrival it was all feverish excitement. The ships of war that prowled like guardian giants round the coast; the headlands of Ireland stretching out into the channel; the Welsh mountains towering into the clouds; all were objects of intense interest. As we sailed up the Mersey, I reconnoitred the shores with a telescope. My eye dwelt with delight on neat cottages, with their trim shrubberies and green grass plots. I saw the mouldering ruins of an abbey overrun with ivy, and the taper spire of a village church rising from the brow of a neighboring hill-all were characteristic of England.

The tide and wind were so favorable, that the ship was enabled to come at once at the pier. It was thronged with people; some idle lookers-on, others eager expectants of some friends or relatives. I could distinguish the merchant to whom the ship belonged. I knew him by his calculating brow and restless air. His hands were thrust into his pockets; he was whistling thoughtfully, and walking to and fro, a small space having been accorded to him by the crowd, in deference to his temporary importance. There were repeated cheerings and salutations interchanged between the shore and the ship, as friends happened to recognise each other.

But I particularly noted one young woman of humble dress, but interesting demeanor. She was leaning forward from among the crowd, her eye hurried o'er the ship, as it neared the shore, to catch some wished for countenance. She seemed disappointed and agitated when I heard a faint voice call her name. It was from a poor sailor, who had been ill all the voyage, and had excited the sympathy of every one on board. When the weather was fine, his messmates had spread a mattrass for him on deck in the shade, but of late his illness had so increased that he had taken to his hammock, and had only breathed a wish that he might see his wife before he died.

He had been helped on deck as we came up the river, and was now leaning against the shrouds, with a countenance so wasted, so pale and so ghastly, that it is no wonder the eye of affection did not recognise him. But at the sound of his voice her eye darted on his features, it read at once the whole volume of sorrow; she clasped her hands, uttered a faint shriek, rid stood wringing them in silent agony.

All was now hurry and bustle. The meeting of acquaintances -the greetings of friends-the consultations of men of business. I alone was solitary and idle. I had no friend to meet, no cheering to receive. I stepped upon the land of my forefathers-but felt that I was a stranger in the land

FORTY-FIVE DAYS' SUFFERINGS.

Captain David Harrison, who commanded a sloop of New York, called the Peggy, has left a melancholy narrative of the sufferings of himself and his crew, during a voyage from Fayal, one of the Azores, m 1769. A storm which had continued for some days, successively blew away the sails and shrouds; and on the 1st of December, one shroud on a side and the main sail alone remained. In this situation they could make very little way, and all their provisions were exhausted, except bread, of which but a small quantity was left; they came at last to an allowance of a quarter of a pound a day, with a quart of water and a pint of wine, for each man.

The ship was now become very leaky; the waves were swelled into mountains by the storm, and the thunder rolled incessantly over their heads in one dreadful almost unintermitting peal In this frightful dilemma, either of sinking with the wreck, or floating in her and perishing with hunger, two vessels came in sight; but such was the tempest that neither could approach, and they saw with sensations more bitter than death itself, the vessels that would willingly have relieved them disappear. The allowance of bread and water, though still farther contracted, soon exhausted their stores, every morsel of food was finished, and only about two gallons of water remained in the bottom of the cask. The poor fellows who, while they had any sustenance, continued obedient to the captain, were now driven by desperation to excess; they seized upon the cargo, and because wine and brandy were all they had left, they drank of both till the frenzy of hunger was increased by drunkenness, and curses and blasphemy were blended with exclamations of distress. The dregs of the water cask were abandoned to the captain, who, abstaining as much as possible from wine, husbanded them with the greatest economy.

In the midst of these horrors, this complication of want and excess, of distraction and despair, they espied another sail. Every eye was instantly turned towards it; the signal of distress was hung out, and they had the unspeakable satisfaction of being near enough to the ship to communicate their situation. Relief was promised by the captain; but this, alas! was but "the mockery of wo;" and instead of sending the relief he had promised, the unfeeling wretch crowded all sail, and left the distressed crew to all the agony of despair which misery and disappointment could occasion.

The crew once more deserted, and cut off from their last hope, vere still prompted by an intuitive love of life to preserve it as ɔng as possible. The only living creatures on board the vessel.

besides themselves, were two pigeons and a cat. The pigeons were killed immediately, and divided among them for their christmas dinner; the next day they killed the cat; and as there were nine persons to partake of the repast, they divided her into nine parts, which they disposed of by lot. The head fell to the share of Captain Harrison, and he declared that he never eat any thing that he thought so delicious in his life.

The next day the crew began to scrape the ship's bottom for barnacles; but the waves had beaten off those above water, and the men were too weak to hang long over the ship's side. During all this time, the poor wretches sought only to forget their misery in intoxication; and while they were continually heating wine in the steerage, the captain subsisted upon the dirty water at the bottom of the cask, half a pint of which, with a few drops of Turlington's Balsam, was his whole sustenance for twenty-four hours.

To add to their calamity, they had neither candle nor oil; and they were in consequence compelled to pass sixteen hours out of the twenty-four in total darkness, except the glimmering light of the fire. Still however, by the help of their only sail, they made a little way; but on the 28th of December, another storm overtook them, which blew their only sail to rags. The vessel now lay like a wreck on the water, and was wholly at the mercy of the winds and waves.

How they subsisted from this time to the 13th of January, sixteen days, does not appear, as their biscuit had been long exhausted, and the last bit of animal food which they tasted, was the cat on the 26th of December; yet on the 13th of January they were all alive, and the crew, with the mate at their head, came to the captain in the cabin, half drunk indeed, but with sufficient sensibility to express the horror of their purpose in their countenances. They said they could hold out no longer, their tobacco was exhausted; they had eaten up all the leather belonging to the pump, and even the buttons from their jackets; and that now they had no means of preventing their perishing together, but by casting lots which of them should be sacrificed for the sustenance of the rest. The Captain endeavored to divert them from their purpose until the next day, but in vain; they became outrageous, and with execrations of peculiar horror, swore that what was to be done, must be done immediately; that it was indifferent to them whether he acquiesced or dissented; and that though they had paid him the compliment of acquainting him with their resolution, yet they would compel him to take his chance with the rest, for general misfortune put an end to personal distinction.

The Captain resisted, but in vain; the men retired to decide on the fate of some victim, and in a few minutes returned, and said the lot had fallen on the negro, who was part of the cargo. The poor fellow knowing what had been determined against him, and seeing one of the crew loading a pistol to despatch him, im

plored the Captain to save his life, but he was instantly dragged to the steerage, and shot through the head.

Having made a large fire, they began to cut the negro up almost as soon as he was dead, intending to fry his entrails for supper; but James Campbell one of the foremast men, being ravenously impatient for food, tore the liver out of the body, and devoured it raw; the remainder of the crew, however, dressed the meat, and continued their dreadful banquet until two o'clock in the morning.

The next day the crew pickled the remainder of the negro's body, except the head and fingers, which, by common consent, they threw overboard. The Captain refused to taste any part of it, and continued to subsist on the dirty water. On the third day after the death of the negro, Campbell, who had devoured the liver raw, died raving mad, and his body was thrown overboard, the crew dreading the consequences of eating it. The negro's body was husbanded with rigid economy, and lasted the crew, now consisting of six persons, from the 13th to the 26th of January, when they were again reduced to total abstinence, except their wine. This they endured until the 29th, when the mate again came to the Captain at the head of the men, and told him it was now become necessary that they should cast lots a second time. The captain endeavored again to reason them from their purpose, but without success; and therefore considering that if they managed the lot without him, he might not have fair play, consented to see it decided.

The lot now fell upon David Flat, a foremast man. The shock of the decision was so great, that the whole company remained motionless and silent for some time; when the poor victim, who appeared perfectly resigned, broke silence, and said, "My dear friends, messmates, and fellow sufferers, all I have to beg of you is, to despatch me as soon as you did the negro, and to put me to as little torture as possible.' Then turning to one Doud, the man who shot the negro, he said, "It is my desire that you should shoot me. Doud reluctantly consented. The victim begged a short time to prepare himself for death, to which his companions most readily agreed. Flat was much respected by the whole ship's company, and during this awful interval, they seemed inclined to save his life; yet finding no alternative but to perish with him, and having in some measure lulled their sense of horror at the approaching scene by a few draughts of wine, they prepared for the execution, and a fire was kindled in the steerage to dress their first meal as soon as their companion should become their food.

As the dreadful moment approached, their compunction increased, and friendship and humanity at length triumphed over hunger and death. They determined that Flat should live at least until eleven o'clock the next morning, hoping, as they said that the

Divine Goodness would in the meantime open some other source of relief. At the same time they begged the captain to read prayers; a task which, with the utmost effort of his collected strength, he was scarcely able to perform. As soon as prayers were over, the company went to their unfortunate friend, Flat, and with great earnestness and affection expressed their hopes that God would interpose for his preservation; and assuring him, that though they never yet could catch or even see a fish, yet they would put out all their hooks again to try if any relief could be procured.

Poor Flat, however, could derive little comfort from the concern they expressed; and it is not improbable, that their friendship and affection increased the agitation of his mind; such, however, it was, that he could not sustain it, for before midnight, he grew almost totally deaf, and by four o'clock in the morning was raving mad. His messmates, who discovered the alteration, debated whether it would be an act of humanity to despatch him immediately; but the first resolution, of sparing him till eleven o'clock, prevailed.

About eight in the morning, as the captain was ruminating in his cabin on the fate of this unhappy wretch, who had but three hours to live, two of his people came hastily down, with uncommon ardor in their looks, and seizing both his hands, fixed their eyes upon him without saying a word. A sail had been discovered, and the sight had so far overcome them, that they were for some time unable to speak. The account of a vessel being in sight of signals, struck the captain with such excessive and tumultuous joy, that he was very near expiring under it. As soon as he could speak, he directed every possible signal of distress. His orders were obeyed with the utmost alacrity; and as he lay in his cabin, he had the inexpressible happiness of hearing them jumping upon deck, and crying out, "She nighs us, she nighs us! she is standing this way."

The approach of the ship being more and more manifest every moment, their hopes naturally increased, and they proposed a can to be taken immediately for joy. The captain dissuaded them all from it, except the mate, who retired, and drank it to himself.

After continuing to observe the progress of the vessel for some hours, with all the tumult and agitation of mind that such a suspense could not fail to produce, they had the mortification to find the gale totally die away, so that the vessel was becalmed at only two miles distance. They did not, however, suffer long from this circumstance, for in a few minutes they saw a boat put out from the ship's stern, and row towards them fully manned, and with vigorous despatch. As they had been twice before confident of deliverance, and disappointed, and as they still considered themselves tottering on the brink of eternity, the conflict between their hopes and fears, during the approach of the boat, was dreadful