whole company were deeply affected by this scene, and testified their sympathy in the raptures of the father and the youth. Mina sat for some time in silence; but when the French officer had somewhat recovered from the first tumult of his joy, he rose, and turning towards him, addressed him in an impressive manner on the duties of a parent; and at the same time delineated in such glowing colours his misconduct towards his helpless child, that the old soldier testified the severest sorrow for his hard-hearted behaviour, and promised, with tears, to atone for his cruelty by his future paternal attention, provided his son was given up to him again. "You left him," replied Mina, " in the hands of an enemy; but I brought him up like my own child: I give him back to you; now complete what I have begun." He thereupon delivered the boy to his father, while all present were moved by his dignity and humanity. COLUMBUS. When this celebrated navigator was crossing the Atlantic, after his first discovery of America, he encountered a dreadful storm. No prospect of deliverance appearing, the sailors abandoned themselves to despair, expecting every moment to be swallowed up. The feelings of Columbus at the time are best expressed in one of his own letters. I would," says he, "have been less concerned for this misfortune, had I been alone in the danger, both because my life is a debt that I owe to the Supreme Creator, and because I have at other times been exposed to the most imminent hazard. But what gave me infinite grief and vexation was, that after it had pleased our Lord to give me faith to undertake this enterprize, in which I had now been so successful, that my opponent would have been convinced, and the glory of your highness and the extent of your territory increased by me; it should please the Divine Majesty to stop all by my death. All this would have been more tolerable, had it not been attended with the loss of those men whom I had carried with me, upon promise of the greatest prosperity; who seeing themselves in such distress, cursed not only their coming along with me, but that fear and awe for me which prevented them from returning, as they often had resolved to have done. But besides all this, my sorrow was greatly increased, by recollecting that I had left my two sons at school at Cordova, destitute of friends, in a foreign country, where it could not in all probability be known that I had done such services as might induce your highness to remember them." BISHOP BERKELEY. "To Berkeley every virtue under heaven." РОРЕ. Dr. Berkeley having conceived the benevolent project of converting the savage Americans to christianity, by means of a colony to be erected in the Bermudas, published a proposal for this purpose in 1725, and offered to resign his own opulent preferment, of the deanery of Derry, worth £1100 per annum, and to dedicate the remainder of his life to the instruction of the Indians on the moderate allowance of £100 a year. Such was the influence of his distinguished example, that three of the junior fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, concurred with him in his design, and proposed to abandon all their flattering prospects in their own country, for a settlement in the Atlantic ocean at £40 per annum. The dean set sail for Rhode Island; but not meeting with the promised support from ministers, and after spending nearly all his private property, and seven years of his valuable life, in the prosecution of this laudable scheme, he returned to Europe. This was not, however, until the Bishop of London informed him, that on application to Sir Robert Walpole, he received the following honest "If you put this question to me," says Sir Robert," as a minister, I must, and can assure you that the money shall most undoubtedly be paid as soon as suits with public convenience; but if you ask me as a friend, whether the Dean Berkeley should continue in America, expecting the payment of £10,000, advise him, by all means, to return home to Europe, and to give up his present expectations." answer. MR. BURKE. Genius and eloquence are never more attractive, than when employed in supplicating mercy for the guilty. As soon as Mr. Burke was acquainted with the progress of the trials of the rioters in 1780, although he had, from his well-known solicitude for the catholic cause, been a marked object of their vengeance, and had even made a narrow escape from their hands, he addressed the chancellor, the president of the council, and Sir Grey Cooper, one of the secretaries of the treasury, transmitting to each a copy of his thoughts on the expediency of extending the arm of the law to as small a number of delinquents as possible. To the last of these persons he wrote as follows: "For God sake entreat of Lord North to take a view of the sum total of the deaths before any are ordered for execution: for by not doing something of this kind, people are decoyed in detail into severities they never would have dreamed of, if they had had the whole in their view at once. The scene in Surrey would have affected the hardest heart that ever was in a human breast. Justice and mercy have not such opposite interests as people are apt to imagine. I have ever observed," he adds, " that the execution of one man fixes the attention and excites awe; the execution of multitudes dissipates and weakens the effect: men reason themselves into disapprobation and disgust, they compute more as they feel less; and every severe act which does not appear to be necessary, is sure to be offensive." WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, ESQ. M.P. Jamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis, Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas. The ABOLITION of London: D. Cartwright, Printer, 91, Bartholomew Close. INDEX. ANECDOTES OF HUMANITY. page Abolition of Punish Burke, Mr.. 64 ments..... page 179 Adopted Captives.. 94 Caroline, Queen.... 81 Alexander, Emperor 137 Cæsar. the Great. 9 Caliph Omar 7 36 16 Algerines -Princess.. 133 Battle, Camperdown 23 Christian II. 5 ...... Loyalty 145 Clarence, Duke of.. 152 130 43 18 Clarkson, Mr...... 121 Benedictine Abbot. 175 Clerical Devotion... 19 Beauty of Clemency Beccaria... 143 Cochrane, Lord.... 136 ........ Benevolent Gaoler.. 35 Columbus 177 178 Convent Dungeon.. 139 Black Prince...... 54 Consanguinitarium. 104 Blanche of Castile.. 91 Coram, Captain.... 89 Blucher, Prince. Brazilian Hospitality 108 Cruelty Punished.. British Benevolence. 106 Culloden Refugees . 128 |