but had two persons come to me directly who were at the next house to the scaffold; and I saw another who was upon it, so that you may depend upon my accounts.

Just before they came out of the Tower, Lord Balmerino drank a bumper to King James's health. As the clock struck ten, they came forth on foot, Lord Kilmarnock all in black, his hair unpowdered in a bag, supported by Forster, the great Presbyterian, and by Mr. Home, a young clergyman, his friend. Lord Balmerino followed, alone, in a blue coat turned up with red, his rebellious regimentals, a flannel waistcoat, and his shroud beneath; their hearses following. They were conducted to a house near the scaffold; the room forwards had benches for spectators; in the second Lord Kilmarnock was put, and in the third backwards Lord Balmerino; all three chambers hung with black. Here they parted! Balmerino embraced the other, and said, "My Lord, I wish I could suffer for both!" He had scarce left him, before he desired again to see him, and then asked him, "My Lord Kilmarnock, do you know anything of the resolution taken in our army, the day before the battle of Culloden, to put the English prisoners to death?" He replied, My Lord, I was not present; but since I came hither, I have had all the reason in the world to believe that there was such order taken; and I hear the Duke has the pocket-book with the order." Balmerino answered, "It was a lie raised to excuse their barbarity to us."-Take notice, that the Duke's charging this on Lord Kilmarnock (certainly on misinformation) decided this unhappy man's fate! The most now pretended is, that it would have come to Lord Kilmarnock's turn to have given the word for the slaughter, as lieutenant-gene

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ral, with the patent for which he was immediately drawn into the rebellion, after having been staggered by his wife, her mother, his own poverty, and the defeat of Cope. He remained an hour and a half in the house, and shed tears. At last he came to the scaffold, certainly much terrified, but with a resolution that prevented his behaving in the least meanly or unlike a gentleman. He took no notice of the crowd, only to desire that the baize might be lifted up from the rails, that the mob might see the spectacle. He stood and prayed some time with Forster, who wept over him, exhorted and encouraged him. He delivered a long speech to the Sheriff, and with a noble manliness stuck to the recantation he had made at his trial; declaring he wished that all who embarked in the same cause might meet the same fate. He then took off his bag, coat and waistcoat with great composure, and after some trouble put on a napkin-cap, and then several times tried the block, the executioner, who was in white with a white apron, out of tenderness concealing the axe behind himself. At last the Earl knelt down, with a visible unwillingness to depart, and after five minutes dropped his handkerchief, the signal, and his head was cut off at once, only hanging by a bit of skin, and was received in a scarlet cloth by four of the undertaker's men kneeling, who wrapped it up and put it into the coffin with the body; orders having been given not to expose the heads, as used to be the custom.

The scaffold was immediately new-strewed with saw-dust, the block new-covered, the executioner new-dressed, and a new axe brought. Then came old Balmerino, treading with the air of a general. As soon as he mounted the scaffold, he read the inscription on his coffin, as he did again after

wards: he then surveyed the spectators, who were in amazing numbers, even upon masts of ships in the river; and pulling out his spectacles read a treasonable speech, which he delivered to the Sheriff, and said, the young Pretender was so sweet a prince, that flesh and blood could not resist following him; and lying down to try the block, he said, "If I had a thousand lives, I would lay them all down here in the same cause." He said, if he had not taken the sacrament the day before, he would have knocked down Williamson, the lieutenant of the Tower, for his ill usage of him. He took the axe and felt it, and asked the headsman, how many blows he had given Lord Kilmarnock; and gave him three guineas. Two clergymen, who attended him, coming up, he said, "No, gentlemen, I believe you have already done me all the service you can." Then he went to the corner of the scaffold, and called very loud to the Warder, to give him his periwig, which he took off, and put on a night-cap of Scotch plaid, and then pulled off his coat and waistcoat and lay down; but being told he was on the wrong side, vaulted round, and immediately gave the sign by tossing up his arm, as if he were giving the signal for battle. He received three blows, but the first certainly took away all sensation. He was not a quarter of an hour on the scaffold; Lord Kilmarnock above half a one. Balmerino certainly died with the intrepid. ity of a hero, but with the insensibility of one too. As he walked from his prison to execution, seeing every window and top of house filled with spectators, he cried out, "Look, look, how they are all piled up like rotten oranges!"

My Lady Townshend, who fell in love with Lord Kilmarnock at his trial, will go nowhere to

dinner, for fear of meeting with a rebel-pie; she says, everybody is so bloody-minded, that they eat rebels! The Prince of Wales, whose intercession saved Lord Cromartie, says he did it in return for old Sir W. Gordon, Lady Cromartie's father, coming down out of his death-bed, to vote against my father in the Chippenham election. If his Royal Highness had not countenanced inveteracy like that of Sir Gordon, he would have no occasion to exert his gratitude now in favour of rebels. His brother has plucked a very useful feather out of the cap of the ministry, by forbidding any application for posts in the army to be made to anybody but himself: a resolution. I dare say, he will keep as strictly and minutely as he does the discipline and dress of the army. Adieu!

P. S. I have just received yours of August 9th. You had not then heard of the second great battle of Placentia, which has already occasioned new instructions, or, in effect, a recall being sent after Lord Sandwich.

Mrs. Hannah More to Mr. Knox.

MY DEAR SIR,

September 26, 1818.

My friendship for Mrs. La Touche and yourself is by the length of time, the convictions of my understanding, and the affections of my heart, become so established, so much a part of myself, that it would be incapable of declension even without any overt act on the part of either of you. So agreeable a flapper as your kind letter was, however, such a quickener of my feelings, that it was

matter of no small regret that I have been till now physically incapable of answering it. About three weeks ago, my sister and myself were each suddenly seized with a violent attack of fever, from which we are, through the mercy of God, recovering, though very gradually. We are still confined to our chambers, and are not allowed to see any I believe my own illness was partly caused by too great excitement, from an influx of company, chiefly strangers, but sent recommended by

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friends.

You will not be sorry to hear that the last work our lamented princess read during her pupilage, (as her preceptor the bishop himself told me,) and the last she read before her death, was the one written expressly for her, in which you took so kind an interest. It was very kind and condescending in the bishop to say that he considered "The Hints" as rather intended for the teacher than the pupil, and had availed himself of them accordingly. I should not mention this but to you, who will be pleased to hear that the book, as to her, was not written altogether in vain.

I remember that my dear old friend Dr. Johnson once asked me, "What was the greatest compliment you could pay to an author?" I replied, "To quote him.""Thou art right, my child," said he. Now, your remembering and citing two passages from poor unworthy me, at the distance of twenty years, did really gratify me.

I wish I could show Mrs. La very curious present I have just received from Sir Alexander Johnstone, the Chief-Justice of Ceylon; it is one of my "Sacred Dramas" written upon palm-leaves, in the Cingalese language, the cover most beautifully painted and enriched. He writes me that the