Spanish; of 80,000 men on the coast of Brittany supposed to be ready for
an invasion of England; of the Prince of Conde playing at cards, with
Northumberland House itself for stakes (Northumberland House which he is
INTENDING to take). We read the list of Lottery Prizes, of the L1000 and
L500 tickets; of the pressing want of seamen for His Majesty's Navy,
and how the gentlemen of Ireland are subscribers to a bounty fund. Then
comes the narrative of James Caton of Bristol, who writes to complain
that while transacting his business on the Bristol Exchange he is
violently seized by a pressgang, with oaths and imprecations. Mr. Farr,
attempting to speak to him, is told by the Lieutenant that if he does
not keep off he will be shot with a pistol. Mr. Caton is violently
carried off, locked up in a horrible stinking room, prevented from
seeing his friends; after a day or two he is forced on board a tender,
where Mr. Tripp, a midshipman, behaves with humanity, but the Captain
and Lieutenant outvie each other in brutality; Captain Hamilton behaving
as an 'enraged partisan.' Poor Mr. Caton is released at last by the
exertions of Mr. Edmund Burke, of Mr. Farr, and another devoted friend,
who travel post-haste to London to obtain a Habeas Corpus, so that he
is able to write indignantly and safe from his own home to the LONDON
PACKET to describe his providential escape. The little sheet gives one
a vivid impression of that daily life in 1779, when Miss Edgeworth
must have been a little girl of twelve years old, at school at Mrs.
Lataffiere's, and learning to write in her beautiful handwriting. It
was a time of great events. The world is fighting, armies marching and
counter-marching, and countries rapidly changing hands. Miss Seward is
inditing her elegant descriptions for the use of her admiring circle.
But already the circle is dwindling! Mr. Day has parted from Sabrina.
The well-known episodes of Lichfield gaieties and love-makings are over.
Poor Major Andre has been exiled from England and rejected by Honora.
The beautiful Honora, whose "blending charms of mind and person"