Miscellany.

FROM A LONDON PAPER.

AN INSTANCE

OF STRONG SUPERSTITIOUS CREDULITY.
Said to be an Authentic Fact.

A WIDOW lately at Paris, aged a bout 63, who lodged in a two pair of flairs floor, in the Rue de la Ferronerie, with only a maid fervant, was accustomed to spend several hours every day before the altar dedicated to St. Paul in a neighboring church. Some villains obferving her extreme bigotry, refolved as fhe was known to be very rich to fhare her wealth. One of them, accordingly, took the oppor, tunity to conceal himfelf behind the carved work of the altar and, when no perfon but the old lady was there, in the dusk of the evening, he contrived to throw a let ter just before her. She took it up and, not perceiving any one near, fuppofed it came by a miracle. In this fhe was the more confirmed, when fhe faw it figned, Paul the Apoftle, expreffing the fatisfaction he received by her prayers addressed to him, when fo many newly cannonized faints engroffed the devotion of the world, and robbed the primitive faints of their wonted adoration; and, to fhew his regard for the devotee, he promised to come from heaven, with the Angel Gabriel, and fup with her at eight in the evening. It feems (carcely credible that any one could be deceived by fo grofs a fraud; yet to what length of credulity will not fuperftition carry a weak mind? The infatuated lady believed the whole; and rofe from her knees in tranfport, to prepare an entertainment for her heavenly guests.

the Angel Gabriel would fup with her, fhe
wanted to make the entertainment as ele-
gant as poffible.

The Counsellor immediately fufpe&ted
that fome villains had impofed on her; and
fending the maid with the plate proceeded
directly to the Commiffary of that quarter.
On the magiftrate's going with him to
houfe adjoining, they faw juft before eight
o'clock, a tall man, dreffed in long veft-
ments with a white beard, and a young
man in white with large wings at his fhoul-
ders, alight from a hackney coach, and go
up to his fifter's apartments.

The Commiflary immediately ordered twelve of the police Guards to poft themfelves on the flairs, while he knocked at the door, and defired admittance. The lady replied, that the had company, and could not fpeak to any one. But the Commiffary anfwered, that he must come in, for that he was St. Peter, and had come to afk St. Paul and the Angel Gabriel how they came out of Heaven without his knowledge. The divine vifitors were af tonished at this, not expecting any more faints to join them; but the lady overjoyed at having fo great an Apoftle with her, ran eagerly to the door, when the Commiffary, her brother, and the police guards rufhed in, prefented their mufkets, feized her guests and conducted them to prifon. her guests and conducted them to prifon.

appearances of a Holy Apostle and a blef fed Angel, with intent to deceive a pious and well-meaning woman, and to the fcandal of religion. They were accordingly condemned to be publicly whipped, burnt on the fhoulder with a rot iron, and fent to the gallies for fourteen years. A fen. tence which was in a few days faithfully put in execution.

Selected.

FROM THE CHARLESTON COURIER.

THE chief magiftrate of every great nation ought, for the honour of that nation, for the enforcing due refpe&t and obedience to the laws, and for the purposes of general fecurity, to be invefted with every dignity which tends to excite reverence, and without the active intervention of the arm of the law to exact fubmiffion, and reprefs too near approach. We do not mean this as applying to the man in his natural condition, or mere civil capacity, but as applying to his great office in which the whole majefty of the people is reflected as objects are in a mirror. It is idle to fay that the people have rights, which it is treafon to violate, dignities, which it is guilt to treat with irreverance, and laws which it is criminal to difobey, if the great depofitory of thofe their high properties, the ark of their focial covenants, the focus in which every ray of their wisdom and power are concentrated, is not rendered facred, and defended from the prophane touch of vulgar vice, by awe, by reverence, and by power. That great fan&tuary ought never to be defiled; because the very foul, the effential effence of all that is great, valuable, or efiimable in the people, in their corporate flate, is in that cafe defiled alfo, and the luftre of the nation. which fhould be kept eternally new and bright, and untouched even by a breath, is fullied, and blurred incurably. In this cafe the perfon who reprefents the majefty of the people is allowed no difcretion, no arbitrary will. If he has been in the habit of not refpe&ting himself, the law fhould compel him to refpe&t his facred of. fice. If he is in the habits of a low, grofs, But the Counfellor, who forefaw what or vulgar kind, the law fhould compel him might happen, through the defect of evi-to relinquish them, or forfeit his office.dence, had provided another stroke for Even in cafes morally innocent, where them. No fooner, therefore, were they habits or particular as indicative only of discharged from the civil power, than the meanness, and nothing worse, are difelof." apparitor of the Archbishop of Paris im-ed, the perfon fo forgetful of his duty thould be made to remember and perform it, not only with the courge of fatire, but with the long and ftrong arm of the law, invefted with a proper inflrument of penalty. That this is in the contemplation of

On fearching the criminals, two cords, a razor, and a piftol, were found in St. Paul's pocket, and a gag in that of the Angel Gabriel. Three days after, the trial came on; when they pleaded in their defence, that one was a foldier in the French infantry, and the other a barber's apprentice that they had no other defign than to procure a good fupper at the wid ow's expence that it being carnival time, they borrowed thefe dreffes, and the foldier having picked up the two cords, put them into his pocket-that the razor was that with which he conftantly fhaved himfelt that the pistol was to defend them from any infults to which their ftrange habits might expofe them in going home -and that the barber's apprentice, whofe mafter was a tooth-drawer, merely had the gag which they fometimes ufed in their bu finefs. These excufes, frivolous as they were, proved of fome avail; and as they had manifefted no evil defign by any overt act, they were both acquitted,

The fupper being befpoke, and the fide board fet out to the beft advantage, the thought that her own plate, worth about 400. did not make fo elegant an appearance as might be wifhed; and therefore fent to her brother, a Counfellor in the Parliament of Paris, to borrow all his plate. The maid, however, was charged not to difclofe the occafion; but only to fay that fhe had company to fupper, and would be obliged to him if he would lend his plate for that evening. The Counsellor furprif. ed at the application, well knowing his fi ter's frugal life, began to fufpe&t that the was enamoured of fome fortune-hunter, who might marry her, and thus deprive his family of what he expected at his fifler's death. He therefore, pofitively refufed to fend the plate, unless the maid would tel bim what guests were expected. The girmediately feized them, and conveyed them alarmed for her miftreffes honor, declared that her pious lady had no thoughts of a husband; but S. Paul having lent her Jetter from Heaven, promifing that he and

to the ecclefiaflical prifon. In three days
more they were tried and convicted of a
moft fcandalous profanation, by affuming
to themfelves the names, characters, and

our conftitution is obvious from the cir-. cumftances that the provifion made for the Prefident of the United States is in a cerain degree proportioned to the dignity of that office. In our opinions, however, much less than the people owe it to themfelves to bestow upon the very important purpose of cloathing the confervatory of their rights, with all the grandeur that becomes that awful and auguft office. If the conftitution gives five and twenty thousand dollars a year to the Prefident, he infults them, offends the feelings, and brings a blush into the cheek of fenfe, if he defcends to acts which in the eye of infirm human nature always appear degrading to the opulent, becaule they are the fruits of penury and inferiority. If for inftance. the chief magiftrate and high executive head of this great country, were to drefs with fhabby frugality, whether real or affected, to ride to Congrefs without an attendant, and hitching his horfe's bridle on a peg, leave it to and there while he himfelf is employed in the public discharge of his great truft (and we have been affared that fuch things have happened) then we fay he has fo far lowered his office. The man it is true is harmlefs in the act, but the magistrate is wrong; and though nothing is farther from our thoughts than the idea that fuch a deed would be deferving of penalty, we do maintain that it is greatly reprehenfible. In fhort every thing that tends to cheapen the authority of the mag. ifrate in vulgar eftimation, or to lower it in the public refpe&t and efteem, is injurious to the public, and highly faulty in him who does it.

of poffibility. Suppofe Mr. Jefferson, the
prefident of the United States, were to die
at this hour, what would be the condition
of their highest delegated authority? In
whom would it be found? and where, and
for what, wandering? What, in the
names of Heaven and of that God, by
whole power we religionfly adjure you to
anfwer it to the full dictates of your con-
fciences-what muft a furrounding looking
fciences-what muft a furrounding looking
on world think of a nation, whofe elected
Chief Magiftrate is wandering in conceal.
ment through the country, over which he
prefides, and poffeffes the fovereign au.
thority, and fhunning the eyes of men, for
an unacquitted act of wilful and deliberate
homicide?

Accounts ftate that Col. Burr is at Charleton, South Carolina.

The brig Sophia, Pinkham, from Liv. erpool, was boarded, within two leagues of the Hook, by an English frigate, and had two of her men preffed who had regular protections.

Extract of a letter from an officer on board the U. States fehr. Nautilus, dated Syracufe, April 21..

"We lend you a brig captured off Tri. poli, flanding in under English colors, in violation of the declaration of the block. ade of that po:t. Being advifed by commo. dore Preble, we fent her to América for adjudication. We had an engagement for an hour, with 1 gun-boats off Tripoli, within half gun fhot of the batteries. We drove them into port without any lofs on our fide."

CHARLESTON, AUGUST 21.

On the fubject of duelling we mean to enlarge-we mean to blow up into a holy flame upon the altar of God, of religion, and every latent fpark of his fpirit, that lies dormant and fmothered with afhes, in the bofom of our countrymen, till the dark being difpelled, they fee the way about them, and run as from a fhower of fire, a volcano, or an earthquake, from a mean, With great regret we have to flate that bafe, degrading, wicked, cowardly vice; one of the moft atrocious and premeditata vice which, whether confidered in its moed murders was perpetrated in this city tives or its confequences, viewed with a yesterday afternoon on the body of James Shaw, merchant, of this city, by a young relation to the offence against God, the injury to man, and the general moral turpi-haps has ever been laid before the public. man named Richard Dennis, jun. that per

tude in the abstract, or estimated with re-
gard to thofe who most practice it, is one
which a man of a proud and noble mind
would fhun. Look round, readers-make
an average of duellifts, and then estimate
the quality of the vice by the character of
its perpetrators. Gamblers, cut-throats,
highway robbers, men of lives fo profligate
that contamination is fuppofed to attend
them, and all who touch them-Black-
legs, as they are called-thofe are the per-
lons by whom nine-tenths of the duels in
the world are taught. Cowards, abject
cowards, have taught. Thofe are men of
honour, whofe examples are to be follow-
ed forfooth, to the violation of all laws,
human and divine-of the laws of religion,
juftice, humanity, and we will add, true

honour.

If then this great and majestic officethis emanation of the public fovereignty, is injurioufly affected by lapfes to trivial, what must be the injury, what the offence, what the defilement, what the infult, and what the degradation, which the office and the public undergo if the perfon in whom it is depofited is crimsoned with the guilt of a deed which the laws pronounce murder, though they fuffer themselves to lie a dead Jetter, and pander away their power to a wicked, an irrational, an atrocious, and a barbarous bloody Gothic fafhion. We do not fay this with a view to any effe& upon the paft. To fentence a man upon ex poft fallo laws would be criminal; to revive a Jaw which a bad, a pernicious custom, has permitted to flumber, while thousands of violations have paffed unpunished by its fide, would be abominable. What we fay is intended to bear only upon the future; to awaken the people to a juft fenfe of the importance of their choice of a chief, or any other magiftrate, and the laws and law. makers to a due confideration, not only of On Tuesday the 4th inft. Gen. Armthe guilt, but the common turpitude, the ftrong, American Minifter at the Court of indecency, and the pernicious confequen. his Imperial Majefly the Emperor of the ces of DUELLING. And we will fup-French, took his departure from Newpofe a cafe, which lies within the compafs York in the fhip Thomas for Nantz.

Be it our weekly task,
To note the passing tidings of the times.

Hudson, September 18.

The circumftances as far as we could recollect them laft evening, are as follows: -Richard Dennis. fen. keeps the Carolina coffee houfe in Tradd-ftreet in this city; on Thursday laft Mr. Shaw was there, when Dennis made a demand on him for a him; Mr. Shaw told him that he had paid fmall reckoning which he faid he owed it to the bar keeper, that he had discharg ed; an altercation immediately took place, fome blows paffed and Dennis was worsted; this irritated Dennis's fon to fuch a height, that he, though a lad of 18 or 19 years of age, challenged Mr. Shaw, who confidering the lad beneath his notice, paid no further attention to the challenge than to give him a kick or two in the market on Friday morning. Mr. Shaw, it is faid, had determined to take no further notice of the affair-Early yesterday morning, prin ted papers, figned Richard Dennis, jun. which ftated that Mr. Shaw was a pol troon, and a coward, were pofted up at different corners of the ftreet, which Mr. Shaw pulled down; between two and three o'clock Mr. Shaw dined at an acquaintance's boufe; he left the table a intle before four and paffed down Traddfreet to go to his bufine fs at his counting houfe; as he turned out of Tradd-ftreet in to Bedon's Alley, of which the Coffeescalhoule forms a corner, it is faid he was led to through the window; as he turned his face to the window, a piftol was fired and the ball paffed directly through his body; he was only able to retreat a few leps

The greatest activity prevails in all our By the fame accounts we are informed, principal points of defence, and troops that Moreau's fentence of two year's im- are in conflant movement. The Brigade prifonment has been changed to banish- ol Guards, at Colchefter, and in that ment to the United States of America, quarter, was this morning to pass the but whether for 2 years or during life, is Thames at Gravefend, and we understand not made known, nor is it material. Bo- that an encampment of 20,000 men will naparte has deftroyed him as a rival, and be immediately formed at Coxheath, in orwhether he is allowed to breathe in Europe der to be ready to defend the fouthern coast, or America, is of little importance. It or to embark for Ireland, as the exigency is faid Moreau was on the way to embark.of affairs may require.