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Strange stories from history : for young people / by George Cary Eggleston.

Strange stories from history : for young people / by George Cary Eggleston. Eggleston, George Cary, 1839-1911. 400dpi TIFF G4 page images University of Kentucky, Electronic Information Access & Management Center Lexington, Kentucky 2002 b92-202-30752275 Electronic reproduction. 2002. (Beyond the shelf, serving historic Kentuckiana through virtual access (IMLS LG-03-02-0012-02) ; These pages may be freely searched and displayed. Permission must be received for subsequent distribution in print or electronically. Strange stories from history : for young people / by George Cary Eggleston. Eggleston, George Cary, 1839-1911. Harper, New York : c1885. 243 p. : ill. ; 19 cm. Coleman Microfilm. Atlanta, Ga. : SOLINET, 1994. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. (SOLINET/ASERL Cooperative Microfilming Project (NEH PS-20317) ; SOL MN04500.03 KUK) Printing Master B92-202. IMLS This electronic text file was created by Optical Character Recognition (OCR). No corrections have been made to the OCR-ed text and no editing has been done to the content of the original document. Encoding has been done through an automated process using the recommendations for Level 1 of the TEI in Libraries Guidelines. Digital page images are linked to the text file. World history. SThANGE STORIES FR M HI STORY' FOR /oOUNq pEOPLE P I hy.S11S7RE "w ' I s ;wF1 " TO -4r!2 :-; 1, UP This page in the original text is blank. This page in the original text is blank. 7 0 alp, 0 STRANGE STORIES FROM IHISTORY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE BY GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON AUTHOR OF K RED EAGLE " " TlE BIG BROTER " " TIME WRECK OF THE RED BIRD" " THE SIGNAL BOYS" ETC. 31111strateb NEW YORK HARPER BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE SERIES. Illustrated. l1mo, Cloth, 1.00 per volume. TIlE ADVENTURES OF JIMMNIY BROWN. Edlited by XW I.. AI.-E,. TIIE CRUISE OF' 'IlE CAN!OIE B['It. ll- IV. L.. ALDEN. 'THE CRUISE OF' Eli'. dl! MST." 13y IV. I.. ALDEN. TfIE MORAI PIR ATE. 13y WV. I.. A.I'EN-. TIOBY 'i'1.EII; , 'Il:N W'EEKS WITlH A CIRCUS. By AMES OTIS. I It. STUB13BS'S BBlS 'ETR. A N'qII"I to 'T'.bv Tyler.` By TI AESI OTIS. TIM AND '1I11: OB, 'I'IE AD)`VENT'I REdO (PI A ITT IV AND A 1P(0. By JAIMES OTIS. 1EF'!' BEHIND: on, TEN DAYS A NE"W"ITY. By JAIES OTIS. IRAISIN; 'rHE " PEA..'' BL TABy S t)TI. MTI.DREII'S BIARGiAIN, AND OITHIIEI STOIESI 3 By LUCY C. I.LLIX. NAN. BY 13.1Y C. I.ILLIE. 'I';IIE FItAL IAtNIC'11,4. By WTIL-TI551 BLT. K. T'IlE LOST CITY; -'l, THEll BOY EXIlORl.lERS IN CENTRAL ASIA. By DAVID KEr. TIlE TAL.KING UAl'AVES. An 11h1i-1 Story. By W. (0. ST:IIA)BIMI). WIIV, WAS PAUL. (EAYSI)N 13y J11115 Fl1AM- TIN-', AUIwTlI' of'' Tins Babies.'' PRINCE LAZY1I(NES, AND OTHER S'(RIES. By Mrs. XV. J. II-S. THE ICE QUEEN. By EnEaSr N.NEE'T.II CHA TERS ON PLANT lIFE. 1y Men S B. Tler. STRANGE STORIES FROM RISTORY. By GEOR,,,, CARe EGLE5TON7. Pu1sIIsInT BY HARPER B IROTIHERS, NEWv YOREK. 7-4nq rf te a.ca'. eeks i/.eseI bhy vmai, .J.,steq7ide'lai/toy UO ofl thE aitedI Matee Canada, `n me.-i't ef the Jri-e. Copyright, 1885, by HARPER BROTBERS. PREFACE. IN calling the tales in this volume "Strange Sto- ries" I have sought simplv to indicate that, in the main, they are unfa-imiliar to youthful readers, and that most of them relate deeds and occurrences some wh-lat out of the common. In choosing, the themes I lhave tried to avoid the tales that have been often used1, and to tell only those of which young readers generally lave not before heard. Of course, a book of this kind can make no preten- sion to originality of matter, as the facts used in it are to be found in. historical works of recognized au- thoi ity, thoughi many of them have been drawn from l)ooks that are not easily accessible to the majority of rea(lers. If tlhere is ,any originality in my little Preface. volume it is in the maniner in which the tales are told. I have endeavored to tell them as simply as possible, and at the same time with as much dramat. ic force and fervor as I could conmmiand, w hile adher- ing] rigidly to the facts of history. It would be impossible for me to say to what sources I amn indebted for materials. 'Thlie incidents related have been familiar to me for years, as they are to all persons wvhose reading of history has been at all extensive, and I cannot say with any certainty how much of each I learned from one and how much from another historical writer. Nor is it in any way necessary that I should do so, as the recorded facts of history are common properyts. But a special ac- knowledgment is due to Mr. Jamnes Parton in the case of the tale of the Negro Fort, and also for cer- tain details in those relatincg to the New Orleans campaign of 1814-15. In that field Mr. Partoni is an original investigator, to whose labors every writer on the subject must be indebted. I wish also to ac- VI Preface. vii knowledge my obligation to 'Mr. A. B. Meek, the au- thor of a little Wvork entitled " Ptoniatic Passag-es in Southwestern History," for the main facts in the sto. lies of the Charge of the Hounds and the Battle of the Canoes on the Alabama River; but, with respect to those matters, I have had the advantage of private sources of information also. Most of the stories in the volume were originally written for Ilkper'8 Young People; one was first published in Good Cheer, and a few in other periodi- cals. I owe thanks to the editors and publishers concerned for permission to reprint them in this form. This page in the original text is blank. CONTENTS. HISTORY STORIES. TEIE STORY OF THE NEGRO FORT A AWAR FOR AN ARCHBISHOP. THE Boy COMMANDER OF THE CAMISARDS TEIE CANOE FIGHT THE BATTLE OF LAKE BORGNB TIE BATTLE IN THE DARK. THE TROUBLESOME BURGHERS. TuE DEFENCE OF ROCHELLE. THE SAD STORY OF A Boy KING . . Two OBSCURE HEROES . THE CHARGE OF THE HOUNDS PAGE . . . ... .... 13 . 26 . ..... ....... 38 ...... . . .... 05 . ..... ....... 67 ........ ... 77. ....... .... 88 ...... . . .... 99 ......... . . 111 ... . . . 120 .... . . . 130 x Con/en/s. PAGE THE STORY OF A WINTER CAMPAIGN . . . . . . . . 140 YOUNG WASHINGTON IN TIHE WOODS . . . . . . . . 151 THE STORY OF CATHERINE. . . . . . . . . . . . 1 63 TuE VIRGINIA WIFE-MARKET. . . . . . . . . . . 175 BIOGRAPHY STORIES. BOYHOOD OF DANIEL WEBSTER . . . . . . . . . . 185 THE SCULLION WHO BECAME A SCULPTOR . . . . . . 193 BOYHOOD OF WILLIAM CEIAMBERS . . . . . . . . . 200 HOW A BOY HIRED OUT, AND WHAT CAME OF IT . . . . 206 TiHE WVICKEDEST MAN IN THE WORLD . . . . . . . . 212 A PRINCE WHO WOULD NOT STAY DEAD. . . . . . . 228 ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Boarding the Gun-boats. . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece Breakfast and Battle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Vladimir Besieging the City Uontaining his Archbishop. . . 35 Cavalier Personating the Lieutenant of the Count Broglio . . 47 With a Single Blow he Knocked over the Indian with whom Austill was Struggling. . . . . . . . . . . . 63 General Jackson at Yew Orleans. . . . . . . . . . 79 The Barghers Prepare to Defend their City . . . . . . 95 Richelieu Surveying the W11orks at Rochelle. . . . . . . 103 The Pa-rting between King Richard II. and Queen Isabella . 117 Mfartin. Preaching to the People on the Duty of Fighting . . 125 "Just at the Moment when Mlatters were at their Worst, he Rode up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 7 Capture of the Dutch Fleet by the Soldiers of the French Re- public.1.4.9.......... .. . 149 Washington as a Surveyor. . . . . . . . . . . . 157 "She Went Boldly into his Tent "... . . . . . . . 1, "' To the End of the Twelfth Book of the Aneid,' answered the '.Idle' Boy in Triumph". . . . . . . . . . 189 This page in the original text is blank. STRANGE STORIES FROM HISTORY. TIlE STORY OF THE NEGRO FORT. DUiRING the war of 1812-14, between Great Brit- ain and the United States, the weak Spanish Gove-- nor of Florida-for Florida was then Spanish terri- tory-permitted the British to make Pensacola their base of operations against us. This was a gross out- rage, as we were at peace with Spain at the time, and General Jackson, acting on his own responsibility, invaded Florida in retaliation. Amiong the British at that time was an eccentric Irish officer, Colonel Edward Nichols, who enlisted and tried to make soldiers of a large number of the Seminole Indians. In 1815, after the war was over, Colonel Nichols again visited the Seminoles, who Strange S/ories from History. were disposed to be hostile to the United States, as Colonel Nichols himself was, and made an astonish. ing treaty with them, in which an alliance, offensive and defensive, between Great Britaini and the Semi- noles, was agreed upon. We lha(l ma(le peace with Great Br itain a few months before, and yet this ri- diiculous Irish colonel signed a treaty binding Great Britain to fight us whenever the Seminoles in the Spanish territory of Florida should see fit to make a war! If this extraordinary performance had been all, it would not have mattered so MUch, for the British government refused to ratify the treaty; but it was not all. Colonel Nichols, as if determined to give us as much trouble as he could, built a strong fortress on the Appalachicola River, and gave it to his friends the Seminoles, naming it "The British Post on the Appalachicola," where the British had not the least right to have any post whatever. Situ- ated on a high bluff, with flanks securely guarded by the river on one side and a swamp on the other, this fort, properly defended, was capable of resisting the Tlze Story of the Negro Fort. assaults of almost any force that could approach it; and Colonel Nichols was determined that it should be properly defended, and should be a constant men- ace and source of danger to the United States. HIe armed it with one 32-pounder cannon, three 24- pouLnders, and eight other guns. In the matter of small-arms he was even more liberal. He supplied the fort with 2500 muskets, 500 carbines, 400 pistols, and 500 swords. In the magazines he stored 300 quarter casks of rifle powder and 763 barrels of or- dinary gunpowder. When Colonel Nichols went away, his Seminoles soon wandered off, leaving the fort without a garri- son. This gave an opportunity to a negro bandit and desperado named Gargon to seize the place, which he did, gathering about him a large band of runaway negroes, Choctaw 'Indians, and other lawvless persons, whom he organized into a strong company of robbers. Gargon made the fort his stronghold, and began to plunder the country round about as thoroughly as any robber baron or Italian bandit 1 - Strange Stories from His/ory. ever did, sometimes venturing across the border into the United States. All this was so annoying and so threatening to our frontier settlements in Georgia, that General Jackson demanded of the Spanish authorities that they should reduce the place; and they would have been glad enough to do so, probably, if it had been possible, because the banditti plundered Spanish as well as other settlements. But the Spanish governor had no force at command, and could do nothing, and so the fort remained, a standing menace to the Ameri- can borders. Matters were in this position in the spring of 1816, when General Gaines was sent to fortify our frontier at the point where the Chattahoochee and Flint riv- ers unite to form the Appalachicola. In June of that year some stores for General Gaines's forces were sent by sea from New Orleans. The vessels carrying them were to go up the Appalachicola, and General Gaines was not sure that the little fleet would be permitted to pass the robbers' strongliold, which had 7Thze Story of the Negro Fort. come to be called the Negro Fort. Accordingly, he sent Colonel Clinch with a small force down the riv- er, to render any assistance that might be necessary. On the way Colonel Clinch was joined by a band of Seminoles, who wanted to recapture the fort on their own account, and the two bodies determined to act together . Meantime the two schooners with supplies and the two gun-boats sent to guard them had arrived at the mouth of the river; and when the commandant tried to hold a conference with Gargon, the ship's boat, bearing a white flag, was fired upon. Running short of water while lying off the riverI's mouth, the officers of the fleet sent out a boat to pro- cuie a supply. This boat was armed with a swivel and muskets, and was commanded by Midshipman Luffborough. The boat w ent into the mouth of the river, and, seeing a negro on shore, Midshipman Luffborough landed to ask for fresh-water supplies. GarIon, with some of his men, lay in ambush at the spot, and while the officer talked with the negro the I 7 I 8 Strantge Stories from History. concealed men fired upon the boat, killing Luffbor- ough and two of his men. One man got away by swvimming, and wvas picked up by the fleet; two oth- ers were taken prisoners, and, as was afterwards learned, Garqon coated them with tar and burned themn to death. It would not do to send more boats ashore, an(l so the little squadron lay together awaiting orders from Colonel Clinch. That officer, as be approached the fort, captured a negro, who wvore a white man's scalp at hfis belt, and fromt him he learned of the massacre of LDffborough's party. There was no further occa- sion for doubt as to what was to be done. Colonel Clinch determined to reduce the fort at any cost, al- though the operation promised to be a very difficult one. Placing his men in line of battle, he sent a courier to the fleet, ordering the gun-boats to come up and help in the attack. The Seminoles made many dem- onstrations against the works, and the negroes replied with their cannon. Gargon had raised his flags-a Tlze Slory of /AMe NeSgo Fort. red one and a British Union-jack-and whenever he caught sight of the Indian1 s or the Americans, he shelled them vigorously witth his 32-pounder. Three or four days were I)assecl in this way, while the gun-boats were slowly making their way up the river. It was Colonel Clinch's purpose to have the gun-boats shell the fort, while lie should storm it on the land1 side. Tle work promised to be bloody, and it wvas necessary to b)1riDg all the available force to bear at once. There wvere no sie(ge-guns at band, or anywhiere within reach, and the only way to re- duce the fort was for the small force of soldiers- numbering only one hundred an(d sixteen 111en-to ]'ush upon it, receiviing the fire of its heavy artillery, andl climb over its parapets in the face of a murder- ous fire of small-arms. Garlog had with him three hundred and thirty-four maen, so that, besides having stroncg defensive works and a1n albundant supply of large cannon, his force outnumbered Colonel Clinch's nearly three to one. It is true that the American offi- cer had the band of Seminoles with him, but they -were I 9 S/range Slories from History. entirely worthless for determined work of the eiiid that the white men had to do. Even while lyinig in the woods at a distance, waiting for the gun-boats to come up, the Indians became utterly demoralized under the flre of Gargon's 32-pounder. Tlhere was nothing to be done, however, by way of improving the prospect, which was certainly hopeless enough. One hundred and sixteen white men had the Negro Fort to storm, notwithstanding its strength and the overwhelming force that defended it. But those one hundred and sixteen men were American soldiers, under command of a brave and resolute officer, wvo had made up his mind that the fort could be taken, and they were prepared to follow their leader up to the muzzle of the guns and over the ramparts, there to fight the question out in a hand-to-hand struggle with the desperadoes inside. Finally the gun - boats arrived, and preparations were made for the attack. Sailing-master Jairus Loo- mis, the commandant of the little fleet, cast his an- chors under the guns of the Negro Fort at five o'clock 20 The Slory of /e Negro Eort. in the morning on the 27th of July, 1816. The fort at once opened fire, and it seemed impossible for the little vessels to endure the storm of shot and shell that rained upon them from the ramparts above. They replied vigorously, however, but with no ef- fect. Their guns were too small to make any im- pression upon the heavy earthen Nalls of the for- tress. Sailing-master Loomis had roused his ship's cook early that morning, and had given him a strange breakfast to coolk. Ile had ordered him to make all the fire he could in his galley, and to fill the fire with cannon-balls. Not lonc after the bombardment began the coolk reported that breakfast was ready; that is to say, that the cannon-balls were red-hot. Loomis trained one of his guns with his own hands so that its shot should fall within the fort, instead of burying itself in the ramparts, and this gun was at once load- ed wvith a red-lhot shot. The word was given, the match applied, and the glowing missile sped on its way. A few seconds later the earth shook and 2 I Strange S/odzes from History. quivered, a deafening roar stunned the sailors, and a vast cloud of smoke filled the air, shutting out the sun. The hot shot had fallen into the great magazine, where there were hundreds of barrels of gunpowder, and the Negro Fort was no more. It had been lit- erally blown to atoms in a second. The slaughter was frightful. There were, as we know already, three hundred and thirty-four men in the fort, and two hundred and seventy of them. were killed outright by the explosion. All the rest, ex- cept three men who miraculously escaped injury, were wounded, most of them so badly that they died soon afterwards. One of the three men who escaped the explosion un- hurt was Gargon himself. Bad as this bandit chief was, Colonel Clinch would have spared his life, but it hap- pened that he fell into the hands of the sailors fiom the gun-boat; and when they learned that GarMon had tarred and burned their comrades whom lhe had captured in the attack on Luffborough's boat, they 22 -1 I --_ 'N I - =-ttt - -amn=t 2-1,1==-',,,", K 4 I ! This page in the original text is blank. The Sloy of thle Ncgro Evor. 25 turned him over to the infuriated Seminiiioles, who put bini to death in their own cruel way. This is the Listory of a strange affair, wh71icil at one time promised to give the government of the United States no little trouble, even threatening to involve us in a war with Spain, for the fort was on Spanish territory, and the Spaniards naturally resented an in- vasion of their soil. A WAR FOR AN ARCIIBISIIOg. THE CURIOUS STORY OF VLADIMIR TIHE GREAT. IN the latter part of the tenth century Sviatozlaf was Grand Prince of Russia. Ile was a powerful prince, but a turbulent one, and hie behaved so ill towards his neiglhbors that, when an opportunity of- fered, one of them converted his skull into a gold- 2mounted drinking -cuip, with an inscription upon it, and his dominions were parcelled out between his three sons-Yaropolk, Oleg, and Vladimir. Yaropolk, finding his possessions too small for his amnbition, made wvar on Ole,, and conquered his ter- ritory; but his brother Oleg having been killed in the war, the tender-hearted Yaropolk wept bitterly over his corpse. The other brother , Vladimir, was so grieved at the death of Oleg that he abandoned his capital, Novgo- A War for an Archbishop. rod, and remained for a time in seclusion. Yaropolk seized the opportunity thus offered, and made him- self master of Vladimir's dominions also. Not long af. terwards Vladimiir appeared at the bead of an army, and Yaropolk ran away to his own capital, Kiev. Vladimir at once resumed the throne, and sent word to Yaropolk that lhe would in due time return the hostile visit. About this time Yaropolk and Vladimir both asked for the hand of the Princess Rogneda, of Po. lotzk, in marriaige; and( the father of the princess, fearing to offeind either of the royal barbarians, left the choice to Rogneda herself. She chose Yaropolk, sending a very insulting message to Vladimir, where- upon that prince marched against Polotzk, conquered the prov'i nce, and with his own hand slew the father an(l brothers of the princess. Then, with their blood still unwashed from his hands, hle forced Rogneda to ma1.Irry him. Havin, attended to this matter, Vladimir under- took to return his brother's hostile visit, as he had 27 Siraitge Siorics from Hfislbwy. promised to do. Yaropolk's capita], Kiev, was a strongly fortified place, and capable of a stout resist- ance; but Vladimir corrupted Blude, one of Yaro- polk's ministers, paying him to betray his master, and promising, in the event of success, to heap hon- ors on his head. Blude worked upon Yaropolk's fears, and persuaded him to abandon the capital without a struggle, and Vladimir took possession. of the throne and the country. Even in his exile, how. ever, Yaropolk had no peace. Blude frightened him with false stories, and persuaded him to remove fiom place to place, until his mind and body were worn out, w-hen, at Blude's suggestion, lie determined to surrender himself, and trust to the mercy of Vladimir. That good-natured brother ordered the betrayed and distressed prince to be put to death. Then Vladimir rewarded Blude. He entertained him in princely fashion, declaring to his followers that lie was deeply indebted to this man for his faithful services, and heaping all mianner of honors uipon him. But at the end of three days he said to 28 A Wezr fr an A4-chz'ishiop. Blude: "I have kept my promise strictly. I have received you with welcome, and heaped unwvonlted honors upon your hreadl. This I have done as your friend. To-day, as judge, I condemni the traitor and the murderer of his prince."I He ordered that-, Blude Should stuffer instant dleat]], and the sentence was eXecUte(i. Now that both Oleg and Yaropolk were dead, Vladimir was Grand Prinice of all the lRussias, as his father before him had been. He invaded Poland, and mnade war upon various others of his neighlbors, greatly enilargi ig his dominions and strengthening his Iruile. But Vladimir was a very pious prinlce in his Lea. theii w-ay, an'.d feeling- that the gods had greatly fit- vored him, lhe masde rich feasts of thanksgiving in their lhonor. Ile ordered splendid memorials to vari- ous deities to l)e erected throughout the country, aid he specially honored Perune, the father of the gods, for whom lie 1)rovided a new p)air of golden wvhiskers -golden whiskers beinig the special glory of Perune. 29 S/range Stories from History. Not content with this, Vladimir ordered a human sacrifice to be made, and selected for the victim a Christian youth of the capital. The father of the boy resisted, and both were slain, locked in each oth- er's arms. Vladimir gave vast sumns of money to the religions establishments, and behaved generally like a very devout pagran. His piety and generosity made him so desirable a patron that efforts w-ere made by the priests of other religions to convert him. Jews, Alo- hammedans, Catholics, and Greeks all soughlt to win him, and. Vladimir began seriously to consider the question of changing his religion. Ile appointed a commission, consisting of ten boyards, and ordered them. to examine into the comparative merits of the different religions, and to report to him. When their re- port was niade,Vladimir weighed the matter carefully. lie beganl by rejecting Mohammedanism, because it forbids the use of wine, and Vladimir was not at all disposed to become a water-drinker. Judaism, he said, was a homueless religion, its followers being Wan- 30 A War for an ArcAhbishzop. derers on the face of the earth, under a curse; so lie would have nothin, to do with that fiith. The Catholic religion would not do at all, because it rec- ognized in the pope a superior to himself, and Vladi- mir had no, mind to acknowfledge a superior. The Greek religion. was free from these objections, and, moreover, by adopting it lhe Nvould blrinlg himself into friendship wvith the great Greek or Byzantine Em- pil e, wvhose capital was at Constantinople, and that was somethinc, whlich lie earnestly desired to accomplish. Accordingly, lie determined to become a Christian and a member of the Greek Church ; b)ut lhowv There wvere serious difficulties in the way. In olderl to become a Christian lie must be baptizedl, aidid he was puzzled about how to accomplish that. Theie wvere many Greek priests in his capital, any one of whomi wvould have been glad to baptize the heathen mon- archl, lut Vladimir would not let a mere priest con- vert him into a Christian. Nobody less than an arch- bislhop woul(l (1o for that, and there was no arlchbish- op in Russia. 31I S/range Stories from History. It is true that there were p)lenty of arclibishops in the dominions of his Byzantine neighbors, and that the Greek emperors, Basil and Conist antine, would have ljeen glad to send him a dozen of them if lhe had expressed a wNi7sh1 to that effect; lut Vladimir was proud, an(l could not think of asking a favor of anybody, least of all of the Greekl emperors. No, he wVouldl die a heathen ratlher than ask for an arclhbish- op to baptize him. Nevertheless, Vladimir had fully madhe up his mind to hlave himnself baptized by an archbishop. It was his lifelong habit, when he wanted anything, to take it by force. I-e had taken two thirds of his domin- ions in that way, ancl, as wve have seen, it was in that way that lhe grot his wife Rogneda. So now that he wanted an archbishop, he determined to take one. Calling his army together, he declared war on the Greek emperors, and promlising his soldiers all the pillage they watited, hie marchear d away towards Con- staritinople. The first serious obstacle lie met with was the for- 32 A War for anz Arclibishop. tified city of Klherson, situated near the spot where Sebastopol stands ill our day. Here the resistalnce was so obstinate that month after mnonth was con- suinied iii siege operations. At the end of six months Vladimir became seriously alarmed lest the garrison should be succored firom without, in which case his hope of getting himself converted into a Christian must be abandoned altoether. WVhile he w.as troubled on this score, however, one of his soldiers picked upi ain arrow that had been shot fr-om the city, anid found a letter attached to it. rThis letter informed the Gi'and Prince that the wvater-pipes of the city received their supplies at a point immedli- ately in his real, and with this news Vladimir's hope of becoming a Christian revivedl. Ile found the wa.- ter-pipes and stopped them up, and the city surren- dered. There were plenty of bishops and archbishops there, of course, and they were perIfectly willing-as they had been fromt the first, for that mnatter-to bap- tize the unruly royal convert, but Vladimii- was not 233 Strange S/ories from His/ory. content now with that. Ile sent a messene-r to Con- stantinople to tell the emperors there that he wvanted their sister, the Princess Anne, for a wife; and. that if they refused, he would march against Constantinople itself. The Emperors Basil and Constantine consent- ed, and althoughi Vladimir lhad five wives already, le married Anne, and was baptized on the same day. Having now become a Christian, the Grand Prince determined that his Russians should do the same. He publicly stripped the god Perune of his gorgeous golden whiskers, and of his rich vestments, showving the people that Perune was only a log of wood. Thenl he had the deposed god whipped in public, and thrown into the river, with all the other gods. He next ordered all the people of his capital city to assemble on the banks of the Dnieper River, and, at a signal, made them all rush into the -water, while a priest pronounced the baptismal service over the whole population of the city at once. It was the most wholesale baptism ever performed. That is the way in which Russia was changed from 34 - IA ii 1/ This page in the original text is blank. A Warfor ani Archibishoop. 37 a pagan to a Christian empire. The story reads like a romance, but it is plain, well-autlhenticated history. For his military exploits the Russian historians call this prince Vladimir the Great. The, people call him St. Vladimir, the Greek Church having enrolled hlis name amIIong, the saints soon after his death. Ile was undoubtedly a man of rare military skill, and unusu- al ability in the government of men. Bad as his acts wvere, lhe seems to have had a conscience, and to have done his duty so far as lhe was capable of understand- ing it. THE BOY COMIMANDER OF TIIE CAMISARDS. WVIIEN Louis XIV. was King of France, that coun- try was generally Catholic, as it is still, but in the rugged mountain region called the Cevennes more than half the people were Protestants. At first the king consented that these Protestant people, who were well behaved both in peace and in war, should live in quiet, and worship as they pleased; but in those days men were not tolerant in matters of relig- ion, as they are now, and so after a while King, Lotuis made up his mind that he would compel all his peo- ple to believe alike. The Protestants of the Cevennes were required to give up their religion and to be- come Catholics. When they refused, soldiers wver-el sent to compel them, and gieat cruelties were prac- tised upon therm. Many of them were killed, many put in priSOD, -and many sent to work in the galleys. Thze Boy Commander of the Camisa;-ds. When this persecution had lasted for nearly thirty years, a body of young mnen who were gathered to- gether in the High Cevennes resolved to defend thenm- selves by force. They secured arms, and although their numbers were very sinall, they met and fought the troops. Among these young mien was one, a mere boy, nameed Jean Cavalier. His home was in the Lower Cevennes, but hie hadt fled to the highlands for safety. This boy, without know-ing it, haid military genius of a very high order, and w\rhen it became evident that he and his comirades could not longI hold out against the large bodies of regular troops sent against them, he suggested a plan which in the end proved to be so good that for years the pOOr peasants were able to maintain war against all the armies that King Louis could send against them , although lie sent many of his finest generals anid as miany as sixty thousand men to subdue themii. Cavalier's plan was to collect miore imen, divide, and miake uprisings in several places at once, so that the ,3 39 4S/range S/ories from His/ory. king's officers could not tell in whichl way to turn. As lhe and his comrades knew the country well, and had friends to tell them of the enemy's movements, they could nearly always know when it was safe to attack, and wihen they must hide in the woods. Cavalier took thirty men and wvent into one part of the country, while Captain La Porte, with a like number, wvent to another, and Captain St. John to still anotlher. They kept each other informed of all movements, and whenever one was pressed by the enemy, the others would begin burning churches or attacking small gallisolls. Tne enemy would thus be compelled to abandon the pursuit of one party in order to go after the others, and it soon became evident that under Cavalier's lead the peasants wvere too wily and too str ong fol thle sol(lier s. Sometimies Cavalier would fairly beat detachments of his foes, and give themn chase, killingr all whom lie caught; for in that war both sides did tlhis, even killing thleir prisoners wvith- out mercy. At otlher times Cavalier was worsted in fight, and whlen that wans the case lhe fled to the 40 Thze Boy Commander of die Camzsards. woods, collected more men, and waited for another chance. Without trying to write an orderly history of the war, for which there is not space enough here, I shall now tell some stories of Cavalier's adventures, draw- ing, the information chiefly fromt a book which lie himself wrote years afterwards, when be was a cele- brated man and a general in the British army. One Sunday Cavalier, who was a preacher as well as a soldier, held services in his camp in the woods, and all the Protestant peasants in the neighborhood attended. The Governor of Alais, whose name was De la Hay, thought this a good opportunity not only to defeat Cavalier's small force, but also to catch the Protestant women and children in the act of attend- ing a Protestant service, the punishm-ent for which was death. He collected a force of about six bun. dred men, cavalry and infantry, and marched towards the wood, where lhe Icnewv he should outnumber the peasants three or four to one. He had a mule loaded with ropes, declaring that lie was going to hang all the rebels at once. 4I S/range Stories from History. When news of De la Haay's coming was brought to the peasants, they sent away all the country people, women, and children, and began to discuss the situa- tion. They had no commaniader, for although Cava- lier had led them generally, lie had no authority to do so. Everythingi was voluntary, and everything a subject of debate. On this occasion many thought it best to retreat at once, as there were less than two hundred of them; but Cavalier declared that if they would follow hin, hle Nvould lead them to a place where victory might be won. They consented, and hie advanced to a point on the road where he could shelter his men. Quickly disposing them in line of battle behind some defences, lie awaited the coming of the enemy. De la Hay, being over-confident because of his su- perior numbei's, blundered at the outset. Instead of attacking, first with his infantry, he placed his horse- men in front, and ordered an assault. Cavalier was quick to take advantage of this blunder. le ordered only a few of his mei to fire, and this drew a volley 42 Tlze Boy Commander of Mhe Camisards. from the advancing horsemnen, which did little dani- age to the sheltered troops, but emiptied the horse- mell's weapons. Instantly Cavalier ordered a charge and a volley, and the horsemen, with emnpty pistols, gaave Away, Cavalier pursuing themii. De ]a Hay's in- fantry, being just behind the lhorsemnen, were ridden down bly their own friends, and became confused and panic - stricken. Cavalier pursued hotly, his men throwving off their coats to lighlten themselves, andl giving the enemy no time to rally. A reinforcement two hundred strong, coming up, tried to check Cava- lier's charge; but so impetuous wvas the onset that these fresh troops gave way in their tuin, and the chase ended only when the king's mnen had shut themselves up in the fortified towns. Cavalier had lost only five or six men, the enemy losing a hundred killed and many more Wounded. Cavalier captured a large quantity of arms and ammunition, of which lie was in sore need. When the battle was over it was decided uuani- mnously to nake Cavalier the comnmander. He re. 43 Strange Stories from History. fused, however, to accept the responsibility unless it could be accompanied with power to enforce obedi- ence, and his troops at once voted to make his au- thority absolute, even to the decision of questions of life and death. According to the best authorities, Cavalier wvas only seventeen years old wb hen this ab- solute command was conferred upon himn. How skil- fully he used the scant means at his disposal we shall see hereafter. On one occasion Cavalier attacked a party of forty men who were marching through the country to re- inforce a distant post, and killed most of them. While searching the dead bodies, he found in the pocket of the commanding officer an order signed by Count Broglio, the king's lieutenant, directing all military officers and town authorities to lodge and feed the party on their march. No sooner had the boy soldier read this paper than he resolved to turn it to his own advantage in a daring and dangerous way. The castle of Servas, near Alais, had long been a 44 The Boy Commander of /he Cami'saras. source of trouble to hin. It was a strong Ilace, built upon a steel) hill, and was so difficult of approachl that it would have been madness to try to take it I)y force. Trlis castle stood right in the line of Cav-a- lier's communications with his friends, near a road which lhe was frequently obliged to pass, and its presence there wvas a source of :annoyance anid dang-er to himiz. Moreover, its garrison of about forty nmen were consthntly plundering and miurdering Cavalier's friends in the country round ab)out, and giving timiely notice to his enemaies of his own military movements. Wlhen lhe found the order referred to hie resolveed to pretend that he was Count lBroglio's neplhew, the (lead comminander of the detachment wvhich lie bla(d just destroyed. Dressing himiself in that officer's clothes, lhe ordered his mien to put on the clothinr of the other dead royalists. Then he took six of his best mnen, with their own Camisard uniforms on, and bound themi. with ropes, to represent prisoners. One of themi habd been wounded in the armn, and his blood y sleeve helped the stratagenm. Putting these six men. 45 S/ranzge Stories from His/ory. at the head of his troop, with a guard of their dis. griised comrades over then, be marehed. towards the Castle of Servas. Tlhere lie (leclared hinmself to be Count Broghio's nel)lew, and said that he had mnet a company off the Barbets, or Caniisards, and had de- feated thenm, taking six prisoners; that lie was afiaid to keep these prisoners in the village overnight lest their friends should rescue themn; and that he wvishied to lodge them in the castle for safety. When the governor of the castle heard this story, and saw the order of Count Broglio, he wvas completely imposed upon. He ordered the prisoners to be brouglht into the castle, and invited Cavalier to be his guest there for the nigiht. Takingr twvo of his officers with hin, Cavalier went into the castle to sup with the govern- or. During supper several of his soldiers, who were encamped just outside, wvent into the castle upon pre- tence of getting wvine or bread, and when five or six of them wvere in, at a signal from Cavalier, they over- powered the sentinels and threw the gates open. The rest of the troop rushed in at once, and before the 46s z z , 0 X 1 This page in the original text is blank. The Boy Commander of t/e Camisards. garrison could seize their arms the boy comnmander was master of the fortress. He put the garrison to the sword, and, hastily collecting all the arms, ammu- nition, and provisions lie could find, set fire to the castle and marched away. When the fire reached the powder magazine the whole fortress was blown to fragments, and a post which had long annoyed and endangered the Canmisards was no more. On another occasion, findingc himnself short of am- munition, Cavalier resolved to take somne by force and stratagem from the strongly fortified toNvn of Savnies. His first care was to send a detachment of forty men to a point at some distance, wvith orders to buIrn a church wvhicll had lately been fortified, " thereby," lhe says, " to make the inhabitants of Savnes believe we were busy in another place." Then lie detached aln officer and fifty men, and ordered them to disguise themselves as country militia in the king's service, and to go into Savnes in that character. With some difficulty this officer accomiplishied his purpose, and then Roland and Cavalier marched upon the place. 49 0 Srave Stories from History. His officer inside the town, when the alarm was given, said to the governor, " Let them come; you'll see how I'll receive them." Anxious for his own safety, the governor permitte(l tle supposed officer of militia to take charge of the defence, and the aimed citizens put themselves iinder his command. Ile instructed the citizens to reserve their fire until he should give them orders, and in that wvay enabled Cavalier to approach unharmed. Su(lddenly the officer, directing the aim of his mien against the citizens, ordered them to throw down their arms upon pain of instaut death, and they, seeing themselves caulght in a trap, obeyed. Cavalier marched in without opposition, secured all that he could carry away of arms, ammunition, and provisions, and retired to the woods. Thjroughout the summer and autumn the boy car- ried on his part of the wvar, nearly always getting the I)etter of his enemies by his shr-ewdness and valor, and when that was impossible, eluding theni with equal shrewdness. During that first campaign he de- stroyed many fortified places, won many fights against 50 Thie Boy Commander of Mke Camisards. 5 I superior numnbers of regular troops, and killed far moree soldiers for the enenmy than he hlad under his own coni- mand. Failing to conquer hin by force or strategy, his foes fell back upon the confident hope of starving him during the winter, for hle must )ass the winter in the forests, with no bases of supply to draw upon for eitlher food or ammunition. Butt in indulging this hope his enemies forgot that the crown and glory of his achieve- ments in the field had been his marvellous fertility of resource. The very qualities which had made hin for- midable in fighlt were his safeguard for the winter. He knewv quite as well as they did that lhe must live all wvinter in the woods surrounded by foes, and, knowing the difficulty of doing so, he gave his whole mind to the question of how to do it. He began during the harvest to make his prepara- tions. He explored all the caves in the mountains, and selected the most available ones for use as mag- azines, taking care to have them in all parts of the mountains, so that if cut off from one be could draw upon another. In these caves be stored great quan- 52Straige Stories from His/ory. tities of grain and other provisions, and durincg the winter, whenever he needed meal, some of his muen, who were millers, would carry grain to some lonely country mill and grind it. T10o )revent this, the king's officers ordered that all the country mills should be disabled and rendered unfit for use; but before the order could be executed, Cavalier directed solme of his men, who were skilled machinists, to dis- able two or three of the mills by carrying away the essential parts of their machinery and storing them in his caves. Then, when lie wanted meeal, his ma- ehinists had only to replace the machinery in sonme disabled mill, and remove it again after his millers had done the necessary grinding. His bakers made use of farmers' ovens to bake bread in, and when the king's soldiers, hearing of this, destroyed the ovens, Cavalier sent his masons - for he had all sorts of craftsmen in his ranks-to rebuild them. Having twvo powder-makers with him, he collected saltpetre, burned willow twigs for charcoal, and made all the powder he needed in his caves. Before doing 5 2 The Boy Commander of the Camisards. so hie bad been obliged to resort to nmany devices in order to get powder, somnetimies disguising, him,.self as a merchant and going into a town and buying small quantities at a time, so that suspicion might not be awakened, until lie secured enouglh to fill his port- rnanteau. For bullets lhe imelted. down the leaden weiglhts of windows, and when that source of supply failed lhe melte(l pewter vessels and used pewter bullets- a fact which gave rise to the belief that lhe used poisoned balls. Finally, in a dyer's establishment, lhe had the good luIck to find two great leaden kettles, weighing, miore than seven hundired quintals, which, he says, " I caused imimiediately to be carried into the magazines with as much dilig-,ence and care as if they ad(l l)een silver." Chiefly by Cavalier's tireless ener-gy and wonder-fuil military skill, the war was kept up against fearful odds for years, and finally the young soldier succeed- ed. in making a treaty of peace in which perfect lilb- erty of conscience and worship--which wvas all hie 53 54 Strange Stories from History. had been fighting for-was guaranteed to the Protes- tants of the Cevennes. His friends rejected this treaty, however, and Cavalier soon afterwards went to Holland, where he was given commnand of a regi- ment in the English service. His career in arms was a brilliant one, so brilliant that the British made him a general and governor of the island of Jersey; but he nowhere showed greater genius or manifested higher soldierly qualities than during the time when lie was the Boy Commander of the Camisards. TIHE CANOE FIGHT. AN INCIDENT OF TILE CREEK WAR. TiIw smallest naval battle ever fought in the worldI, perhaps, occurred on the Alabama PRiver on the 13th of November, 1813, betwveen twvo canoes, and this is the way in which it hapl)ened. The United States were at wvar wvith Great Britain at that time, aidl a wvar with Spain wvas also threat- enedl. The British had stirred up the Indians in the Nortlhwest to make war upon the wvhites, and ini 1813 they persuaded the Creek Indians of Alabama and Mississippi to begin a war there. The government troops were so busy with the British in other quarters of the country that very lit- tle coul(i lie (lone for the protection of the white set- tlers in the Southwvest, and for a good while they had to take care of themselves in the best way they S/range Storzes from History. could. Leaving their homes, they gathered together here and. there and built rude stockade forts, in which they lived, with all their women and children. All the men, including all the boys who were old enough to pull a trigger-and frontier boys learn to use a gun very early in life-were organized into companies of volunteer soldiers. At Fort Madison, one of the smallest of the forts, thlere was a very daring frontiersman, named Samnuel (or Sam) Dale-a man who had lived much with the Iii(lians, and was like them in nmany respects, even in his dr ess and manners. IHearing that the Indians were in force on the southeastern bank of the Ala- l)ama River, the people in Fort Madison were greatly alarmed, fearing that all the crops in that region- which were ripe in the fields-would be destroyed. If that should occur, they knew they mIust starve during the comincg winter, and so they made up their minds to drlive the sa-vages away, at least until they could gatlier the corn. Captain Dale at once made up a party, consisting 56 The Canoe Fighz/. of seventy-two men, all volunteers. With this force he set out on the 11th of November, taking Tandy Walker, a celebrated scout, for his guide. The col- umin marched to the Alabama River, and crossed it at a point about twenty miles below the present town of Claiborne. Once across the river, Dale knew that he was among, the Indians, and, knowing their ways, he was as wvatchful as if he had been one of them binmselt. lie forbade his mnen to sleep at all during the night after crossing the river, and kept them under armis, iii expectation of an attack. No attack beingr made, he mioved uip the river the next morning:,, mnarehing most of the men, but order- ilig Jerry Austill, wvith six nmen, to paddle uip in two canoes that had been found. This Jerry Auistill- whbo afterwvards became a merchant in lMobile anlld a state senator-was a boy only nineteen years of age at the time, but lie had already distinguished hi self in the war by his courage. At a point called Peggy Bailey's Bluff, Dale, who 4 57 S/range S/ories from History. was marching vitl one man several hundreds of yards ahead of his men, came upon a party of Indians at breakfast. Ile shot one of them, and the rest ran awvay, leavi-ng their provisions behind them. Secur- ing the provisions, Dale marched on for a imile or tvo, but, finding no further trace of Indians, he con- cluded that the country on that side of the river wvas now pretty clear of them, and so lhe set to work to cross to the other side, meaning to look for enemies there. The river at that point is about a quarter of a mile wvide, and, as there wvere only two small canoes at hand, the work of taking the men across Nas very slowv. When all were over except Dale and about a dozen others, the little remnant of the force was sud- denly attacked. The situation wvas a very dangerous one. With the main body of his command on the other side of the river, where it could give him 11o help, Dale had to face a large body of Indians with only a dozen men, and, as only one canoe remained on his side of the 58 Tze Canoe Fikht. river, it wvas impossible for the whole of the little party to escape by flight, as the canoe would not hold them all. Concealing his men in the bushes, behind trees, and tunder the river-bank, he replied to the fire of the Indians, and kept them at bay. But it was certain that this could not last long. The Indians must soon find out from the firing, how small the number of their adversaries was; and Dale knew that as soon as the discovery was made, they would rush upon him, and put the whole party to death. Ile called to the men on the other side of the river to come over and help him, but they were panic- stricken, probably because they could see, as Dale could not, how large a body of Indians was pressing their commander,. The men on the other bank did, indeed, make one or two slight attempts to cross, but these caine to nothinig, and the little party on the eastern shore seemed doomed to destruction. Bad as matters were with Dale, they soon became worse. An immense canoe, more than thirty feet 59 Strange Stories from History. long and four feet deep, came down the river, bearing eleven warriors, who undertook to land and attack Dale in the rear. This compelled the p)arty to fight in two directions at once. Dale and his companions kept up the battle in front, awhile Jerry Austill, James Smith, and one other man fought the warriors in. the canoe to keep them from landing. One of the eleven was killed, and another swam ashore and succeeded in joining the Indians on the bank. Seeing how desperate the case Nvas, Dale resolved upon a desperate remedy. lie called for volunteers for a dangerous piece of work, and wvas at once joined by Jerry Austill, James Smnith, and a negro man whose name was Causar. With these men lhe leaped into the little canoe, and paddled towards the big Indian boat, meaning to fight the nine Indians who remained in it, although he and his canoe party num- bered only four men all told. As the two canoes approached each other, both parties tried to fire, but their gunpowder was wvet, and so they grappled for a hand-to-hand battle. Jerry 6o The Canoe Figrli/. Austill, being in front, received the first attack. No sooner did the two canoes touch than an Indian sprang, forward. and dealt the youth a terrible blow with a war-club, knockinCg hini down, and making a dent in his skull which he carried through life. Once down, lhe would1 have been killed but for the quiiclk- ness of Smith, wvh1o, seeing the danger his comll)anion wvas in, raised his rifle. With a single blow he knocked over the Indian with whom Austill was struggling. Then Austill rose, and the fierce contest went on. Dale and his men rained their blows upon their foes, and received blows quite as lusty in return, but Cm. sar' Managed the boat so skilfully that, in spite of the superior numbers of the IndianDs, the fight was not Very Unequal. He held the little boat against the big one, but kept it at the end, so theat the Indians in the other end of the big canoe could not reach Dale's men. In this way those that were actually fighting Dale, Austill, and Smith never numbered more thlan three 6 x S/razge S/ories from History. or four at any one time, and so the three could not be borne down by mere force of numbers. Dale stood for a time with one foot in each boat; then he stepped over into the Indian canoe, giVing lhis com- rades more room, and crowding the Indians towards the end of their boat. One by one the savages fell, until only one was left facing Dale, who held CGesar's gun, with bayonet attached, in his hand. This sole survivor was Tar- cha-chee, an Indian with whom Dale had hunted and lived, one whom lie regarded as a friend, and whom he now wished to spare. But the savage was strong within the Indian's breast, and lie refused to accept mercy even from a man whjo had been his comrade and friend. Standing erect in the bow of the canoe, he shook himself, and said, in the Muscogee tongue, "Big Sanm, you are a man, I am aniother,; now for it." With that lie rushed forward, only to meet death at the hands of the frieud who would gladly have spared him. The canoe fight was ended, but Dale's work was 62 Et :l) z 0 F3 - td t- 0 z I zA This page in the original text is blank. The Canoe Eigik. not yet done. His party on the bank were every minute more closely pressed, and if they were to be saved it nmust be done quickly. For this purpose lhe and his companions at once began clearing the big canoe of its load of dead Inditans. Now that only the white men were there, the Indians upon the bank directed a galling fire upon the canoe, but by careen- in, it to one side Dale mnaide a sort of breastwork of its thick gunwale, and thus succeeded in clearing it. When this was done he went ashore and quickly car- ried off the party thlere, landing all of them ini safety on the other side. The hero of this singular battle lived until the year 1841. The whbole story of his life is a romance of hardship, darin,, and wond erfil achievement. When he died, General John F. HI. Claiborne, w1ho knew him intimately, wrote a sketch of his career for a Natchez newspaper, in wvich he described him as followvs: " In person General Dale was tall, erect, raw-boned, and muscular. In many respects, physical and moral, 65 S/range S/orzes fiom History. he resembled his antagonists of the woods. He had the square forehead, the highi cheek-bones, the com- pressed lips, and, in fact, the physiognomy of an In- dian, relieved, however, by a firnm, benevolent Saxon eye. Like the red men, too, his foot fell lightly upon the gr'ouind, and turned neither to the right nor left. Ile wvas habitually taciturn, his face grave, he spoke slowly and in lowv tones, andl he seldom laughed. I observed of him what I have often noted as peculiar to border men of high attributes lie entertained the strongest attachment for the Indians, extolled their courage, their- love of country, and many of their do- mestic qualities; and I have often seen the wretched remnant of the Choctaws camped round his planta- tion and subsisting on his crops." It is a curious fact that after the war ended, when Weatherford (Red Eagle), who commanded the In. dians on the shore in this battle with Dale, was about to marry, he asked Dale to act as his best man, and the two who had fought each other so desperately stood side by side, as devoted friends, at tile altar. 66 THIE BATTLE OF LAKE BORGNE. IIOW TIHE BRITISH MADE A LANDING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. WHEN the British made up their minds, near the end of the year 1814, to take New Orleans, and thus to gyet control of the Mississippi River, there seemed to be very little difficulty in their way. So far as anybody on either side could see, their only trouble was likely to be in making a landing. If they could once get their splendid army on shore anywhere near the city, there was very little to pre. vent them from taking the ton, and if they had taken it, it is easy to see that the whole history of the United States would have been changed. They did make a landing, but they did not take New Orleans, and iu the story of " The Battle in the Dark " I shall tell how and why they failed. In the present story I wannt to tell how they landed. Straimge Stories from History. Trhe expedition consisted of a large fleet bearing a large army. At first the intention was to sail up the Mississippi River, but General Jackson madel that impossible by building strong forts on the stream, and so it was necessary to try some other plan. It happens that New Orleans lhas two entrances frorm the sea. The river flows in front of the city, and by that route it is about a hundred miles fiom the city to the sea; )but just behind the town, only a few miles away, lies a great bay called Lake Pontchar- train. This bay is connected by a narrow strait with another bay called Lake Borgne, whiclh is connected directly with the sea. Lake Borgne is very shallow, but the British knew little about it. They only knew that if they could land anywhere on the bankcs of Lake Borgne o1 Lake Pontchartrain they would be within aiI easy march of New Orleans. Accordinly, the fleet bearing the British army, instea(i of entering the mouth of the Mississippi, and trying to get to New Orleans in front, sailed in by 68 The Batile of Lake Borgyne. the back way, and anchored near the entrance of Lake Borgue. Jiere the British had their first sight of the prep- arations made to resist thenm. Six little gun-boats, carrying twenty-thiree guns in all, wNere afloat on the lake under command of Lieutenant Thomas Ap Catesby Jones. These gun-boats were mere mosqui- toes in comparison wvith the great British men-of-wNa-, andic when they maide their appearance in the trackl of the invading fleet, the British laughed and wondered at the foolhardiness of the American commander in sending such vessels there. Lieutenant Thomas Ap Catesby Jones knew what he was about, however, as the British soon found out. Ile sailed tip almost within cannon-shot of the enemy's shlips, and they, of course, gave chase to him. Then lhe nimbly sailed away, with the fleet after him. Very soon a large man-of-war ran aground ; then another fln(d another struck the bottom, and the British A(d- minal beegan to undlerstand the trick. It was evident that Lake Borgne was imich too shallowv for time large 69 S/range Stories from History. ships, and so the comimander called a halt, and trans- ferred the troops to the smaller vessels of the fleet. When that wvas done the chase was begun again by the smaller ships, and for a time with every pros- pect of success; but presently even these ships were hard aground, and the whole British fleet which had been intended to carry the army across the lake was stuck farst in thle mud near the entrance, and thirty miles from the point at which the landing wvas to be lade. The British commander was at his wits' end. It was clear that the ships could not cl-oss the lake, and the only thing to be done was to transpo-t the army across little by little in the ships' boats, and make a landincg in that way. But to do that while Lieuten- ant Jones and his gun-boats were afloat was mani- festly imnpossible. If it had been attempted, the little gun-boats, which could sail anywhere onl the lake, would have destroyed the British army by boat-loads. There wvas nothing to be done until the saucy little 70 The Battle of Lake Borgne. fleet was out of the way, and to put it out of the way was not easy. Lieutenant Jones was an officer very much given to har( fighting, and in this case the British saw that they must fight him at a disadvantage. As they could not get to him in their ships, they must make an attack in open boats, which, of course, was a very dangerous thing to do, as the American gun-boats were armed with cannon. The British commander wanted his bravest men for such work, and so he called for volunteers to man the boats. A thousand gallant fellows offered themselv es, and were placed in fifty boats, under com- mand of Captain Lockyer. Each boat was armed with a car-onade-a kind of small cannon-but the men vwell knewv that the real fighting was not to be done wvith carronades. The only hope of success lay in a sudden, determined attack. The only way to capture the American gun-boats was to row up to them in the face of their fire, climb over their sides, and take them by force in a hand-to-hand fight. 7I S/range Stories from History. WVhen the flotilla set sail, on the 14th of Decemiber, Lieutenant Jones knew what their mode of attack would be quite as well as Captain Lockyer did. If he let them attack him in the open lake he knew very well that the British could overpower him and cap- ture his fleet; but lhe (lid not intend to be attacked in the open lake if le could help it. His plan was to sail slowly, keeping just out of reach of the row- boats, and gradually to draw themi to the mouth of the strait which leads into Lake Pontchartrain. At that point there was a wvell-armed fort, an(l if lhe could anchor his gun-boats across the niarrowv clhanne], lhe believed he could destroy the British flotilla with the aid of the fort, and thus beat off the expedition from New Orleans. Unluckily, while the fleet was yet far from the mouth of the strait the wind failed entirely, and the gun-boats were helpless. They could not sail without windl, and they mnust receive the attack right where they were. At daylight on the morning of December 15 the 72 The Ba/tie of Lake Borgne. British flotilla was about nine miles away, but w-as rapidly drawing nearer, the boats being propelled by oars. Lieutenant Jones called the comnmanders of his gun-boats together-, gave them instructions, and in- formed thenm1 of his purpose to make as obstinate a fight as possible. His case wvas hopeless; his fleet would be captured], but ly fighting ob)stinately lie could at least gain time for General Jackson at New Orleans, and time was greatly needed there. Meanwhile the British boats, carrying a thousand men, all accustomed to desperate fighlting, .approached an(l anchored just out of gunshot. Captain Lockyer wislhed his nmen to go into action in the best condition possible, an(l therefore lhe came to ancior in order to rest the oarsmen, and to give the men time for breakfast. At half-past ten o'clock the British weighe(d anchorI, and, forming in line, began the advance. As soon as they came within range the American gun-boats opened fiie, but wvith little effect at first. Of course the British could not reply at such a distance, but being under fire, their chief need Nas to go forward 73 Stranzge Stories from History. as fast and come to close quarters as quickly as pos- sible. The sailors bent to their oars, and the boats flew over the water. Soon the men at the bows be- gan to fire the carronades in reply to the American cannon. Then as the boats drew nearer, small arms came into use, and the battle grew fiercer with every moment. The British boats were with difficulty kept in line, and their advance grrew slower. Oarsmen vere killed, aind ftime was lost in putting others into their places. Still the line was preserved, and the battle event on, the attacking boats slowly and stead- ily advancing all the time. Two of the Anelrican gun-boats hiad drifted out of place, and were considerably in advance of the rest. Seeing, this, Captain Lockyer ordered the men com- manding the British b)oats to surround them, and a few minutes later the sailors were climbinc over the sides of these, vessels. Their attack was stoutly resisted. The American sailors above them fired volleys into their faces, and beat them. back with bandspikes. Scores of the British fell back into the water dead or 74 The Battle of Lake Borgne. wounded, while their comrades pressed forward to fill their places. There were so many of them that in spite of all the Americans could do to beat them off they swarmed over the gunwales an(l gained the decks. Their wvork was not yet done, however. The Americans fiercely contested every inch of their ad1- vsance, and the two parties hewved each other down with cutlasses, the Americans being slowly beaten back by superior numbers, but still obstinately fiht- ing until they could fight no more. One by one all the gunboats were taken in this way, Lieutenant Jones's vessel holding out longest, and the Lieutenant himself fighltin, till he was stricken down with a severe wound. Having thus cleared Lake Borgne, the British were free to begin the work of landing. It was a terrible undertaking,, however-scarcely less so than the fight itself. The whole army had to be carried thirty miles in open boats and landed in a swamp. The men were drenched with rain, and, a frost coming Onl, their clothes were frozen on their bodies. There was r 75 76 Strange Stories from History. no fuel to be had on the island where they made their first landing, and to their sufferings from cold was added severe suffering from hunger before supplies of food could be brought to them. Some of the sailors who were engaged in roving the boats were kept at work for four days and nights without relief. The landing was secured, however, and the British cared little for the sufferings it had cost them. They believed then that they had little more to do except to march twelve miles and take possession of the city, with its one hundred and fifty thousand bales of cot- ton and its ten thousand hogsheads of sugar. How it came about that they were disappointed is made clear in the next story. TIHE BATTLE IN TIHE DARK. 1O1W GENERAL JACKSON RECEIVED TIlE BRITISH. WHEN the British succeeded in taking Lieutenant Jones's little gun-boats and making a landing, after the manner described in the preceding story, they supposed that the hardest part of their work was done. It was not far fiom. their landing-place to Newv Orleans, and there was nothing in their way. Their army numbered nearly twventy thousand men, and the men were the best soldiers that England had. Many of them were Wellington's veterans. It seemed certain that such an army could march into New Orleans with very little trouble indeed, and everybody on both sides thought so-everybody, that is to say, but General Jackson. He meant to fightt thlart question out, and as the Legislature and many of the people in the city would do nothing to help him, he S/range Stories from His/ory. put the town under martial law, and worked night and day to get together somiething like an army. On the 23d of December, 1814, the British arrived at a point a few miles belowv the city, and wvent into camp about noon. As soon as Jackson beard of their arrival he said to the people around him, " Gentle- men, the British are below: we must fight them to- nligat." lie immediately or(lered his troops forward. lie had made a soldier of everybody who could carry a gun, and his little army was a curiously mixed col- lection of men. There were a few regulars, in uni- form; there wvere some Mississippi troopers, and Cof- fee's Kentucky and Tennessee hunters, in huntings shirts and jeans trousers; there were volunteers of all sorts from the streets of Newv Orleans-merchants, lawyers, laborers, clerks, and clergymen-armed with shot-guns, rifles, and old muskets; there were some criminals whom Jackson had released from prison on condition that they would fight; there was a battalion of free negroes, who were good soldiers; 78 I GENERAL JACKSON AT NEW ORLEANS. This page in the original text is blank. Tkze Battle in the Dark. and, finally, there were about twenty Choctaw In- dians. With this mixed crowd Jackson had to fight the very best troops in the British army. Only about half of his men had ever heard a bullet whistle, and less than half of them were drilled and disciplined; but they were brave men who believed in their gen- eral, and they were about to fight for their country as brave men should. When all were counted- backwvoodsmen, regulars, city volunteers, negroes, In- dians, and all-the whole army numbered only 2131 men! But, weak as this force was, Jackson had made up his mind to fight with. it. He knew that the British were too strong for him, but he knew too that every day would make them stronger, as more and more of their troops would come forward each day. The British camp was nine miles below the city, on a narrow strip of land between the river and a swamp. Jackson sent a gun-boat, the Carolina, down the river, with orders to anchor in front of the camp and pour a fire of grape-shot into it. He sent Coffee 8i Strange S/ories from History. across to the swamp, and ordered him to creep through the bushes, and thus get upon the right flank of the British. He kept the rest of his army under his own command, ready to advance from the front upon the enemy's position. But no attack was to be made until after dark. The army was kept well out of sight, and the British had no suspicion that any attack was thought of. They did not regard Jackson's men as soldiers at all, but called them. a posse comitatus of ragamuffins- that is to say, a mob of ragged citizens-and the most they expected such a mob to do was to wait some- where below the city until the British soldiers should get ready to drive them away with a few volleys. So the British lighted their camp-fires, stacked their arms for the night, and cooked their suppers. They meant to stay where they were for a day or two until the rest of their force could come up, and then they expected to march into the town and make them- selves at home. Night came on, and it was exceedingly dark. At 82 The Ba/tie iin the Dark. half-past seven o'clock there caine a flaslh and a roar. The Carolina, lying in the river, within a few hun- dred yards of the camp, had begun to pour her broadsides into the British quarters. Her cannon vomited fire, and sent a hail-storm of grape-shot into the camp, while the marines on board kept up a steady fire of small-alms. The British we-e completely surprised, but they were cool-headed old soldiers, who were not to be seared by a surprise. They quickly fo-med a line on the bank, and, bringing up some cannon, gave battle to the saucy gun-boat. For ten minutes this fight went on between the Americans on the river and the British on shore; then Jackson ordered his t-oops to -advance. His columns rushed forward and fell upon the enemly, again surprising them, and forcing thlem. to fight on two sides at once. Coffee, who was hidden over in the swamp, no sooner heard the roar of the Carolina's guns than lhe gave the word to advance, and , rLushing, out of the bushes, his rough Tennesseeans and Ken- 83 Stranzge Stories from History. tuckians attacked still another side of the enemy's position. Still the sturdy British held their ground, and fouglht like the brave men and good soldiers that they waere. It was too dark for anybody to see clearly what was going on. The lines on both sides were soon broken up into independent groups of soldiers, who could not see in what direction they weree march- ing, or maintain anything like a regular fight. Regi- ments and battalions wandered about at their own discretion, fighting whatever bodies of the enemy they met, and sometimes getting hopelessly entangled vith each other. Never was there so complete a jumble on a battle-field. Whenever two bodies of troops met, they had to call out to each other to find out whether they wvere friends or foes; then, if one body proved to be Amiericans and the other British, they delivered a volley, and rushed upon each other in a desperate struggle for mastery. Sometimes a regiment would win success in one direction, and just as its enemy on that side was 84 The Ba/lle in the Dark. driven back, it would be attacked froni the opposite quarter. Coffee's nmen were armed with squirrel rifles, which, of course, had no bayonets; but the men had their long hunting-knives, and with no better weapons than these they did not hesitate to mnalke charge after charge upon the lines of gleaming bayo- nets. The British suffered terribly fromt the first, but their steadiness was never lost for a moment. The nmad onset of the Americans broke their lines, and in the darkness it was impossible to form them again promptly ; but still the nmen kept up the fight, while the officers, as rapidly as they could, di- rected their detached columns towards protected po- sitions. Retreating slowly and in as good order as they could, the British got beyond the range of the C(aro- lina's guns by nine o'clock, and, findinig a position where a bank of earth served for a breastwork, they nmade a final stand there. It wvas impossible to drive them from such a position, and so, little by little, the 85 Strange Stories from History. Americans withdrew, and at ten o'clock the Battle in the Dark was at an end. Now let us see what Jackson had gained or lost by this hasty attack. The British were still in a posi- tion to threaten New Orleans. They bad not been driven away, and the rest of their large army, which had not yet come up, was hurrying forward to help them. They had lost a great many more men than Jackson had , hut they could spare men better than lie could, and they were not whipped by any means. Still, the attack was equal to a victory for the Amer. icans. It is almost certain that if Jackson bad waited another day before flighting he would have lost New Orleans, and the whole Southwest would have been overrun. But, by making this night attack, he showed the British that lie could and would fight; and they, find. ing what kind of a defence he meant to make, made up their minds to move slowly and cautiously. They waited for the rest of their force to come up, and while they were waiting and getting ready Jackson 86 The Ba/lie in the Dark. had more than two weeks' time in wh-ich to collect troops from the country north of him, to get arms and ammunition, and to throw up strong fortifica- tions. When the British made their grand attack on the 8th of January, 181.5, they found Jackson ready for them. His army was increased, his men were full of confidence, and, best of all, lhe had a line of strong earth-works to fight behind. It is commonly said that his fortifications were made of cotton-bales, but that is an error. When he first began to fortify, he used some cotton-bales, and some sugar, which, it was thought, would do instead of sand; but in some of the early skirmishes it was found that the sugar was useless, because it would not stop cannon-balls; while the cotton was worse, because it took flre, and nearly suffocated the men behind it with smoke. The cotton and sugar were at once thrown aside, and the battle of New Orleans was fought behind earth-wor-ks. In that battle the British were so badly worsted that they gave up all idea of taking New Orleans, whieb, a month before, they had believed it would be so easy to capture. 87 THE TROUBLESOME BURGHERS. PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE was a Dutchman. His father, Jacob, had been Governor of Ghent, and had made liimself a great name by leading a revolt against the Count of Flanders, and driving that ty- rant out of the country on one occasion. Philip was a quiet man, who attended to his owvn affairs and took no part in public business; but in the year 1381 the good people of Ghent found them- selves in a very great difficulty. Their city was sub- ject to the Count of Flanders, who oppressed them in every way. He and his nobles thought nothing of the common people, but taxed them heavily and interfered with their business. The city of Bruges was the rival of Gbent, and in those days rivals in trade were enemies. The Bruges people were not satisfied with trying to make more The Troublesome Burghers. mioney and get more business than Ghent could, but they wanted Glhent destroyed, and so they supported Count Louis in all that he did to injure their neiglh- boring city. Having this quarr el on their hands, thje Ghent people (lid not know what to do. Count Louis was too strong for them, and they were very much afraid lie wvould destroy their town an(l put tlme people to death. A public meeting was held, and remenmberima how Nvell old Jacob van Artevelde had served them against the father of Count Louis, tley madme his son Philip their captain, an(l told himn he, Imus.t manage this quarrel for them. Plhilip undertook this duty, and tried to settle the trouble in some peaceable way ; but the Count wvas angry, and would not listen to anytlthing that Van Artevelde proJ)osed]. Ile saiid the Glient I)eople wvere rebels, alnid must submit wvithout any condi- tions at all, and this the sturdy Ghent burghers refused to do. 89 Strange Stories from History. Count Louis would not march against the towvii and give the people a fair chance to fight the matter out. He preferred to starve them, and for that pur- pose lie put soldiers on all the roads leading towards Ghent, and refused to allow any provisions to be taken to the city. The people soon ate up nearly all the food they had, and when the spring of 1382 came they were starving. Somnething, must be done at once, an(l Philip van Artevelde decided that it was of no use to resist any longer. lie took twelve deputies with him, and Nvent to beg the Count for mercy. He offered to submit to any terms the Count might pro- pose, if he would only promise not to put any of the people to death. Philip even offered himself as a victiml, agreeing that the Count should banish him fiom the country as a punishment, if he would spare the people of the towin. But the haughty Count wvould promise nothing. He said that all the people of Ghent from fifteen to sixty years old must march half-way to Bruges bareheaded, with no clothes on go The Troublesome Burghiers. but their shir ts, and each with a rope around his neck, and then he would decide how many of them he would put to death and how many he wouldl spare. The Count thought the poor Ghent people would have to submit to tlhis, and lhe meant to put them all to death -\when they should thus come out without arms to surrender. He therefore called on his vassals to meet him in Bruges at Easter, and to go out with him to "destroy these troublesome burghers.'" But the " troublesome burghAiers," as we shall see presently, were not the kind of men to wvalk out bare- headed, with r-opes around their necks, and submit to destruction. Philip van Artevelde returned sadly to Ghent, on the 29th of April, and told the people what the Count had said. Then the gallant old soldier Peter van den Bossehe exclaimed: "In a few days the town of Ghent shall be the most honored or the most humbled town in Christen- dom." 9I Strange Stories from History. Van Artevelde called the burghers together, and told them what the situation was. There were 30,000 people in Glient, and there was no food to be had for theme. There was no hope that the Count would offer any better terms, or that anybody would come to their assistance. Trhey must (lecide quickly what they would dlo, and Philip said there were three courses open to them. First, if they chose, they could wall up the gates of the town and die of starvation. Secondly, they could accept the Count's terms, march out wd ith the ropes around their necks, and take what- ever pulnishmllent the Count might put upon them. If they should decide to do that, Philip said he would offer himself to the Count to be hanged first. Thirdly, they could get together 5000 of their best men, march to Brues, and fightt the quarrel out. The answer of the people was that Philip must decide for them, andl he at once said, " Then we will fight." The 5000 men were got together, and on the 1st of May they marched out of the town to win or lose the 92 The Troublesome Burghers. 93 desperate battle. The priests of the city stood at the gates as the men marched out, and prayed for bless- ings upon them. The old men, the women, and the children cried out, "If you lose the battle you need not return to Ghent, for you will find your families dead in their homes." The only food there was for these 5000 men was carried in five little carts, while on another cart two casks of Wvine were taken. The next day Van Artevelde placed his little army in line on the common of Beverboutsveld, at Oedelem, near Bruges. There was a marsh in front of them, and Van Artevelde protected their flank by a fortifi- cation consisting of the carts and some stakes driven into the ground. He then sent a; messenger to the Count, beggging hini to pardon the people of Ghent, and, having done this, lie ordered his men to go to sleep for the night. At daybreak the next morning the little army wsas aroused to make final preparations for the desperate work before them. The priests exhorted the men to 6 94 S/range Stories from History. fight to the death, showing them how useless it would be to surrender or to run away, as they were sure to be put to death at any rate. Their only hope for life was in victory, and if they could not win that, it would be better to die flghtingr like men than to sur- render and be put to death like dogs. After these exhortations were given, seven gray friars said mass and gave the sacrament to all the soldiers. Then the five cart-loads of provisions and the twio casks of wine were divided among the men, for their last breakfast. When that meal was eaten, the soldiers of Ghent had not an ounce of food left anywhere. Meanwhile the Count called his men together in Bruges, and got them ready for battle; but the people of Bruges were so sure of easily destroying the little Glhent army that they wvould not wait for orders, but marched out shouting and singing and mnaking merry. As their column marched along the road in this noisy fashion, the " troublesome burghers " of Ghent !bL , , m"It w i 17,' lil 0 1 9 m d w IV 1 .14 I m li ;I- Iz m -9 0 t, "I 'I M v I t 1 .71, I n 4 !4 P t If"p This page in the original text is blank. Tlze Troublesome Burghers. suddenly sprang upon them, crying, " Ghent! Ghent !" The charge was so sudden and so fierce that the Bruges people gave way, and fled in a panic towards the town, with Van Artevelde's men at their heels in hot pursuit. The Count's regular troops tried to make a stand, but the burghers of Ghent caine upon them so furiously that they too became panic-stricken and fled. The Count himself ran with all his might, and as soon as he entered the city he ordered the gates to be shut. He was so anxious to save himself from the fury of Van Artevelde's soldiers that he wanted to close the gates at once and leave those of his own people who were still outside to their fate. But it was already too late. Van Artevelde's column had followed the retreating crowd so fast that it had already pushed its head into the town, and there was no drivingit back. The five thousand "troublesome burghers, " with their swords in their hands, and still crying " Ghent !" swarmed into Bruges, and quickly took possession of the town. The Count's army was 97 S/range Stories from History. utterly routed and scattered, and the Count himself would have been taken prisoner if one of the Ghent burghers had not hidden him and helped him to escape from the city. Van Artevelde's soldiers, who bad eaten the last of their food that morning in the belief that they woul(l never eat another meal on earth, supped that night on the richest dishes that Bruges could sup- ply; and now that the Count was overthrown, great wagon trains of provisions poured into poor', Stalrving Ghent. There was a great golden dragon on the belfry of Broges, of wvhich the Bruges people were very proud. That dragon had once stood on the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople, and the Emperor Baldwin bad sent it as a present to Bruges. In token of their victory Van Artevelde's " troublesome burghers " took down the golden dragon and carried it to Ghent. 98 THE DEFENCE OF ROCHELLE. HO1W THE CITY OF REFUGE FOUGHT FOR LIBERTY. IN the old times, when people were in the habit of fighting each other about their religion, the little French seaport Rochelle was called " the city of ref- uge." The Huguenots, or French Protestants, held the place, and when the armies of the French king tried to take it, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, they were beaten off and so badly used in the fight that the king was glad to make terms with the townspeople. An agreement was therefore made that they should have their own religion, and manage their own :affairs; and to make sure of this the king gave loclhelle so many special rights that it became almost a free city. After thlat, whenever, a Protestant in any part of France found that lhe could not live peaceably in his own Strange Stories from History. home, lie went to Rochelle, and that is the way the place came to be called the city of refuge. For a good many years the people of Rochelle went on living quietly. They had a fine harbor of their own, their trade wvas good, and they were allowed to mana,-ge their own affairs. At last the new King of France made up his mind that he would not have two religions in his country, but would make everybody believe as he did. This troubled the people of Ro- chelle, but the king sent them. word that he only meant to make them change their religion by showVing them that his was better, and that lie did not intend to trouble them. in any way. Ill those days promises of that kind did not count for much ; but the king's prime - minister, Cardinal Richelieu, who really managed everything, knew very well that Rochelle could give a great deal of trouble if it chose, and so, perhaps, lie really would have let the town alone if it hadr not been for the meddling of the English1 prime-minister, Buckingham. This Buckinglban, withl an English fleet and army, 100 The Defence of Rochelle. sailed into the harbor of ltoehelle in the imiddle of July, 1627, and undertook to help the people against the French king. If Buckingham had been either a soldier or a sailor, lhe might have made himself mas- ter of the French kilng's folrts near Rochelle at once; but, althoulh he had comnmand of a fleet and an armny, he really knew nothing about the business of a com- mander, and he blundered so badly that the generals of the French king got fresh troops and provisionls into the forts, and were able to hold them in spite of all that the English could do. Seeing how matters stood, Richelieu at once sent an arimy to surround. Rochelle, and at daylight on the 10th of August the people found a strong force in front of the town. Rochelle had not made uip its mind to join the English, and the magistrates sent word to the French general that they wvanted peace. They said they wvere loyal to the French king, and even offered to help drive the English away, if their king would piromise not to break the treaty that had been made with them nany years before. 10I 2Strange Sfories from History. It was too late to settle the matter in that way, however. The French general meant to make the town surrender, and so, while the English were fight- ing to get control of the island of Rhe, at some dis- tance from the town, he began to build wvorls around Rochelle. His plan was to shut the people up in the city and cut off their supplies of food; and when the Rochelle folk saw what he was doing, they opened fire on his men. Trhe war was now begun, and tlhe Hl(guenots mnade ternis with Buckinghamn, hoping, with his lhelp, to win in the struo'ole. Buckingham promised to help them, and lhe did try to do so in his blundering way; but he did theni more harm than good, for when he found that lhe could not take the forts lie sailed away, taking wvith him three hundred tons of grain, which he ought to have sent into the town. It was November when the English left, and Ro- chelle was in a very bad situation. Richelieu set to work to shut the town in and seal it up. He built strong wvorks all around the land side, and then, with 102 iE : e id Ail X r b- ::igeiS: 0 ' O j t t j . w r 1xb:0-.4 I-:fiB BAd 1!1 k A 2 N i This page in the original text is blank. The Defence of Roche/Ze. great labor, brought earth and stones and built a mole, or strip of land, nearly all the way across the mouth of the harbor, so that no boats could pass in or out. The situation was a terrible one, but the people of Rochelle were brave, and bad no thought of flinchin. They clhose the mayor, Guiton, for their commnander, and whein lhe accepted the office lhe laid his dagger on the table, saying: "I vvill thrust that dagger into the heart of the lfirst man who speaks of giving up the town." Ile then wvent to work to defend the place. He strengthened the vorks, and made soldiers of all the men in the city, and all the boys, too, for that matter. Everybody who could handle a weapon ot any kind had to take his place in the ranks. England had promised to send help, and the only question, Guiton thoug,lit, was whether or not he could hold out till the help should come; so lhe laid his plans to resist as long as possible. The French in great numbers stormed the defences timiie after time; but the brave Rochellese alway-,s 105 6S/range S/ories from His/ory. drove themn baek with great loss. It wvas clear fromn the first that Guiton wvould not give way, and that no columni, however strong, could force the city gates. But there wvas an enemy insi(le thle town which was harder to fight than the one outside. There wvas famine in Roclelle! The cattle were eat- en up, and the lhorses went next. Then everythinlg that could be turned into food wvas carefully used and mnade to go as far as it would. Guiton stopped every kind of waste; but day by day the food supply girew smaller, and the people grew weaker fromi hulnge. Starvation was doing its work. Every day the list of deaths grew longer, and whleni people met in the streets they stared at each other with lean, whlite, hun- gry faces, wondering who would be the next to go. Still these heroic people had no thoullht of gIi-ilg up. They were fighting for liberty, and they loved that more than life. TrIe French wvere daily charging their works, but could not move the stubborn, starv- ing Rochellese. The winter draggeed on slowly. Spring came, and IO6 The Defence of Rochelle. yet no help had come from England. In Mlarch tho French, thinkincg that the people must be wNorn out, hurled their heaviest columns against the lines; but, do wvhat they would, they could not b)reak through anywhere, and had to go back to their works, and wvait for faamine to conquer, a people who could not be conquered by arms. One morning in May ain Englislh fleet was seen outside the mole. The news ran tht-ouah the towII like wvildfire. Help was at hand, and the poor starv- ing people were wild w'ith joy. Men ran through the streets shouting and singing soiingS of thianksgiv- inig. They had bornie terrible sufferings, but iiow help was coming, and they were sure that their heroic en- durance would not be thrlown away. rThlolusands of their comrades had fallen fighting,, and thousands of their women and children had starved to death; but what was that if, after all, Rochelle was not to lose her liberties Alas! their hope was a vain one, and their joy soon turned to sorrow. The Eirlish fleet did notling. It 107 Strange Stories from History. hardly tried to do anything,; but after lying within sight of the town for a while it sailed away again and left Rochelle to its fate. Richelieu was sure that Guiton would surrender now', and so be sent a; messenger to say that he would spare the lives of all the people if the town were giv- en up within three days. But the gallant Guiton wvas not ready even yet to give up the struggle. "Tell Car-dinal Richelieu," he said to the m essegee "that wve are his very obedient servants;" and that was all the answer he had to make. When the summier camiie somne, food was grown in the city gardens, but this wvent a very little way among so many people, and the famnine had now grvown fiightful. The people gathered all the shell- fish they could find at low tide. They ate the leaves off the trees, and even the grass of the gar-dens and lawvns was used for food. Everythiing that couild in any wvay help to support life was consuimed; every- thing, that could be boiled into the thinnest soup was turaned to account; everytbing that could be chewved I o8 The Defence of Rochelle. for its juice was used to quiet the pains of fierce hun- ger; but all was not enoulgh. Men, women, and chlil- dren died by thousands. Every morning when the new guard went to take the place of the old one many of the sentinels were found dead at their posts from starvation. Still the heroic Guiton kept up the fight, and no- body dared say anything to him about givilng up. He still hoped for help fioni England, and imneant to hold out until it should comie, cost what it night. In or-der that the soldiers might have a little more to eat, and live and fighlt a little longer, he turned all the old people and those who were too weak to fight out of the town. The French would not let these poor wretches pass their lines, but made an attack on them, and drove them back towards Rochelle. But Guiton would not open the city gates to them. He said they would starve to death if he let them into Rochelle, and they mighlt as well (lie outside as inside the gates. At last news came that the English had made a lOg Strange Stories from History. treaty with the French, and so there was no longer any hope of help for Rochelle, and truly the place could bold out no longer. The famine was at its worst. Out of about thirty thousand people only five thousand were left alive, and they were starving; of six hundred Englishmen who had stayed to help the Roclhellese all were dead but sixty-two. Corpses lay thick in the streets, for the people were too weak, from fastilln, even to bury their dead. T'he end had come. On the 30th of October, 1628, after nearly fifteen months of heroic effort and frightful suffering, Ro- chelle surrendered. Richelieu at once sent food into the towvn, and treated the people very kindly; but he took away all the old rights and privileges of the city. iee pulled down all the earthwork-s used by the defenders of the place, and gave orders that nobody should build even a garden fence anywhere near the town. He malde a law that no Protestant who was not already a citizen of Rochelle should go thither to live, and that the "city of refuge" should never again receive any stranger without a permit from the king. I I0 TIHE SAD STORY OF A BOY KING. LONDON took a holiday on the 16th of July, 1377. There were processions of mnerry-makers in the streets, and the windows were crowded with gayly dressed nmen, womeni, and children. The great lords, glitter- ing in arnmor, ,and mounted upon splendid steel-clad horses, marled through the town. The bishops and clergymen ill gorgeous robes made a more solemn, but not less attractive show. The trade-guilds were out ill their best clothinlg, bearing the tools of thei- trades instead of allrms. Clowns in motley, merry- makers of all kintds, gleat city dignitaries, lords and commous -everybody, iin short, mafidee a mad and merry holiday; and at iiight the houses were illumi- nate(i, and great bonfires were, lighted in the streets. All ]England was wild xwith joy; but the happiest person in the land was Richard Planitagenet, a boy S/rantge Stories from History. eleven years of age. Indeed, it was for this boy's sake and in his honor that all this feasting and merry- makingr went on, for on that day young Richard was crowned King of England; and in those times a king of Enland was a much more important person than now, because the people had not then learned to govern themselves, and the king had powers which Englishmen would not allow any man to have in our tiue. Richard was too young to govern wisely, and so a council was appointed to help him. until lie should grow up; but in the meantime he was a real king, boy as he was, and it is safe to say that he was the happiest boy in England on that July day, when all London took a holiday in his honor. But if lie had known what this crowning was to lead to, young Richard might have been very glad to chancge places with any baker's or butcher's boy in London. The boy king had some uncles and cousins who were very great people, and who gave him no little trouble after a while. He had wars on his II 2 The Sad Slory of a Boy Kingt. Iian ds, too, and needed a great deal more money than the people wvere willing to give him; and so, wlien. he grew older and took the governm-nent into his own hands, lie found troubles all aaround him. The Irish people rebelled fiequently; the Scotch were hostile; there was trouble wvith Spain because Richard's uncle wanted to become king of that country, and there was a standing war with France. But this was not all. In order to carry on these wars the king was obliged to have money; and when he ordered taxes to be collected the common people, led by Wat Tyler, rose in rebellion. They marched into London, seized the Tower, and put to death the treasurer of the kingdorn, the Archbishop of Canter- bury, and many other persons high in the govern- ment. Tyler was so insolent one day that the Lord Mayor of London killed hin; but the boy king, who was only sixteen years old, seeing that the rebels were too strong for hinm, put himself at their head, and marled with them out of the city; and so the king, against whom the rebellion was made, became I I3 Strange Stories from His/ory. the leader of the rebels. As soon as matters grewv quiet, however, he broke all the promises he had made, and punished the chief rebels very harshly. Not long after this one of the king's uncles made him- self master of the kingdom by force, and it was several years before Richard could put him out of power. But the greatest of all Richard's troubles were yet to come. His cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, the son of ol0( John of Gaunt, head misbehaved, and Richard had sent him out of England, not to return for ten years. But while Richard wvas in Ireland putting down a rebellion there, Henry came back to England, raised an army, and was joined by many of the most pow- erful men in the king(dom. When Richard came back from Ireland IIenry made him a prisoner, and not long afterwards the great men made lip their minds to set up Henry as the king instead of Rich- ard. They made Richard sign a paper giving up his lighlt to the crown, and then, to make the matter sure, Parliament passed a law that Richard should be king no longer. 11I4 The Sad Story of a Boy King. Richard was only thirty-three years old when all this wvas done, but after so many troubles he might wvell have been glad to give up his kingship, if that had been the end of the matter'. But a king who has been set aside is always a dangerous man to have in the kingdom, and it would not do to let Richard go free. He might gather his friends around him and give trouble. So it 'was decided that the unfort- unate man should be shut up in a prison for the rest of his life. But even this weas not the worst of the imatter. Richard had a wife-Queen Isabella-wbhomn he loved very dearly, and if the two could have gone away to. gether into some quiet place to live, they might still have been happy in spite of being under guard all the time. But the ned- king would not have it so. He gave orders that Richard should be shut up close- ly in a prison,, and that Isabella should go back to France, where Richard had married her. This Nxvas a terrible thin(g for the young man a-nd his younger wife, who might have had a long life of I I5 S/range S/ories from History. happiness still before them if Richard bad never been a king. But Richard had been King of England, and so be had to give up both his freedom and his wife. In his play of "King Richard the Second " Shake- speare makes a very touching scene of their parting. In the play their farewell takes place in the street, as shown in our picture. Isabella, anxious to see her husband once more before they part forever, waits at a point which she knows he must pass on his way to prison. There they meet and talk together for the last time on earth. The words -which Shakespeare puts into their mouths are terribly sad, but very beautiful. You will find the scene at the beginning of Act V. of the play. The picture shows the two at the moment when Richard moves away to his prison, leaving Isabella to mourn for him in a nunnery for the rest of her life. It is not certainly known what became of Richard after he was taken to prison. It is believed that he was murdered there-perhaps starved to death-but i i6 :E x d v 51 q This page in the original text is blank. The Sad Story of a Boy King. II9 there is a story that he got away and lived in Scot- land, dying there in 1419. It is not at all likely that the story is true, however, and the common belief has always been tlhat lhe died or was killed in Pontefract Castle, where he was imprisoned. However that may be, Richard's life was a terri- bly unhappy one, and all his sorrows grew out of the fact that he was a kin,-. If lie conld have looked for- vard on that July day wvhen the people were making merry in his honor, and could have known all that was to happen to him, instead of being the happiest boy in England on his coronation day, he would have been the muost wretched. TWO OBSCURE HEROES. 1O0W THE PARTISAN WARFARE IN THE CAROLINAS WAS BEGUN. WHEN the British marched up ftoro Savannah and took Charleston, in the spring of 1780, they thought the Revolution was at an end in the Southern States, and it really seemed so. Even the patriots thought it was useless to resist any longer, and so when the British ordered all the people to come together at different places and enrol themselves as British sub- jects, most of them were ready to do it, simply because they thought they could not help them- selves. Only a few daring mien here and there were bold enough to think of refusing, and but for them the British could have set up the royal power again in South Carolina, and then they would have been free to take their whole force against the patriots farther Two Obscure Heroes. north. The fate of the whole country depended, to a large extent, upon the courage of the few men who would not give up even at suclh a time, but kept up the fight against all odds. These brave men forced the British to keep an anlmy in the South whbich they needed fiarther north. The credit of beginning this kind of partisan war- fare belongs chiefly to two or three plain men, whllo did it simply because they loved their country more than their ease. The man. who first began it was Jtistice Gaston-a white-haired. patriot who lived on a little streamu called Fishino, Creek, near Rocky Mount. Ile was eighty years of age, and migrht well have thought him- self too old to care about war matters; but he was a brave man and a patriot, and the people who lived near him wvere in the habit of taking, his advice and doing as lhe did. When the news came that rTfleton had killed a band of patriots under Colonel Buford in cold blood Justice Gaston called his nine sons and many of his 121 Strange Stories from History. nephews around him. Joining hands, these young men promised each other that they never would take the British oath, and never would give up the cause, come what might. Soon afterwards a British force came to the neighl- borhood, and all the people wvere ordered to meet at Rocky Mount to enrol their names and take the oath. One of the British officers went to see Justice Gaston, and tried to persuade him that it was folly to refuse. He knew that if Gaston advised the people to give up, there would be no trouble; but the wvhite-haired patriot told him to his face that lie would never take the oath himself or advise anybody else to do so. As soon as the officer left the old inan sent for his friends, and about thirty brave fellows met at his house that night, with their rifles in their hands. They knew there would be a strong force of British andl Tories at Rocky Mount the next day, but, in spite of the odds against them, they made up their nminds to attack the place, and when the time came they did so. Creeping throtugh the woods, they sud(lenly 122 Two O6scure Heroes. 123 came upon the crowd, and after a sharp fight sent the British flying helter-skelter in every direction. This stopped tile work of enrolling the people as British subjects, and it dlid more than that. It showed the patriots through the wlhole country that they could still give the British a great deal of trouble, and after this affair many of the men who had thought of giving up rubbed up their rifles inistead, and formed little bands of fighting men to keep the war going. Another man who did mituch to stir up partisan warfare was the Rev. William Martin, an old and pi- ous preacher in the Scotch-Irish settlements. These Scotch-Irish were very religiouis people, and their preacher was their leader in all tlhiiigs. One Sunday, after the news hlad come to the settlement that BIu- ford's men had been killed by the British in cold blood, the eloquent old man wvent inito his pulpit and preached about the duty of fighting. In the after- noon lie preached again, and even when the service was over he went on in the open air, still preaching to the people how they slhould fight for their country, S/range S/ories from History. until all the men in the settlement were full of fight- in, spirit. The women told the men to go and do their duty, and that they would take care of the crops. These little bands of patriots were too small to fight regular battles, or even to hold strong posts. They had to hide in the woods and swvamps, and only came out when they saw a chance to strike a blow. Then the blow fell like lightning, and the men who dealt it quickly hid themselves again. They had signs by wvhich they told each other what they were going to do. A twig bent down, a few stones strung along a path, or any other of a hun- dred small signs, served to tell every patriot when and where to meet his friends. A man riding about, breaking a twig here and there, or making some other sign of the kind, could call together a large force at a chosen spot within a fexv hours. The men brought out in this way would fall suddenly upon some stray British force that was off its guard, and utterly de- stroy it. The British would at once send a strong 12 4 This page in the original text is blank. Two Obscure Heroes. body of troops to punish the daring patriots, but the redcoat leader would look in vain for anybody to pun- ish. The patriots could scatter and hide as quickly as they could come together. Finding that they could not destroy these patriot companies, the British and Tories took their revenge on women and children. They burned the houses of the patriots, carried off their crops, and killed their cattle, so as to starve their families; but the women were as brave as the men, and from first to last not one of them ever wished her husband or son to give up the fight. If the patriots could not conquer the BRitish, they at least kept them in a hornets' nest. If they could not drive them. out of South Carolina, they could keep them there, which was nearly as good a thing to (do, because every soldier that Cornwallis had to keep) ii the South would have been sent to some other part of the country to fight the Americans if the Carolinians had let the British alone. In this way smnall bands of iesolute men kept Corn- 12 7 1 28 S/range S/ories from His/ory. wallis busy, and held the state for the American cause, until General Greene, went south and took command. Greene was one of the greatest of the Amierican generals, and after a long campaign lhe drove the British out of the state. But if it had not been for the partisans the South would have been lost long before he could be spared to go there; and if the partisans had not kept a British army busy there, it miglt have gone very hard with the Amieri- cans in the rest of the country. When we rejoice in the freedomi of our country we oughlt not to forget how much we owe the partisans, and especially such men. as Justice Gaston and the Rev. William Mar-tin, who first set the partisans at their work. It would have been much easier and pleasanter for thenm to remain quiet under British rule; and they had nothing to gain for themselves, but everything to lose, by the course they took. Gaston knew that his home would be burned for what he did, and the eloquent old Scotch preacher knew that he would be put into a prison-pen for Two Obscure Heroes. 129 preaching war sermions to his people; but they were not men to flinch. They cared more fob their country than for themselves, anld. it was precisely that kind of men throughout the land, from New England to Georgia, who won liberty for us by seven years of hard fighting and terrible suffering. TIIE CHARGE OF THE HOUNDS. AN INCIDENT OF THE CREEK -.VAR. A TERRIBLE bit of news was carried from mouth to mouth through the region that is now Alabama at the beginning of September, 1813. The country was at that time in the midst of the second war with Great Britain, and for a long time British agents had been trying to persuade the Creeks-a powerful na- tion of halfeivilized but very warlike Indians who lived in Alabama-to join in the war and destroy the white settlements in the Southbwest. For some time the Creeks hesitated, and it was un- certain what they would do. But during the sum- mer of 1813 they broke out in hostility, and on the 30th of August their great leader, Weatherford, or the Red Eagle, as they called him, stormed Fort Mims, the strongest fort in the Southwest. He took The Charge of the Hounds. the fort by surprise, with a thousand warriors behind him, and, after five hours of terrible fighting, de- stroyed it, killing about five hundred men, women, and children. This was the news that startled the settlers in the region where the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers come together. It was certain, after such a massacre as that, that the Indians meant to destroy the settlements, and kill all the white people without mercy. In order to protect theniselves and their families the settlers built rude forts by setting pieces of tim- ber endciise in the grouid, and the people hurried to these places for safety. Leavin, their homes to be burned, their crops to be destroyed, and their cattle to be killed or carried off by the Indians, the settlers lhastily got together what food they could, and took their families into the nearest forts. One of the smallest of these stockade forts was called Sinquefield. It stood in what is now Clarke County, Alabama, and, as that region w .as very thinly settled, there were not enough men to make a strong 131 Strange Stories from History. force for the defence of the fort. But the brave farm. ers andl hunters thought they could hold the place, and so they took their families thither as quickly as they could. Two families, numbering seventeen persons, found it was not easy to go to Sinquefield on the 2d of Septem- be', and so, as they were pretty sure that ther-e were no Indians in their neighborhood as yet, they miade up their minds to stay one more night at a house a few miles from the fort. That night they wvere attacked, and all but five of them were killed. Those who got away carried the news of what had happened to the fort, and a party was sent out to bring in the bodies. The next day all the people in Fort Sinquefleld scent out to bury their dead friends in a valley at some little distance from the fort, and, strange as it seems, they took no arms with them. Believing that there were no Indians near the place, they left the gates of the fortress open, and lvent out in a body without their guns. As a matter of fact there was a large body of In- 132 The Chlarge of bIe Hounds. dians not only very near them, but actually looking at them all the time. The celebrated Prophet Fran- cis was in command, and in his sly way he had crept as near the fort as possible to look for a good chance to attack it. Making his men lie down and crawl like snakes, he had reached a point only a few hun- dred yards from the stockade without alarming the people, and now, while they stood around the graves of their friends without arms to defend themselves with, a host of their savage enemies lay looking at them from the grass and bushes on the hill. As soon as he saw that the right moment had come, Francis sprang up with a savage war-cry, and at the head of his warriors made a dash at the gates. He had seen that the men outside were unarmed, and his plan was to get to the gates before they could reach them, and thus get all the people of the place at his mercy in an open field and without arms to fight with. The fort people wvere quick to see what his purpose Ivas, and the men hurried forward with all their 8 13 3 Strange Stories from History. might, hoping to reach the fort before the savages could get there. By running at the top of their speed they did this, and closed the gates in time to keep the Indians out. But, to their horrolr, they then saw that their wives and children were shut out too. Unable to run so fast as the men had done, the wom- en and children had fallen behind, and now the In- dians were between them and the gates! Seeing that he had missed his chance of getting possession of the fort, Francis turned upon the women and children with savage delight in the thought of butchering these helpless creatures in the sight of their husbands, fathers, and brothers. It was a moment of terror. There were not half enough white men in the fort to master so large a force of Indians, and if there had been it weas easy to see that by the tinme they could get their rifles and go to the rescue it would be too late. At that moment the hero of this bit of history came upon the scene. This was a young man named Isaac Haden. He was a notable huntsman, who kept 134 The Charge of the Hounds. a famous pack of hounds-fierce brutes, thoroughly trained to run down and seize any live thing that their master chose to chase. This young man had been out in search of stray cattle, and just at the mo- ment when matters were at their worst he rode up to the fort, followed lby his sixty dogs. Isaac Haden had a cool head and a very daring spirit. He was in the habit of taking in a situation at a glance, deciding quickly what was to be done, and then doing it at any risk that might be neces- sary. As soon as he saw how the women and chil- dren were placed, he cried out to his dogs, and, at the head of the bellowing pack, charged upon the flank of the Indians. The dogs did their woi'k with a spirit equal to their master's. For each to seize a red war- rior and drag him to earth was the work of a mo- ment, and the whole body of savages was soon in confusion. For a time they had all they could do to defend themselves against the unlooked-for assault of the fierce animals, and before they could beat off the dogs the men of the fort came out and joined in the Strange Stories from History. attack, so that the women and children had time to make their way inside the gates, only one of them, a Mrs. Phillips, having been killed. The men, of course, had to follow the women close- ly, as they were much too weak iii numbers to risk a battle outside. If they had done so the Indians would have overcome them quickly, and then the fort and everybody in it would have been at their mercy, so the settlers hurried into the fort as soon as the women were safe. But the hero who had saved the people by his quickness and courage was left outside, and not only so, but the savages were between him and the fort. He had charged entirely through the war party, and was now beyond their line, alone, and with no chance of help from any quarter. His hope of saving himself was very small indeed; but he had saved all those helpless women and little children, and he was a brave enough fellow to die will- ingly for such a purpose as that if he must. But brave men do not give up easily, and young Haden did not mean to die without a last effort to save himself I136 / ,,!Z I F, A I N av This page in the original text is blank. The Charge of the Hounds. Blowing a loud blast upon his bunting-horn to call his remaining dogs around him, he drew his pis- tols-one in each band-and plunged spurs into his horse's flanks. In spite of the numbers against him he broke through the mass of savages, but the gal- lant horse that bore him fell dead as he cleared the Indian ranks. Haden had fired both his pistols, and had no time to load them again. He was practically unarmed now, and the distance he still had to go be- fore reaching the gates was considerable. His chance of escape seemed smaller than ever, but be quickly sprang from the saddle, and ran with all his might, hotly pursued, and under a terrific fire from the rifles of the savages. The gate wvas held a little way open for him to pass, and when he entered the fort his nearest pursuers were so close at his heels that there was barely time for the men to shut the gate in their faces. Strangely enough, the brave young fellow was not hurt in any way. Five bullets had passed through his clothes, but his skin was not broken. I 39 THE STORY OF A WINTER CAMPAIGN. NEARLY all the countries in Europe were making war upon France in 1795. The French people had set up a republic, and all the kingdoms round about were trying to make them submit to a king again. This had been going on for several years, and some- times it looked as though the French would be beat- en, in spite of their brave struggles to keep their en- emies back and manage their own affairs in their own way. At one time everything went against the French. Their armies were worn out with fighting, their sup- ply of guns had run short, they had no powder, and their money matters were in so bad a state that it seemed hardly possible for France to hold out any longer. In the meantime England, Austria, Spain, Holland, Piedmont, and Prussia, besides many of the The Story of a Winter Campaign. small German states, had joined together to fight France, and their armies were on every side of her. A country in such a state as that, with so many powerful enemies on every side, might well have giv- en up; but the French are a brave people, and they were fighting for their liberties. Instead of giving, up in despair, they set to work with all their might to carry on the war. The first thing to be done was to raise new armies, and so they called for men, and the men came forwsard in great numbers from evaery part of the country. In a little while they had more men to make soldiers of than had ever before been brought together in France. But this was only a beginning The men were not yet trained soldiers, and even if they had been, they had no guns and no powder; no clothing was to be had, and there was very little food for them to eat. Still the French did not despair. Knowing that there would not be tim-e enough to train the new men, they put some of their old soldiers in each regiment of newv ones, so that the 14I 2 Strange Stories from History. new men might learn fiom the veterans how to march and how to fight. In the meantime they had set up armories, and were making guns as fast as they could. Their great- est trouble was about powder. They had chemists who knew how to make it, but they bad no nitre to make it of, and did not know at first how to get any. At last one of their chemists said that there was some nitre-from a few ounces to a pound or two- in the earth of every cellar floor; and that if all the nitre in all the cellar floors of France could be col- lected, it would be enough to make plenty of powder. But how to get this nitre was a question. The cellar floors must be dug up, the earth must be washed, and the water must be carefully passed through a course of chemical treatment in order to get the nitre, free from earth and from all other things with which it was mixed. It would take many days for a chemist to extract the nitre from the earth of a single cellar, and then he would get only a pound or twvo of it at most. 142 The Story of a Winter Campagn. 4 It did not seem likely that much could be done in this way, but all the people were anxious to help, and so the cry went lip from every part of the country, "Send us chemists to teach us how, and we wvill do the work and get the nitre ourselves." This was quickly done. All the chemists were set at work teaching the people how to get a little nitre out of a great deal of earth, and then every family went to work. In a little while the nitre began to conme in to the powder-factories. Each family sent its little parcel of the precious salt as a free gift to the coun- try. Some of them were so proud and glad of the chance to help that they dressed their little packages of nitre in ribbons of the national colors, and wrote patriotic words upon them. Each little parcel held only a few ounces, or at most a pound or two, of the white salt; but the parcels came in by tens of thou- sands, and in a few weeks there were hundreds of tons of nitre at the powder-mills. As soon as there was powder enough the new at- mies began to press their enemies, and, during the 143 Strange Stories from History. summer and fall of 1794, they steadily drove them back. When they met their foes in battle they near. ly always forced them to give way. They charged upon forts and took them at the point of the bayonet; cities and towns everywhere fell into their hands, and by the time that winter set in they were so used to winning battles that nothing seemed too hard for them to undertake. But the French soldiers were in a very bad condi- tion to stand the cold of winter. One great army, under General Pichegru, which had driven the Eng- lish and Dutch far into the Netherlands, was really almost naked. The shoes of the soldiers were worn out, and so they had to wrap their feet in wisps of straw to keep them from freezing. Many of the men had not clothing enough to cover their nakedness, and, for decency's sake, had to plait straw into mats which they wore around their shoulders like blank- ets. They had no tents to sleep in, but, nearly naked as they were, had to lie down in the snow or on the hard frozen ground, and sleep as well as they could in the bitter winter weather. 144 The Story of a Winter Camjpaign. There never was an army more in need of a good rest in winter-quarters, and as two great rivers lay in front of them, it seemed impossible to do anything more until spring. The English and Dutch were al- ready safely housed for the winter, feeling perfectly sure that the French could not cross the rivers or march in any direction until the beginning of the next summer. The French generals, therefore, put their men into the best quarters they could get for them, and the poor, half-naked, barefooted soldiers were glad to think that their work for that year was done. Day by day the weather grew colder. The ground was frozen hard, and ice began running in the rivers. After a little while the floating ice became so thick that the rivers were choked with it. When Christ- mas came the stream nearest the French was frozen over, and three days later the ice was so hard that the surface of the river was as firm as the solid ground. Then came an order fromn General Pichegru to I45 4Siranovge Slories from History. shoulder arms and march. In the bitterest weather of that terrible winter the barefooted, half-cla(d French soldiers left their huts, and marched against their foes. Crossing the first river on the ice, they fell upon the surprised Dutch and utterly routed them. About the same time they miade a dash at the strong forti- fied posts along the river, and captured them. The French were now masters of the large island that lay between the two rivers, for they are really only two branches of one river, and the land between them is an island. But the ice in the farther stream was not yet hard enough to bear the weight of can- inon, so Pichegrru had to stay where he was for a timie. Both sides now watched the weather, the French hop- incg for still harder frosts, while their enemies prayed for a thaw. The cold weather continued, and day by day the ice became firmer. On the 8th of January, 1795, Pichegru began to cross, and on the 10th his whole army had passed the stream, while his enemies were rapidly retreating. He pushed forward into the 146 The Story of a Wiwider Campaignz. I47 country, sending his columns in different directions to press the enemy at every point. The barefooted, half- naked French soldiers were full of spirit, and in spite of frost and snow and rough frozen roads they marched steadily and rapidly. City after city fell before them, and on the 20th of January they marched into Am- sterdam itself, and were comiplete conquerors. Hungry and half-frozen as they were, it would not have been strange if these poor soldiers had rushed into the warm houses of the city and helped them- selves to food and clothing. But they did nothing of the kind. They stacked their armns in the streets and public squares, and quietly waited in the snow, patiently bearing the bitter cold of the wind for sev- eral hours, while the mag.;istrates were getting houses and food and clothing ready for them. This whole campaign was wonderful, and on al- most every day some strange thing happened; but, perhaps, the strangest of all the events in this winter war was that which is shown in the picture. Piche- gru, learning that there was a fleet of the enemy's ves- Strange Stories from History. sels lying at anchor near the island of Texel, sent a column of cavalry, with some cannon, in that direc- tion, to see if anything could be done. The cavalry found the Zuyder Zee hard frozen, and the ships firm- ly locked in the ice. So they put spurs to their horses, galloped over the frozen surface of the sea, marched up to the ships, and called on them to sur- render. It was a new thing in war for ships to be charged by men on horseback; but there the horse- men were, with strong ice under them; and the ships could not sail away from them. The sailors could make a fight, of course, but the cavalry, with their cannon, wvere too strong for them, and so they surren- dered without a battle, and for the first time in his. tory a body of hussars captured a squadron of ships at anchor. 148 n .3 :z 11 s 1.15 .3 z II 11 i 3 2 ZI: 11 I --i -11 -2 11 "I 61 0 li tt VI n rl 1 t; '7' t' This page in the original text is blank. YOUNG WASHINGTON IN THE WOODS. THE STORY OF A PERILOUS JOURNEY. No man ever lived whose name is more honored than that of George Washington, and no man ever deserved his fam-e more. All the success that ever came to hinm was won by hard wvork. He succeeded 1)ecause he was the kind of man that he was, and not in the least because he bad '"a good chance" to dis- tinguish himself. He never owed anything to " good luck," nor even to a special education in the business of a soldier. Some men are called great because they have succeeded in doing great things; but he suc- cee(led in doing great things because he was great in hinmself. Everybody who knewv him, even as a boy, seems to have respected as well as liked him. There was somethin, in his character which made nmen think S/rantge Stories from His/ory. well of him. When he was only sixteen years of age Lorid Fairfax admired him to such a degree that he appointed him to a post which not many men would have been trusted to fill. He put the boy at the head of a surveying party, and sent him across the mountains to survey the valley of Virginia-a vast region which was then unsettled. So well did Wash- ington perform this difficult and dangerous task that a few years later, when he was only twenty-one years old, the Governor of Virginia picked him out for a nore delicate and dangerous piece of work. The English colonies lay along the Atlantic coast, while the French held Canada. The country west of the Alleghany Mountains, which we now know as Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, etc., was claimed by both the French and the English, though only the Indians lived there. The French made friends of the savages, and began building forts at different points in that region, and putting soldiers there to keep the English away. The Governor of Virginia wanted to put a stop to this, and so he resolved to send a messenger 1 5 2 Young Washing/on in tihe Woodis. into "the Great Woods," as the western country was called, to warn the French off, and to win the friend- ship of the Indians if p)ossible. For such a service he needed a man with a cool head, good sense, great courage, and, above all, what boys call "'grit ;" for whoever should go would have to make his way for many hundreds of miles through a trackless wilderness, over mountains and rivers, and amllong, hostile Indians. Young Washington had al- rea(ly shown what stuff lie was made of, and], young as he was, le wvas regarded as a remarkable mIDan. The governor therefore picked him out as the very best person for the work that was to be done. It was November when W\Xashington set out, and the weather wvas very cold and Nvet. He took four white men and two Indians with him, the white men being hunters who knew liow to live in the woods. As the country they hadl to pass through was a wilderness, they had. to carry all theeir supplies with them on pack- horses. They ro(le all (lay thirouglh the woods, and when night came slept in little tents by some spring 9 I53 S/range S/ornes from His/ory. o01 watercourse. Day after day they archled forward, until at last they reached an Indian village, near the spot where Pittsburgh now stands, and there they haltedl to mak-e friends with the Indians. This was not very easy, a3 the French had already had a good deal to (lo with the tribes in that region; but Washington persuaded the chief, whose name was Tanacharisson, to go with him to visit the French commander-, who was stationed in a fort huindreds of miles away, near Lake Erie. This march, like the other, was slow and full of hardships; but at last the fort was reached, and WiTasjlingrton delivered his message to the French officer. A day or two later the Frenchlman gave him his answer, which was that the western country be- longed to the French, and that they had no notion of giving it up. All the trouble Washington had met in goineg north was nothing compare(l with what was before hin in going, back to Virginia again. The winter was now at its worst, and the weather was terrible. The rivers I54 Young Washington iii the Woods. and creeks were full of floating( ice, and the woods were banked high wvith snow. But Washington was not to be daunted )y any kind of difficulty. He set out on his return march, and wvith the aid of canoes-, in which his baggrae was carried dowv n a small stream that ran in that direction, he took his party as far as Venango, in the northwestern part of Penn- sylvania. There he found that lie could go no farther on horseback. The ground was frozen on top, but soft beneath, and the pooI horses broke through the hard crust at every step. Tlhere was a French fort at Ve- nango, and Washington might have waited there very comfortably for better weather; but it was his d uty to get back to Virginia as soon as possible with the French commander's answer, and so he , made up his mindi to go on, even at the risk of his life. Leaving the rest of the party to come when they could wvith the horses, WVashinton and a single com- panion named Gist set out on foot for the long wvinter march. As they had no pack-horses to carry tents I5 5 Sh-ange S/ories from History. and cooking-vessels and food, they had to leave every. thing behind except what they could carry on their backs; and as they wvere obliged to take their rifles, powder- horns, an(l bullet -pouclhes, their hunting- knives and hatchets, and a blanket apiece, they were pretty heavily loaded, and could not afford to burden themselves with much else. Day by (lay the two brave fellows trudged on through the snowdrifts, sleeping at night as best they could, exposed to the biting cold of the winter, without shelter, except such as the woods afforded. There were other dangers besides cold and huncger. At one time a treacherous Indian, who had offered to act as guide, tried to lead the two white men into a trap. As they suspected his purpose, they refused to do as he wished, and a little later he suddenly turned about and shot at Washington, wvho was only a few paces distant. Missing his aim, he was quickly overpowered, and Gist wanted to kill him, not merely because he deserved to be put to death for his treach- ery, but also because, if allowed to go free, he was WASIHNGTON AS A SURVEYOR. This page in the original text is blank. Youzng Washing/oiz iz tMe Woods. pretty sure to bring other hostile Indians to attack the lonely travellers during the night. But Washington would not have him killed. He made him build a camp-fire, and then told him to leave them. at once. The Indian did so, and as soon as it was certain that he wns out of sight and hear- ing the two young men set out to make their escape. They knew the Indian would soon come back with others, and that their only chance for life wvas to push on as fast as they could. The Indians could track them. in the snow, but by setting out at once they hoped to get so far ahead that they could not be easily overtaken. It was already nighlt, and the travellers wvere weary from their day's march, but they could not afford to stop or rest. All through the night they toiled on. Morning came, and they must have felt it nearly im- possible to drag their weary feet farther, but still they made no halt. On and on they wvent, and it was not till night came again that they thought it safe at last to stop for the rest and sleep they needed 159 Strange Sfories from History. so badly. The strain they had undergone must have been fearful. They were already weary and way. worn when they first met the treacherous Indian, and after that they had toiled through the snow for two days and a night without stopping to rest or daring to refiresh themsel ves with sleep. Just before reaclhing their journey's end they ar- rived at the brink of a river which they expected to fiud frozen over; but they found it full of floating ice instead. Without boat or bridlge, there seemed no chance of getting across; but after a awhile they man- aged to make a rude raft, and upon this they under- took to push themselves ,across with long poles. The current was very strong, the raft was hard to manage, and the great fields of ice forced it out of its course. In trying to push it in the right direction, Washington missed his footing and fell into the icy river. His situation was very dangerous, but by a hard struggle he got upon the floating logs again. Still the current swept them along, and they could not reach either shore of the stream. i6o Young Washinglon inz Me Woods. At last they managed to leap from the logs, nlot to the bank, but to a small island in the river. There they were very little better off than on the raft. They were on lan(d, it is true, but there was still no way of getting to shore; and as there was nothing on tLe island to make a flre witl, Washington was force, drenched as lie was vitl ice-water, to pass the long winter night, in the open air, without so much as a tiny blaze or a handful of coals by which to warm himself. Unfortunately the nighlt proved to be a very cold one, and 1)oo1 Gist's feet and hands were frozeii before mol-ning. Washington got no frost-bites, but his suf- ferings iust have been great. During the night that p)art of the stream w'hich lay between the island and the shore that WVaslington wished to ieach froze over, and in the moriling the travellers were able to renew their journey. Once, across that, the wvorst of their troubles were over. Is it any wonder that a young man who did his duty in this way rapidly rose to distinction Ile wvas Straitge Stories from History. always in earnest in his work, and always did it with all his might. He never shammed or shirkedl. He never let his own comfort or his own interest stand in the way when there was a duty to be done. He was a great man before he became a celebrated one, and the wisest men in the country found out the fact. When the revolution came there were other soldiers older and better known than Washingtoii, but there were men in Corvress who had watched his career carefully. T iiey in ade hiui, therefore, corn mander-in. chief of the Amierican armies, knowving that nobody else was so sure to do the very best that could be done for the country. They did not make him a great man by appointing him to the chief command they appointed him because they knew he wvas a great man already. THE STORY OF CATHERINE. PETER THEI GREAT, the emperor who, in a few years, changed Russia from a country of half-savage tribes into a great European nation, Was one day visiting one of his officers, and saw in his house a young girl, who attracted his attention by her beauty and her graceful manners. This gill was a prisoner naned Martha, and she wVas livinlg as a sort of servant a"nd housekeeper in the family of the Russian officer. She had been taken p-isoner whene the town she lived in was captue-ed. Nobody knows, even to this day, ex- actly wvho she was, except that she wvas a poor orphan girl who had been brought up by a village clergy- man; but it is generally believed that her father was a Livonian peasant. Maitha's beauty and the briightness of her mind pleased the emperor so much that, after a while, he Strange Stories from History. imade up his minld to mnarry lher, in spite of her hunm- ble origini. Peter was in the habit of doing pretty much as he pleased, whbether his nobles liked it oi not; but even lie dared not make a captive peasanii girl the Empress of rtussia. Ile therefore inarried her privately, in the presence of a few of his nearest friends, who Nvere charged to keep the secret. Before the mnarriage took place hie had Martha baptized in the Russian Church, and changed her name to Catli- erine. Now Peter had a Ibad lhabit of losing his temper, and gettinc so angry that lie fell into fits. As lie was an absolute monarch and could do whatever lie liked, it was very dangerous for anybody to go near him when lie was angry. lI-e could have a head choplped off as easily as lhe could order his breakfast. But lie was very fond of Catherine, arid she wvas the only person whllo was not in the least afraid of Min. She soon learned howv to manage himii, and even in his worst fits she could soothe and quiet the old bear. Peter was nearl]y al iva s at war, an(l ini spite of the Tle Story of CLaierine. hardships and dangers of the camp and battle-field Catherine always marched wvith him at the head of the army. The soldiers wondered at her bravery, and learned to like her more than anybody else. If food was scarce, the roads rougi and the nmarehes long, they rlemembere(l that Catherine was with them, and were ashamed to grumble. If she could stand the hardships and face the dangers, they thought roughi soldiers ought not to complain. Catherine was a wise woman as well as a brave one. She soon leained as much of the art of war as Peter knew, and in everv time of doubt or difficulty her advice was asked, and her opinion counted for as much as if she ha(d been one of the generals. After she had thus shown how able a woman she wflas, and had won the friendship of everybody about her by her good temper and her pleasant ways, Peter pub- licly announced his marriage, and declared Catlherine to be his wife and czarina. But still he did not crown her. This was in the year 1711, and immediately after- I65 S/range Stories from History. wardls Peter marched into the Turkish country at the head of forty thousand nmen. This army was not nearly large enough to meet the Turks, but Peter had other armies in different places, and had ordered all of them to meet him on the march. For various reasons all these armies failed to join him, and he found him- self in a Turkish province with a very small number of troops. The danger was so great that he ordered Catherine and all the other women to go back to a place of safety. But Catherine would not go. She had made up her nlindl to stay with Peter at the head of the army, and was so obstinate about it that at last Peter gave her leave to remain. Then the wvives of the generals, and, finally, of the lower officers, want- ed to stay also. She persuaded Peter to let them (lo so, and the end of it was that the women all stayed with the army. Everything Nvent against Peter on this march. The weather was very dry. Swarims of locusts were in the country, eating every green thing. There was no food for the horses, and many of them starved to death. i66 The Story of Catherine. It was hard for the Russians to go forward or to go backward, and harder still to stay where they were. At last the soldiers in front reported that the Tulks wvere coinin, 'lnd Peter soon saw a great army of two hundred thousand fierce Moslems in front of his little force, which counted up only thirty-eight thousand men. Seeing- the odds against him lhe gave the order to retreat, and the army began its backward march. As it neared the river Pruth a new danger showed itself. The advance -guard broughlt word that a great force of savage Crim Tartars held the other b)ank of the river, comllpletely cutting off Peter's retreat. The state of thiings seemed hopeless. With two hundred thousand Turks on one side, and a stronig force of Crim- Tartars holding a river On the other, Peter's little army was com-pletely hemmnied in. There was no water in the camp, and wvhen the soldiers went to the river for it, the Tartars on the other shiore kept up a fierce fighit with them. A great horde of Turkish cavalry tried hard to cut off the supply en- I67 8 S/range Stories from History. tirely by pushing themselves between Peter's camp and the river, but the Russians managed to keep them back by bard fighting, and to keep a road open to the river. Peter knew now that unless help should come to him in some shape, and that very quickly, he must lose not only his army, but his empire also, for if the Turks should take himi prisoner, it was c-rtain that his many enemies would soon conquer Russia, and divide the country among themselves. He saw no chance of help coming, but he made up his mind to fight as lon, as he could. iHe formed his men in a hollow square, with the wonien in the middle, and faced his enemies. The Turks flung themselves in great masses upon his lines, tlying to crush the little force of Russians' l)y mere numbers. But Peter's brave men renmeim- bered that Catherine was inside their hollow square, and they stood firmly at their posts, driving back the Turks with frightful slaughter. Again and again and again they fell upon his lines in heavy masses, i68 The Story of Catherine. and again and again an(l again they were driven back-, leavin, the field black with their dead. This could not go on forever, of course, antld both sides saw what the end must be. As the Turks had many times more men than Peter, it was plain that they would, at last, win by destroying all the Rus- sians. For three days and nights the terrible slauglhter went oil. Peter's men beat back the Turks at every charge, but every hour their line grew thinner. At the end of the third day sixteen thousand of their brave comrades lay dead upon the field, and only twenty-two thousand remained to face the enemy. Towards night on the third day a terrible ruimor spread through liteir camp. A whisper ran along the line that tke amfftllnition was giving O7lt. A few more shiots from eAch soldier's gun, and there would be nothing left to fight with. Then Peter fell into the sulks. As long as lie could fight he ,had kept up his spirits, blut now that all was lost, an(d his great career seemed near its end, lhe grew I69 S/rantge Storiesfrom History. angry, and went to his tent to have one of his savage fits. He gave orders that nobody should come near him, and there was no officer or soldier in all the army who would have dared enter the tent where lhe lay, in his dangerous mood. But if Peter had given up in despair, Catherine had not. In spite of Peter's order and his anger, she boldly went into his tent, and asked him to give her leave to put an end to the war by making a treaty of peace with the Turks, if she could. It seemed ab- surd to talk of such a thing, or to expect the Turks to make peace on any terms when they had so good a chance to conquer Peter, once for all, and to make him their prisoner. Nobody but Catherine, perhaps, would have thought of such a thing; but Catherine was a woman born for great affairs, and she had no thought of giving up any chance there might be to save Peter and the empire. Her first difficulty was with Peter himself She could not offer terms of peace to the Tu1rksk until Pe- ter gave her leave, and promised to fulfil whatever " SHE WENT BOLDLY INTO HIS TENT." - This page in the original text is blank. The Story of Catherine. bargain she might make with them. She managed this part of the matter, and then set to work at the greater task of dealing with the Turks. She knew that the Turkish army was under the command of the Grand Vizier, and she knew some- thing of the ways of Grand Viziers. It was not worth while to send any kind of messenger to a Turkish commander without sending him also a bribe in the shape of a present, and Catherine was sure that the bribe must be a very large one to buy the peace shes wanted. But where was she to get the present There was no money in Peter's army-chest, and no way of getting any from Russia. Catherine was not discouraged by that fact. She first got together all her own jewels, and then went to all the officers' wives and asked each of them for whatever she had that was valuable-money, jewels, and plate. She gave each of them. a receipt for what she took, and promised to pay them the value of their goods wlhen she should get back to Moscow. She went in this way throughout the camp, and got together all the 10 I7 3 S/range S/ories from His/ory. money, all the jewelry, and all the silver plate that were to be found in the armny. No one person bad- much, of course; but when the things were eollected together, they made a very rich present, or bribe, for the Grand Vizier. With this for a beginning, Catherine soon convinced the Turkish commnter that it was better to make peace with Russia than to run the risk of having to fight the great armies that were already marching towards Turkey. After some bargaining she secured a treaty which allowed Peter to go back to Russia in safety, and thus she saved the czar and the empire. A few years later Peter crowned her as Empress of Russia, and when he died he named her as the fittest person to be his successor on the throne. Thus the peasant girl of Livonia, who was made a captive in war and a servant, rose by her genius and courage to be the sole ruler of a great empire-the first woman who ever reigned over Russia. It is a strange but true story. 1 74 THE VIRGINIA WIFE-MARKET. TWO SHIPLOADS OF SWEETHEARTS AND THE PRICES PAID FOR THEM. THE first English settlement in America that came to anything was made in the most absurd way possi- ble. A great company of London merchants set about the work of planting an English colony in Vir- ginia, and they were very much in earnest about it too; but if they had been as anxious to have the scheme fail as they were to make it succeed, they could hardly have done worse for it than they did in some respects. They knew that the colonists must have something to eat and must defend themselves against the ID- dians, and so it ought to have been plain to them that the first men sent out must be stout farimers, who could cut down trees, plough the ground, raise food Strange Stories from History. enough for the people to eat, and handle guns well, if need be. The work to be done was that of farm- ers, woodbchoppers, and men who could make a liv- ing for themselves in a new country, and common- sense ought to have led the London Company to send out nobody but men of that kind to make the first settlement. Then, after those men had cleared some land, built some houses, and raised their first crop, men of other kinds might have been sent as fast as there was need for their services. But that was not the way in which the London Company went to work. They chose for their first settlers about the most unfit men they could have found for such a purpose. There were one hundred and five of them in all, and forty-eight of them-or nearly half of the whole company-were what people in those days called "gentlemen"-that is to say, they were the sons of rich men. They had never learned how to do any kind of work, and had been brought up to think that a gentleman could not work without degrading himself and losing his right to be I176 The Virginia Wife-Market. 177 called a gentleman. There were a good many "ser- vants" also in the party, and probably most of them were brought to wait upon the gentlemen. Thea e were very few farmers and not many me- chanics in the party, although farmers and mechan- ics were the men most needed. There were some goldsmiths, who expected to work the gold as soon as the colonists should finid it, and there was a per- fume - maker. It is hard to say in what way this perfume-mian was expected to make himself useful in the work of planting a settlement in the swamps of Virginia; but, as there were so many fine "gentle- mien " in the party, the perfumer probably thought his wares would be in demand. None of the men brought families with them. They were single men, who came out to this country, not to make comfortable homes for wives and chil- dren, by hard and patient work, but to find gold and pearls, or to grow rich in some other quick and easy way, and then to go back and live in ease in England. It is a wonder that such men ever succeeded in Strange Stories from History. planting a settlement at all. From the first it does not seem to have been clear to them that they ought to raise plenty of food for themselves and learn how to live by their own work. They expected the com- pany in London to send them most of their food and everything else that they needed. They had plenty of rich land and a good climate, but they expected to be fed by people three thousand miles away, across a great ocean. Luckily, there was one man of sense and spirit among them-the celebrated Captain John Smith- who got them to work a little, and, after many hard- ships and two or three narrow escapes from failure, the colony was firmly planted. The London Company sent out ships every year with supplies and fresh colonists; but, strange as it seems, most of the men sent were unmarried, and even those who had wives and children left them in England. When we think of it, this was a very bad way to begin the work of settling a new country. The bach- I 78 The 1Virginia Wzfc-arkc/. 179 elors, of course, did not intend to stay all their liVes in a country where there were no women and chil- dr-en. They meant to make somne mioney as quickly as they could and then go back to England to live. The married nmen who had left their families behind them were in still greater Laste to make what they could and g hombie. In short, for a dozen years after the colony was planted, nobody thought of it as his real home, wlhere lie meant to live out his life. If the colohisti; biad1 )een married men, with wives and children in Virginia, they woul(l have (lone all they could to make the new settlement a pleasant one to live in: they would have built good houses, set up schools7 and worked hard to improve their own fort- unes and to keep order in the colony. But year after year the ships brllought cargoes of single men to Virginia, and the settlement was scarce- ly miore tlhan a camp in the woods. After the cornpa- niy had been trying for a good miany yeals to people a newv country by landing shiploads of bachelors on its shores, it began to dawn upon their minds that if the iStrange S/ories from His/ory. Virginia settlement was ever to grow into a thriving and lasting colony, there must be women and children there to make happy homes, as well as men to raise wheat, corn, and tobacco. Sir Edwin Sandys was the wise man who saw all this most clearly. He urged the company to send out hard-working marlied men, who would take their wives and children wvith them to Virginia and settle there for good. But this was not all. There were already a great many bachelors in the colony, and there were no young women there for them to marry. Sir Edwin knew that if these bachelors were to stay in Virginia and become prosperous colonists they must have a chance to marry and set up homes of their own. So he went to work in England to get together a cargo of sweethearts for the colonists. He persuaded ninety young women of good character to go out in one of the company's ships, to marry young men in Virginia. The plan was an odd one, but it was managed with good sense and did well for everybody con- i8o The Virginzia Wzfe-Mai-ker.et cerned. It was agreed that the company should provide the young women with such clothing and other things as they would need for the voyage, and should give them free passage on board the ship. When they landed in Virginia they were to be per- fectly free to marry or not, as they pleased. If any of them did not at once find husbands to their liking they were to be provided for in good homes until they chose to marry. But no man could marry one of these young wom- en without paying for her in tobacco, which was used instead of money in Vir-ginia. The girls wvere not to be sold, exactly, but it was expected that each colonist who married one of them should pay the company as much as it had spent in bringing her across the ocean. And the men of the colony were glad enough to do this. When the shipload of sweethearts landed at Jamestown a large numter of men who were tired of bachelor life hurried to the wharf to get wives for themselves if they could. They went among the young maids, introduced themselves, got acquainted, i8i S/range Stories from History. and did all the COUrting that was necessary in a very little time. The young women were honest, good, well - brought - up girls, and among the many men there were plenty of good, industrious, and brave fel- lows who wanted good wives, and so all the girls were "engaged" at once.' The men paid down one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco apiece-for that was the price fixed upon -and, as there was nothing to wait for, the clergymen were sent for and the weddings took place immediately. It was an odd thing to do, of course, but the cir- cumstances were very unusual, and the plan of import- ing sweethearts by the cargo really seems to have been a very good one. It must have been a strange sight when the girls landed and met the men who had come to the town to woo and marry them. And many of the girls must have felt that they took great risks in coninig three thousand miles from home and marrying men whom they had known for so short a time; but it seems that the marriages were happy ones, in spite of the haste in which they were made. 1 82 The Virginia Wife-Ma rke/. Tbe newly-married pairs went to work in earnest to create good homes for themselves, and when their English friends learned fiom their letters how happy and prosperous they were, another company of sixty sweethearts set sail for the colony and became the wives of good men. It was -in this way that the English camp at James- town was changed into a real colony of people who meant to live in America and to build up a thriving community here. Now that the men had wives and children to provide for, they no longer lived "fiom hand to mllouth," hoping to make a fortune by some lucky stroke, and then to leave the colony forever. They went to work, instead, to cultivate the land, to build good houses, to make and save money, to edu- cate their children, and to become prosperous and happy in their homels. Virginia, which had been a mere stopping -place to them, was now their own country, where their families lived and their nearest ftiends Nvere around them. The-e they expected to pass their lives in efforts to better their own fortunes, 18 3 Strange Stories from History. and to make the country a pleasant one for their chil- dren and grandchildren after them to live in. They were anxious to have schools and churches, and to keep up right standards of morals and proper man- ners in the colony, so that their children might grow to be good and happy men and women. That is the way in which the first English colony in America became prosperous, and many of the men who afterwar-ds became famous in the history of the nation were the great - great - grandsons of the women whom Sir Edwin Sandys sent out as sweet- hearts for the colonists. The Pilgrims, who settled at Plymouth about the time that all this happened, brought their families with them, and quickly made themselves at home in America. The planting of these two colonies-the first in Virginia and the second in Massachusetts- was the beginning from which our great, free, and happy country, with its fifty millions of people, has grown. i84 THE BOYHOOD OF DANIEL WEBSTER. DANIEL WEBSTER, the great statesman, orator, and lawyer, was born on the 18th of January, 1 782. His father lived near the head-waters of the Mer- rimac River, and the only school within reach was a poor one kept open for a few months every winter. There Webster learned all that the country school- master could teach him, wehich was very little; but he acquired a taste which did more for him than the reading, writing, and arithmretic of the school. He learned to like books, and to want knowledge; and when a boy gets really hungry and thirsty for knowl- edge it is not easy to keep him ignorant. When some of the neighbors joined in setting up a little For some of the materials used in this sketch I am indebted to the work entitled " The Boyhood of Great Men," by John G. Edgar, pub- lished by Messrs. Harper Brothers. S/range Stories from History. circulating library, young Webster read every book in it two or three times, and even committed to mem- ory a large part of the best of them. It was this eagerness for education on his part that led his father afterwards to send him to Exeter to school, and later to put him into Dartmouth College. There are not many boys in our time who have not declaimed parts of Webster's great speeches; and it will interest them to know that the boy who after- wards made those speeches could never declaim at all while he was at school. He learned his pieces well, and practised them in his own room, but he could not speak them before people to save his life. Webster was always fond of shooting and fishing, and, however hard he studied, the people around him calle(d him lazy and idle, because he would spend whole days in these sports. Once, while he was studying under Dr. Woods to prepare for college, that gentleman spoke to him on the subject, and hurt his feelings a little. The boy went to his room deter- mined to have revenge, an(d this is the way he took I 86 The Boyhood of Danzied Wcbsler. to get it. The usual Latin lesson was one hundred lines of Virgil, but Webster spent the whole night over the book. The next morning before breakfast he went to Dr. Woods and read the whole lesson cor- rectly. Then he said: "\Will you hear a few more lines, doctor" The teacher consenting, Webster read on and on and on, while the breakfast grew cold. Still there was no sign of the boy's stopping, and the hungry doctor at last asked how much farther he was pre- pared to read. "To the end of the twelfth book of the pound;neid,"t answered the "idle" boy, in tiiumpb. After that, Webster did not give up his hunting and fishing, but he worked so hard at his lessons, and got on so fast, that there was no further complaint of his " idleness." He not only learned the lessons given to him, but more, every day, and besides this he read every good book he could lay his hands on, for he was not at all satisfied to know only what could be found in the school-books. i87 Slrauge S/or/es from Hislory. Webster's father was poor and in debt, but finding how eager his boy was for education, and seeing, too, that he possessed unusual ability, he determnined, ill as he could afford the expense, to send him to col- lege. Accordingly, young Daniel went to Dartmouth. Many anecdotes are told to illustrate the character of young Dan. He was always lavish of his money when he had any, while his brother was careful but generous, especially to Dan, whom he greatly admired. On one occasion the boys went to a neighboring town on a high holiday, each with a quarter of a dollar in his pocket. "Well, Dan," said the father on their return, " what did you do wvith your money " Spent it," answered the boy. And what did you do with yours, Zeke" "Lent it to Dan,," was the answer. The fact was that Dan had spent both quarters. Young Webster was very industrious in his studies, as we have seen, and he was physically strong and active as his fondness for sport proved; but he could I 88 II " 'TO THlE END) OF TIHE TWELFTH BIOOK OF THE XRNEID,' ANSWERED TIIE 'IDLE 'IBY, IN TIRIUMPlH. I ,, .... -11 I --- W-1 I ,z, This page in the original text is blank. The Boyhood of Daniel Webster. never endure farm-work. One (lay his father wanted him to help him in cutting hay wNith a scythe; but very soon the boy complained that the scythe was not " hung " to suit him; that is to say, it was not set at a proper angle upon its handle. The old gentle. man adjusted it, but still it did not suit the boy. After repeated attempts to arrange it to Dan's lk- ing, the father said, impatiently, " Well, hang it to suit \ourself." And young, Dan immediately "hung" it over a branch of an apple-tree and left it there. That was the hanging which 1)leased him. After finishing his college course WTebster began stndying law, but lhavino no money, and being un- willin, to tax his fatlher for further support, he went into Northern Maine, and taughit school there for a time. While teaching lhe devoted his evenings to the work of copying deeds and othfer legal documents, and by close economy managed to live upon the money thus earned, thus saeving the whole of his salary as a teacher. With this money to live on, hC Avent to Boston, studied law, and soon distinguished 11 192 Strange Stories from History. himiself. The story of his life as a public man, in the senate, in the cabinet, and at the bar, is well known, and does not belong to this sketch of his boyhood. THE SCULLION WHO BECAME A SCULPTOR. IN the little Italian village of Possagno there lived a jolly stone-cutter named Pisano. He was poor, of course, or he would not have been a stone-cutter; but he was full of good-humior, and everybody liked him. There was one little boy, especially, who loved old Pisano, and whom old Pisano loved more than any- body else in the world. This was Antonio Canova, Pisano's grandson, who had come to live with him, because his father was dead, and his mother had mar- ried a harsh man, who treated the little Antonio roughly. Antonio was a frail little fellow, and his grandfa- ther liked to have him near him during his working hours. While Pisano worked at stone-cutting, little Cano- va played at it and at other things, such as modelling Strange S/ories from History. in clay, drawving, etc. The old grandfather, plaini, un- educated man as he was, soon discovered that the pale-faced little fellow at his side had something more than an ordiiiary child's dexterity at such things. The boy knew nothing of art or of its laws, but he fashioned his lumps of clay into forms of real beauty. His vise grandfather, seeing what this indicated, hired a teacher to give him some simple lessons in drawving, so that he might improve himself if he really had the artistic ability wvhich the old man suspecte(l. Pisano weas much too poor, as he kniew, ever to give the boy an art-education and make an artist of him, but he thought that Antonio might at least learn to be a better stone-cutter than common. As the boy grew older he began to help in the shop during the day, while in the evening his grandmother told him stories or sang or recited poetry to him. All these things were educating him, though without his knowincg it, for they were awakening his taste and stimulating his imagination, which found expression 194 The Scullion who Became a Scuiptor. in the clay models that he loved to make in his leis- ure hours. It so happened that Signor Faliero, the head of a noble Venetian family, and a man of rare understand- ing, in art. had a place near Pisano's house, and at cer- tain seasons the nobleman entertained many distin- guished guests there. When the palace was very full of visitors, old Pisano was sometimes hired to help the servants with their tasks, and the boy Canova, whenl he was twelve years old, sometimes did scul- lion's Nvork. there, also, for a day, when some great feast was given. On one of these occasions, when the Signor Faliero was to entertain a very large company at dinner, young Canova was at workl over the pots and pans in the kitchen. The head-servant made his appear- ance, just before the dinner hour, in great distress. The man who had been engaged to furnish the great central ornament for the table had, at the last moment, sent word that he had spoiled the piece. It was now too late to secure another, and there was 195 S/range Stories from History. nothing to take its place. The great vacant space in the centre of the table spoiled the effect of all that had been done to make the feast artistic in appear- ance, and it was certain that Signor Faliero would be sorely displeased. But what was to be done The poor fellow whose business it was to arrange the table was at his wits' end. While every one stood dismayed and wondering, the begrimed scullion boy timidly approached the distressed head-servant, and said, "If you will let me try, I think I can make some- thing that will do." " You !" exclaimed the servant; "and who are you " "I am Antonio Canova, Pisano's grandson," an- swered the pale-faced little fellow. "And what can you do, pray" asked the mau, in astonishment at the conceit of the lad. "I can make you something that will do for the middle of the table," said the boy, " if you'll let me try." I 96 The Scullzion who Became a Sculpfor. The servant had little faith in the boy's ability, but not lnowing what else to do, he at last consented that Canova should try. Calling for a large quantity of butter, little Anto- nio quickly modelled a great crouching lion, which everybody in the kitchen pronounced beautiful, and which the now rejoicing head-servant placed carefully upon the table. The company that day consisted of the most culti- vated men of Venice-merchants, princes, noblemen, artists, and lover s of art-and among them were many who, like Faliero himself, were skilled critics of art- work. When these people wvere ushered iii to dinner their eyes fell upon the butter lion, and they forgot for what purpose they hadl entere(d the dining -room. They saw there something of higher worth in their eyes than any dinner could be, namely, a work of genius. They scanned the butter lion critically, and then broke forth in a torrent of praises, insisting that Fa- I97 S/range S/ories fron History. liero should tell them at once wvhat great sculptor he had persuaded to waste his skill upon a work in but- ter, that must quickly melt away. But Signor Faliero was as ignorant as they, and he had, in his turn, to make inquiry of the chief servant. When the company learned that the lion was the work of a scullion, Faliero summoned the boy, and the banquet became a sort of celebration in his honor. But it was not enough to praise a lad so gifted. These were men who knew that such genius as his belonged to the world, not to a village, and it was their pleasure to bring it to perfection by educating the boy in art. Signor Faliero himself claimed the riglit to provide for young Antonio, and at once de- clared his purpose to defmay the lad's expenses, and to place him under the tuition of the best masters. The boy whose highest ambition had been to lw- come a village stone-cutter, and whlose home had been in his poor old g'andfather's cottage, became at once a memnber of Signor Faliero's family, living in his pal- ace, having everything that money could buy at his I 98 The Scullion who Became a Scuifor-. 199 command, and daily receiving instruction from the best sculptors of Venice. But he was not in the least spoiled by this change in. his fortunes. He remained simple, earnest, and unaffected. He worked as hard to acquiire knowledge and skill in art as he had meant to wvork to become a dexterous stone-cutter. Antonio Canova's career from the day on which he moulded the butter into a lion was steadily upward; and when he died, in 1822, he was not only one of the most celebrated sculptors of his time, but one of the greatest, indeed, of all time. THE BOYHOOD OF WILLIAM CIHAMBERS. Boys and girls who can buy attractive periodicals and books at any bookstore or news-stand, can have very little notion of the difficulty that little folk had seventy or eighty years ago in getting some- thing to read. It was only about fifty years ago, indeed, that the first efforts were nascde to supply cheap, instructive, and entertaining literature, and one of the men who made those efforts was Mr. Williamn Chambers, who, in 1882, when he was eighity-two years of age, published a little account of his life. What he has to tell of his boyhood and youth is very interesting His father wvas unfortunate in business, and became so poor that young Chambers had to begin making his own way very eaily in life. Ile had little school- ing-only six pounds' (thiirty dollars) worth in all, The Boyhood of William Chambcrs. be tells us-and, as there were no juvenile books or periodicals in those days, and no books of any other kind, except costly ones, it wvas hard for him to do much in the -way of educating himself. But William Chambers meant to learn all that he could, and that determination counted for a good deal. Tliere was a small circulating library in his native town, and be began by reading all the books in it, without skipping one. Then he got hold of a copy of the "Encyclop,-ulia Britannica," which most boys would regard as very dry reading. He read it careful- ly. When that was done young Chambers was really pretty well educated, although le did not know it. About that time the boy had to go to work for his living. Ile becamie anl apprentice to a bookseller in Edinbur-glh. His wages were only four shillings (about a dollar) a week, and on that small sum he had to support hiinself, paying for food, lodging, clothes, and evreything else, for five years. "It was a hard but somewhat (droll scrimnnage with semi- 201 Strange Stories from History. starvation," he says; for, after paying for his lodgings and clothes, he had only about seven cents a day with which to buy his food. In the summer he jumped out of bed at five o'clock every morning, and spent the tine before the hour for beginning business in reading andt making elec- trical experiments. He studied French in that way too, and on Sundays carried a French Testament to church, and read in French what the minister read in English. Winter came on, and the poor lad was puzzled. It was not only cold, but entirely dark at five o'clock in the morning during the winter months, and Will. iam, who had only seven cents a day to buy food with, could not afford either a fire or a candle to read by. There wlas no other time of day, however, that he could call his own, and so it seemed that he must give up his reading altogether, which was a great grief to the ambitious lad. Just then a piece of good -luck befell him. Ile happened to know what is called a " sandwich man" 202 The Boyhood of William Chamber-s. -that is to say, a man who walks about with signis hanging behind and before hin. One day this man made him a proposition. The sandwich man knew a baker who, with his two sons, ca ried on a small business in a cellar. The baker was fond of reading, but had no time for it, and as he and his sons had to bake their bread early in the morning, he proposed, through the sandwich man, to employ Willia-mi Cham- bers as reader. His plain was that Chanibers should go to the cellar bakery every morning at five o'clock and read to the bakers, and for this service lhe prom- ised to give the boy one hot roll each morning. Here was double good -fortune. It enabled Chambers to go on with his reading by the baker's light and fire, and it secured for himi a sufficient breakfast without cost. He accepted the proposition at once, and for two and a half hours every morning hle sat on a flour-sack in the cellar, and read to the bakers by the light of a penny candle stuck in a bottle. Out of his small wages it was impossible for the S/range 'Stories from History. boy to save anything and so, when the five years of his apprenticeship ended, he had only five shillings in the world. Yet he determined to begin business at once on his own account. Getting- credit for ten pounds' worth of books, he opened a little stall, and thus began what has since grown to be a great pub- lishing business. He had a good deal of unoccupied time at his stall, and "in order to pick- up a few shillings," as he says, lhe began to write out neat copies of poems for al- bums. Finding- sale for these, he determined to en- large that part of his business by printing the po- enms. For that purpose he bought a small and very " squeaky " press and a font of worn type which had been used for twenty years. He had to teach him- self how to set the type, and, as his press would print only half a sheet at a time, it was very slow work; but he persevered, afld gradually built up a little printing business in connection with his book- selling. After a wvlhile he published an edition of Burns's poems, setting the type, printing the pages, The Boyhood of William Cham6ers. and binding the books with his own hands, and clear. ing eight pounds by the -work. Chambers wrote a good. deal at that time. and hiS brother Robert wrote still more, so that they were at once authors, printers, publishers, and booksellers, but all in a very smiall way. After ten years of this work, William Chamnbers determined to publish a cheap weekly paper, to be filled with entertain- ing and instructive matters, designed especially for the people vho could not afford to buy expensive books and periodicals. Robert refused to join in this schem-e, and so, for a time, the whole work and risk fell upon Williamn. His friends all agreed in think- inc that ruin would be the result; but William Clhan- bers thoughlt he kinew what the people wanted, and hence lhe went on. The result soon justified his expectations. The fiist number was published on the 4th of Febru-ary, 1832. Thirty thousand copies were sold in a few days, and three weeks later the sale rose to fifty thou- sand copies a week. 205 HOW A BOY WAS HIRED OUT. AND WHAT CAME OF IT. WiiEN Michael Angelo was twelve years of age, although he had had no instruction in art, he did a piece of work which greatly pleased the painter Do- menico Ghiilandajo. That artist at once declared that here was a lad of genius, who must quit his school studies and become a painter. This was what the little Michael most wished to do, but he had no hope that his father would listen for a moment to the suggestion. His father, Ludo. vico Buonarotti, was a distinguished man in the state, and held art and artists in contempt. He had planned a great political career for his boy, as the boy knew very wvell. Ghirlandajo was enthusiastic, however, and, in comn- flow a Boy was Hired Oul, and Wha/ Came of It. 207 pany with the lad, he at once visited Ludovico, and asked him to place Michael in his studio. Ludovico was very angry, saying that he wished his son to become a prominent man in society and politics, not a dauber and a masoon; but when lie found that young Michael was determined to be an artist or nothing he gave way, though most ungra- ciously. Ile would not say that lie consented to place his son with Gliirlandajo; lhe would not adnmit that the study of art was study, or the studio of ain artist anything but a shop. He said to the artist: "I give up my son to you. He shall be your, appren- Lice or your servant, as you please, for three years, and you must pay me twenty-four florins for his services." In spite of the insu6lting words and the insulting ters n, Michael An(gelo consented thus to be hired out as a servant to the artist, who should have been paid by his father for teaching him. He had to endure much, indeed, besides the anger and contempt of his father, who forbade him even to visit his house, and utterly disowned him. His fellow-pupils wvere jeal- 1"' Strange Stories from History. ous of his ability, and ill-treated Ihim constantly, one of them going so far as to break his nose with a blow. Whenl Michael Angelo had beel. with Ghirlandajo about two years, he wsent one day to the Gardens of St. Malrk, where the Prince Lorenzo de' Medici-who was the foremost patron of art in Florence-h ad established a rich museum of art-works at great expense. One of the workmen in the gariden gave the boy leave to try his hand at copying some of the sculptures there, and Michael, who had hitherto studied only painting, was glad of a chance to experiment with the chisel, which lhe preferred to the brush. He chose for his model an ancient figure of a faun, which was somewhat mu- tilated. The mouth, indeed, was entirely broken off, but the boy was very self-reliant, and this did not trouble hirn. He worked day after day at the piece, creating a mouth for it of his own imagining, with the lips parted in laughter and the teeth displayed. When he had finished, and was looking at his work, a man standing near asked if he might offer a criti- cism. 208 How a Boy was Hired Out, and WUhal Came of It. 209 " Yes," answered the boy, "if it is a just one." " Of that you shall be the judge," said the man. " Very wve1l. What is it " " rhe forehead of your faun is oldl, but the mouth is young. See, it has a full set of perfect teeth. A faun so old as this one is would not have perfect teeth." Tfhe lad admitted the justice of the criticism, and proceeded to remedy the defect by chipping away two or three of the teeth, and chiselling the gums so as to give them a shrivelled appearance. Trhe next morning;, w'hen Alichael went to remove his fautn from the garden, it was gone. lIe searched everywhere for it, but without success. Finally, see- ing, the man who had made the suggestion about the teeth, he asked him. if he knew where it was. "Yes," replied the man, "and if you will follow me I'll show you where it is." "Will you give it back to me I made it, and have a right to it." "Ob, if you must have it, you shall." S/range Stories from History. With that hle led the way into the palace of the prince, and there, among the most precious works of art in the collection, stood the faun. The young sculptor cried out in alarm, declaring that the Prince Lorenzo wvould never forgive the introduction of so rtide a piece of work among his treasures of sculpture. To his astonishment the mian declared that hie was himself the Prince Lorenzo de' Medici, and that hie set the highest 'alue upon this work. "I am your protector and friend," lhe added. "Henceforth you shall be counted as my son, for you are destined to become one of the great masters of a'i-t." This was overwhelming good-fortune. Lorenzo de' Medici was a, powerful nobleman, known far and wvide to be a most expert judge of works of art. His approval was in-itself fame and fortune. Filled with joy, the lad went straightway to his father's house, which he had been forbidden to enter, and, forcin, Lis way into Ludovico's presence, told him what had happened. The father refused to be- 2 IO How a Boy was Hired Out, and What Came of 1/. 2 I lieve the good news until Michael led him into Lo- renzo's presence. When the prince, by way of emphasizing his good- Will, offered Ludovico any post he might choose, he askedl for a very modest place indeed, saying, with bitter contempt, that it was good enough " for the fa- ther of a mason." THIE WICKEDEST MAN IN TIlE WORLD. PRECISELY at wvhat time the faithftul and affection. ate subjects of his Majesty Ivan IV., Czar of all the Russias, conferred ulpon him his pet uame, " The Ter- rible," history neg-lects to inform us, but we are left in no uncertainty as to the entire appropriateness of the title, which is lnow inseparably linked with his baptismal name,. lIe inherited the throne at the age of three years, and his early education was carefully attended to by his faith-ful guardians, who snubbed and scared him, in the hope that they might so far 'weaken his intellect as to secure a permanent control over him, and throuigh him govern Russia as they pleased. They made a footstool of him sometimes, and a football at others, and, un(der their system of trainingf, the development of those qualities of mind and heart for which he is celebrated was remarkably The Wickedesl Anait in the World. rapid, Ile was always Ivan the Terrified, and he be- came Ivan the Terrible before he was old enough to have played a reasonably good game of marbles, or to bave becomie tolerably expert in the art of mum- bling the peg. Indeed, it seems that the young grand- prince was wholly insensil)le to the joys of these and the other excellent sports in which ordinary youths delight, and being of an ingenious turn of mind, he invented others better suited to his tastes and char- acter. One of these pastimes-perhaps the first and simplest one devised by the youthful genius-con- sisted in the dropping of cats, dogs, and other do- mestic animals from the top of the palace to the pavement below, and sentimental historians have construed these interesting experiments in the law of gravitation into acts of wanton cruelty. Another of the young czar's amusements was to turn half- famished pet bear-s loose upon passing pedestrians, and it is the part of charity to suppose that his puI- pose in this was to 'study the psychological and phbysiognomical phenomena of fear. A less profitable 213 S/range Stories from History. way he had of accomnplishing the same thing was by throwing,, ol, as youthful Americans phrase it, "1 shy- i-,-" stones at passers-by, concealing himself mean- while behind a screen. He cultivated his skill in horsemanship by riding over elderly people, cripples, and childreii. In short, lis boyish sports were all of an origiinal and higlhly interesting soIt. Up to the age of thirteen Ivan was under the tute- lage of a council, of which the Prince Shnisky was chief, and it was this prince who domineered over the boy and made a footstool and a football of his body. At that agre Ivan asserted his independence in a very positive and emplhatic way, which even the Prince Shnisky could not misapprehend. The young czar was out hunting, accompanied by Shnisky and other princes and boyairds, among whom was Prince Glu- isky, a rival of Shnisky's, who was prejudiced against that excellent gentlenman. At his suggestion, Ivan addressed his guardian Shnisky in language which the latter deemed insolent. Shnisky replied angrily, and Ivan requested his dogs to remonstrate with the 21I4 7Yze Wzckedesl AMan in i tze World. prince, iihich they did by teaiing him limb from limb. Having thus silenced the dictation of Slhnisky, the young prince b)ecame the ward of the no less excel- lent Gluiisky, and was carefuilly taught that the only w vay in whicll lhe could effectually assert .authority was by punishment. It was made clear to his bud- ding intellect, too, that the shortest, simplest, and altogether the best way to get rid of disagreeable persons was to put theem to death, and throughout his life Ivan never forgot this lesson for a single mo- mnent. Power', hle was told, was worthless unless it was used, and the only way in wvhich it could be really used was by oppression. For three years no pains were spared to teach hiln this system of ethics and politics, anied the )oulng prince, in his anNicty to perfect himself in the art of governing, diligently p)ractised all these p)recepts. When he was seventeen years of age he was for- mally crowned czar. The citizens, ignorant of the truths of political economy and the principles of 215 Strange Stories from History. governmental science underlying the young Czar's system, became alarmed, and fired the city one night. When Ivan awoke, lie was terrified , being of an ab- normally nervous temperamen t, and the apparition of a wvarning moonk, together with the influence of Anastasia, the yfullyg czarina, led the czar to aban- don the simple and straightforward methods of gov- ernment in which he had been bred, and for thirteen years, under the dictation of Alexis Adascheff and the monk Sylvester, Ivan devoted himself to the com- monplace employments of developing Russia polit- ically and socially. He dismissed his ministers and put others in their places. He reorganized the army; revised the code, in the interest of abstract justice; equallized assessments; subdued the Tartars; estab- lished forts for the protection of the frontiers; laid the foundation for the future greatness of his empire; began the work whicel was completed so grandly under Peter the Great; introduced printing into Russia; added greatly to her possessions; checked the abuses of the clergy; brought artists from west- 2 I6 The Wickedest Man iu the World. ern Europe, and in a hundred ways made himself famous by doing those things which historians lote to chronicle. Meanwvhile, his genius for governing upon the Gluiskian system lay dormant. It was not dead, but slept, and after its nap of thirteen years it awoke one day, refreshed. Anastasia, the beautiful queen whose influence had been supreme for so long a time, died, and Ivan was free again. He recalled an old bishop who had been banished for his crimes, and consulted him as to his future course. "If you. wisli to be truly a sovereign," said this eminent prelate, " never seek a counsellor wiser than yourself; never receive advice fiom any man. Com- miand, but never obey; and you will be a terror to the loyards. Remember that he who is permitted to begin by advising is certain to end by rling his sov- ereign." Here was 2dvice of a sort suited to Ivan's taste and education, and for reply lhe kissed the good bishop's hand, saying: 217 S/range Stories from History. ' ily own father, could not have spoken more wisel v." Trhat the czar spoke sincerely, his faithfulness in followhilg the bishop's precepts abundantly attests. His ministers and advisers being manifestly wiser than he, and therefore not at all the proper kind of people to leave about, he straightway banished them. le then began a diligent search for their partisans, some of Nvhom he put to death, condemning others to imprisonment and torture. IHe next turned his atten- tion to his own household, which he was resolved upoin ruling absolutely, at least, if not well. One of the princes made himself disagreeable by declining to participate freely in the pleasures of the palace, and, for the sake of domestic harmony, Ivan had him poniarded while he was at his players. Another so far overstepped the bounds of courtesy and propriety as to remonstrate wvith one of the new favorites upon his improper conduct, and Ivan, in order that there might be no bickerings and hard feelings in his fam- ily, slew the discourteous prince with his own hand. 2 I 8 The Wickedesi Maln in the Worldl. He was in the habit of carrying an iiron rod about with himii, and lhe had a playful way of striking, his fLiends with it now and then, merely for his amnuse- ment. His pleasantiies of this and like sorts were endless. One day Prince Boris, a boyard, came to pay his respects to the czar, and as he bowed to the ground, according to customi, Ivan, seizing a knife, said, " God bless thee, my dealr Boris; thou deservest a proof of mny favor ," and with that lhe kindly cut the nobleman's ear off. When Pr'ince Kurbslky, whomn he had threatened with deatll, fled to Poland and wrote himu a letter thence, telling himii pretty plainly what lhe thought of him, the czar playfully struck the bearer of the missive with his iron rod, as a prelimiinary to the reading of the letter, and the blood flowed copiously from the man's wounds while Ivan pondered the words of his rebellious subject. He then became convinced that the boyards generally sympathized with Kurbsky, and to teach them better he put a good many of themn to death by torture, and deprived 21I9 220 S/range Stories from Hislory. many othels of their estates. His alarm was very real, however, for he was a phenomenon of abject cowardice. He therefore fled to a fortified place in the midst of a dense forest, wher-e lhe remained a m-nonth, writing letters to the Russians, telling them that lie had abdicated and left them to their fate as a punishment for their (lisloyalty and their crimes. Singularly enough, his flight terrified the people. He had taught them that be was their god as God was hiS7 and his flight to Alexandrovsky seemed to them a withdlrawal of the protection of Providence itself. Business was suspended. The courts ceased to sit. The country was in an acony of terror. A large deputation of boyards and priests journeyed to Alex- androvsky, and besought the sovereign to return and resume his holy functions as the head of the church, that the souls of so many millions niight not perish. Exacting of clergy and nobles an admission of his absolute right to do as he pleased, and a promise that they would in no way interfere with or resist his authority, he returned to Moscow. here he sur- The Wickedest Mai in the World. rounded himself' with a body-guard of desperadoes, one thousand strong at first, and afterwards increased to six thousan(l, lwhose duty it was to discover the czar's enemies mid to sweep them from the face oif the eartlh. As emblems of these their functions, each member of the auad carried at his saddle-bow a dog's head and a broom. As the punishment of the czar's enemies included the confiscation of their prop- erty, a large part of which was given to the guards themselves, these wvere ],always singularly successful in discovering the disaffection of wealthy nobles, findiing it out oftentimes before the nobles them- selves wvere aware of their own treasonable senti- ments. Feeling unsafe still, Ivan built for himself a new palace, outside the walls of the Kremlin, making it an impregnable castle. Then, finding that even this did not lull his shaken nerves to rest, lhe proceeded to put danger afar off by dispossessing the twelve thousand rich nobles whose estates lay nearest the palace, and giving their property to his p)ersonal fol- 2 2 I S/range Sfories from History. lowers, so that the head which wore the crown might lie easy in the conviction that there were no possible enemies near on the other side of the impregnable walls which shut hinm in. But even then lhe could not sleep easily, and so lie repaired again to his forest stronghold at Alexandrovsky, where he surrounded himself with guards and ramparts. Here he con- verted the palace into a monastery, made himself ab- bot, and. his rascally followers mnonks. Hee rigorously enforced nmonastic observances of the severest sort, and no doubt became a saint, in his own estimation. He spent most of his timie at players, allowing him- self no recreation except a daily sight of the torture of the prisoners who were confined in the dungeolns of the fortress. His guards were allowed rather a larger share of amnusement, and they wandered fiom street to street during the day, punishing, with their hatchets, such disloyal persons as they encountered. They were very moderate in their indulgences, how- ever, in imitation of their sovereign, doubtless, and it is recorded to their credit, that, at this time, they 222 The Wickedesi Ana,. in M',e World. rarely killed miore than twlenty people in one day, while sometimes the number was as low as five. But a quiet life of this kind could not always con- tent the czar. Naturally, lhe grew tired of individual killiiigs, and began to long for somie more exciting sport. When, one day, a quarrel arose between some of his guards and a few of the people of ToLjek, Ivan saw at a glance that all the inhabitants of Toijek were mutinous rebels, and of course it became his duty to put them all to death, which lie straiglhtway did. Up to this time the genius of Iv'an seems to have been cautiously feeling its wvay, and so the part of his history already sketched may be regarded as a mere preliminary to his real career. His extraordinary capacity for ruling an empire upon the principles taught him b the Prince Gluisky was now about to show itself in all its greatness. A ciiminal of Nov- gorod, feeling, himself aggrieved by the authorities of that city, who had incarcerated him for a time, wrote a letter offering to place the city under Polish protec- 1 3 223 Strange S/ories from History. tion. This letter he signed, not with his own name, but with that of the archbishop, and, instead of sending it to the King of Poland, to whom it was addressed, lie secreted it in the church of St. Sophia. Then, going to Alexandrovsky, he told Ivan that treason was contemplated by the Novgorodians, and that the treasonable letter would be found behind the statue of the Virgin in the church. Ivan sent a nmessenger to find the letter, and upon his return the czar began his march upon the doomed city. Happening to pass thirlough the town of Khur, on his way to Novgorod, he put all its inhabitants to death, with the purpose, doubtless, of training his troops in the ait of whole- sale massacre, before requiling them to practise it upon the people of Novgorod. Finding this system of di-ill an agreeable pastime, he repeated it upon his arrival at the city of Twer, and then, in order that the other towns along his route might have no reason to complain of partiality, he bestowed upon all of them a like manifestation of his imperial regard. It is not my purpose to describe in detail the elab- 224 The Wickedest Man in the World. orate and ingenious cruelty practised in the massacre of the Novgorodians. The story is sickening. Ivan first heard mass, and then began the butchery, which lasted for many days, was conducted wvith the utmost deliberation and most ingenious cruelty, and ended in the slaughter of sixty thousand people. Ivan had selected certain prominent citizens, to the number of several hundred, whom he reserved for public and particularly cruel execution at Moscow. Summoning the small and wretched remnant of the population to his presence, he besought their prayers for the con- tinuance and prosperity of his reign, and with gra- cious words of farewell took his departure firom the city. The execution in Moscow of the reserved victims was a scene too horrible to be described in these pages. Indeed, the half of Ivan's enormities may not be told here at all, and even the historians content themselves with the barest outlines of many parts of his career. He thought himself in some sense a deity, and blasphemously asserted that his throne was sur- 225 2 26 Strange Stories from History. rounded by archangels precisely as God's is. Identi- fying himself with the Almighty, he claimed exemp- tion from the observance of God's laws, and, in defiance of the fundamental principles of the Greek Church, of which he was the head, he married seven wives. Believing that he might with equal impunity insult the moral sense of other nations, he actually sought to add England's queen, Elizabeth, to the list of his spouses. And he was so far right in his esti- mate of his poweer to do as he pleased, that the Virgin Queen, head of the English Church, while she would not herself become one of his wives, consented to as- sist him, and selected for his eighth consort Mary Hastings, the daughter of the Earl of Huntingdon. She came near bringing about a marriage between the two, in face of the fact that the two churches of which Ivan and she were respectively the heads were agreed in condemning polygamy as a heinous crime. For one only of all his crimes Ivan showed regret, if not remorse. IHis oldest and favorite son, when the city of Pskof was besieged by the Poles, asked The Wickedesi Man in the World. that he might be intrusted with the command of a body of troops with which to assist the beleaguered place. Ivan was so great a coward that he dared not trust the affection and loyalty of even his own favorite child, and in a fit of miingled fear and rage he beat the young man to death with his iron staff, saying, "Rebel, you are leagued with the boyards in a con- spiracy to dethrone me." Remorse seized upon him at once, and his sufferings and his fears of retribution were terrible. Finally lie determined to abandon the throne and seek peace in a convent, but the infatuated Russians entreated him not to desert them. He died at last, in 1580. Did Scheherazade herself ever imagine a stranger story than this And yet it is plain history, and is only a fragment of the truth. 22 7 A PRINCE WHO WOULD NOT STAY DEAD. His name was Dmitri, and he was hereditary Grand- Prince of all the Russias, being the son of Ivan the Terrible, and only surviving brother of Feodor, the childless successor of that blood-thirsty czar, Ile was carefully killed in the presence of witnesses,during his boyhood, and duly buried, with honors appropriate to his station in life; so that if Dmitri had been an or- dinary mortal, or even an ordinary prince, there would have been no story of his life to tell, except the brief tragedy of his taking off. He was no ordinary prince, however, and so the trifling incident of his death dur- ing childhood had as little to do with his career as had one or two other episodes of a like nature in the history of his later life. He was born to rule Russia, and was not at all disposed to excuse himself from the performance of the duty Providence had thus im- A Prince who Would No! Slay Dead. posed upon him, by pleading the two or three thor- ough killings to which he was subjected. The story, as preserved in authentic history, is a very interesting one, and may perhaps bear repeatilng here. The read- er may find aill the facts in any reputable history of Russia, or of the liouses of Ruirik and Pionmanoff. In his jealousy of the absolute power he Nvielded, Ivan the Teririble had made constant war upon his nobility-kIilling them, or drliving them away, and in every way possible (lestroy illg whatever share of in- fluence they possessed in the state. When he died, leaving as his successor Feodor, a weak prince, of un- certain tenmper and infirm intellect, the nobility-nat- urally enough-hoped to regain their ancient influ- ence in the state, an(l miglt liav e accomplished their purpose without difficultyt if their measures to that end hiad been taken concertedly; but,jealous as they were of the privileges of their class, they were even more tenacious of their individual and family preten- sions. They quarrelled among themselves, in short, and, while they were quarrelling, a bold and aiiibitious 229 Strange S/ories from His/oiy. man, Boris Godunof, who happened to be the czar's brother-in-law, conceived the project of becoming prime-minister and actual ruler of the empire. In- deed, his ambition extended even further than this. Not content with governing Russia in the name of Feodor, he set covetous eyes upon the purple itself, and was resolved to become czar in name as well as in fact. But this was a delicate and difficult task, and could be accomplished only at great risk and by great patience. Boris was a man of undoubted gen- ius, extreme shrewdness, unlimited ambition, andi re- inarkable personal courage; and difficult and danget- ous as his task was, he seems nevem to have faltered in his purpose from the instant of its conception to the time of its execution. Knowing the power of money in state affairs, he took care to accumulate a vast sum in his own private coffers, as a first step. He conciliated the common people in a hundred ways-by wise legislation, by the reformation of abuses which pressed hardly upon them, and sometimes by the oppression of the nobles 230 A Prince who Would Not Stay Dead. 2 31I in the interest of the lowver classes. le was not long in making himself altogether the most popular man in Russia. He removed, by death or banishment, those whom he could not conciliate, together with all other peCsons lwhom he thought likely to prove obsta- cles in the way of his grand p)urpose. In short, a very brief time sufficed him for the wvinning of a pop- ularity which, in any country but Russia, wvould have been sufficient for his need. But Boris knew his Russians well. He knew that loyalty to the line of Pturik was the strongest feeling in their breasts, after that of devotion to their creed-of which, indeed, it formed a chief part. It was their fixed belief in the divine right of the legitimate princes of the House of Rurik to reign, that had kept thenm patient, even Un- der the rigors of Ivan's rule; and Boris knew well enough that no usurper, however strongly intrencheed in their affections he might be, could hope to win those superstitiously loyal people to his support against any prince of the right line, however brutal, unjust, and despotic that prince might be. He knew, S/range S/ories from History. in brief, that so long as any descendant of Rurik should live, no other man could hope to seat himself upon the Muscovite throne. Feodor had no children, but he had one brother, the lad Dmitri, who would be his successor in the natural course of events. His existence was sure to prove an effectual bar to all Boris's hopes; and so it was necessary to get him out of the way before the scheme should be ripe for exe- cution. To accomplish this, the wily minister sent Dmnitri and his mother to the distant town of Uglitch, and there, by his orders, the young prince was mur- dered, in the presence of his nurse and six other peo- ple, and buried from his mother's residence. This was in 1591. The lad's death was announced, of course. Indeed, it was known to nearly everybody in Uglitch, the tocsin having been sounded, and the population having gathered around the murdered boy, where they put to death a good many who were suspected of complicity with the murderers. But in publishing it abroad in Russia, Boris deemed it pru- dent to attribute it, some say to a fever, others to an 232 A Prince who Would Not Stay Dead. accidental fall upon a knife with which the boy had been playing; and lest the people of Uglitch should embarrass the minister by insisting upon a different diagnosis of the boy's last illness, that prudent offi- cial put a great many of them to death, cut the tongues out of others' heads, and banished the rest to Siberia-laying the town in ashes. He spared the lad's mother, but shut her up in a convent. Dmitri was noIw out of the way, or, rather, he would have been if he had had an ordinary capacity for stay- ing comfortably killed; and Boris redoubled his ef- forts to prepare the way for his own elevation to the throne, as Feodor's successor, when that prince should chance to let the sceptre fall from his grasp. To secure the influence of the Church in his behalf, he bought of a Greek bishop the right to appoint the successor of the patriarch (a sort of Greek Church pope); and that office presently becoming vacant, he appointed a creature of his own as head of the Church. He succeeded in winning the favor of the inferior no- bility, who were very numerous, and made himself strong in many other ways. 233 Strange Stories from History. Boris was a fellow of infinite good-luck; and so it fell out that, at the precise moment when all his plans were complete, the Czar Feodor obligingly died. So opportunely did this event happen, that grave histo- rians have been inclined to suspect Boris of having procured it in some way; but of this there is no pos- itive evidence. Feodor dead, there was no heir to the thr one. With him ended the line of Rurik , which alone the Russians recognized as legitimately entitled to rule the empire; and now a new czar must be chosen. The nobles quarrelled, of course. They agreed in thinking that one of their order should be elevated to the throne; but they could by no means agree which one it should be. Each resented the preten- sions of all the others, and it speedily became nmani- fest that the patriarch's nomination, upon whoinso- ever it might fall, would turn the scale andi elect a czar. The patriarch was Boris's own creature, appointed for the sole purpose of forwarding that minister's plans; and he promptly nominated Boris to the vacant throne. 234 A Prince who Would Not Slay Dead. The election was a prearranged affair; and presently Boris was waited upon-in the convent to which he had retired with the declared purpose of leading a monastic life in future-and informed of his selection by the people as Czar of all the Russias. He nmod- estly declined, of course; and, equally of course, his modesty only made the people the more clamorous. After some weeks of petty dalliance Boris finally al- lowved himself to be persuaded, and was crowned czar, in due form, in the year 1598. He wvas not long in discovering that his position was insecure, and incapable of being made safe. Whatever policy he might adopt-and lhe was dis- posed, it appears, to govern wisely and well-was sure to displease sonme of his subjects; and in the hands of a hostile faction, his want of hereditary claim upon the throne was a powerful weapon. What he had seized by crime he must keep by tyranny and violence, and a three years' famine added greatly to his embarrassments. Whatever he did excited dis- content; and to make his wretchedness complete, he :235 Strange Stories from History. fancied himself haunted by the ghost of the murdered Dmitri. There were symptoms of mutiny everywhere, which daily threatened to culminate in open revolt. It needed only a match to fire the mine. In 1603, when matters were at their worst, there appeared in Poland a young man who claimed to be the murdered Dmitri. His story was that, by means of an adroit substitution, another boy had been killed in his place; that lie had escaped; and he claimed the throne of the Ruriks. He strongly resembled the prince he claimed to be, and his identity seemed to be established, also, by other evidence than mere per- sonal resemblance. There was no "strawberry mark on his left arm," but both he and the dead prince, if, in(leed, they were two distinct persons, had a wart on the forehead, and another under the right eye, and in both one arni was slightly longer than the other. The pretender, or real prince, as the case may be, had also a valuable jewel which had belonged to Dmitri; and so he was not long in winning credence for his story, both in Poland and in Russia. Boils 236 A Prince who Would Not Stay Dead. gave out that the young man was the monk Otrafief, who had appeared in the army as his advocate and emissary; and some historians-Karamsin and Bell among the number-have accepted this theory; but a careful comparison of dates seems to contradict it. Whoever the man was, he was an able and accom- plished diplomnatist as well as a singularly bold war- rior; and he succeeded presently in winning the rec- ogilition of Sigismund, King of Poland, and putting himself at the head of an army with which he in- vaded Russia. He had privately abjured the Greek faith, and undertaken to convert Russia into a Catho- lic power; and, in addition to the many other favors promised the Poles, he had engaged to marlry Marina, the daughter of a Polish nobleman. During the autumn of the year 1604, this new Dmitri began his invasion at the head of a small army made up of Poles and Don Cossacks. On his march his force was sweated by accessions, and a number of towns declared in his favor. Boris sent an army four times as great as his own, to destroy him; and battle 2 37 2 38 Stranzge Stories from History. was joined on the last day of December. Dmitri's case seemed utterly hopeless; but he was both able and brave. He fought with the resolution and cour- age of a hero, the skill of a consummate tactician, and the fury of a demon. And in spite of the terrible odds against him, he won a great victory. In a mili. tary way, its results were neutralized by the wvith- drawval of his Poles, and by some other circumstances which forbade his pushing forward towards the capi- tal; but the moral effect was altogether in his favor. The superstitious Russians saw in his marvellous suc- cess a miracle, and accepted it as proof positive that this was the true prince, to oppose whom was sacri- lege. By dint of great energy Boris was able to main- tain the war till the time of his own death, which happened during., the spring of 1605. His son Feo- dor was crowned as his successor; but a few weeks later he was deposed and strangled, and the new Diuitri caine to the throne. For a time his wisdom as a statesman promised to equal his skill and courage as a soldier, but his man- A Prince who Would Not Slay Dead. ifest preference for Poles to Russians soon created jealousy; and imagining that he could overcome prej- udices by violent measures, as easily as he had con- quered a throne, he spared no pains to insult the Rus- sian national feeling TIe appointed only Poles to high office, and lavished upon foreigners so much at- tention as to breed discontent in his own capital. his apostasy from the Greek to the Roman faith, also, was suspected, and the clergy became his implacable enemies. The disaffection gr-ew daily, and the efforts Dmitri made to overawe his enemies only exasperated them. Finally, on the occasion of his marriage with Marina, the Polish p)rincess-which was celei)1ated with great pomp by a throng of Polish soldiers and others, invited to Moscolv for the purpose-a mob, headed by Shuiski, or Schnisky-for the name is spelled in both of these and half a dozen other ways -stormed the palace, butchered the Poles, and im- paled Dmitri on a spear. To leave no doubt of his death this time, they kept his bo(ly transfixed with the spear, in front of the palace, fCr three days, that 239 S/range S/ories from History. the people might wreak their vengeance upon the dead czar by insulting his corpse. Schnisky profited by his victory, and while the blood of the populace was still hot was chosen czar, as successor of the impostor he had overthrown. His popularity was short-lived, however. His fellows among the nobles resented his elevation above them- selves, and ere long the desire for his removal was as unanimous as his election had been. This seemed a good time for the doubly dead Dmitri to come to life again; and so it was presently rumored that after all he had not been killed; that the corpse the people had spat upon and insulted was not his; that he was alive, in Poland, and ready to claim his own. This report was industriously circulated by the nobles; but as the people had not yet forgotten their hatred for the usurper, he was permitted to lie down in his grave again. To prevent his coming to life for a third time, the dead czar's remains were disinterred and burned. The ashes were collected and fired from a piece of 240 A Prince who Would Not Stay Dead. artillery, and it was supposed that further resurrec- tion on his part was impossible. But, as we have seen, Dmitri had a mIost astonishing genius for com. ing to life after being thoroughly killed; and pi'es- ently he appeared again in Poland. This time, his- tory says, he was either a Russian schoolimaster or a Polish Jewv; but however that may be, certain it is that lie so closely resembled the other two Dmitri's in personal appearance, even to the two warts and unequally lon'g arms, that he imposed on everybody around him with his story. Even the Princess Maarina accepted him, and actually lived wvith him. as his wife. Ile was able, without much difficulty, to interest the Kim, of Poland in his behalf, and to secure a dec- laration of wvar by that potentate against Czar Schnis- ky. lIe invaded Russia, wVoIn battles, captured Smo- lensko, invested Moscow, and finally entered the city. About this time Dmitri appeared in several other places, but only one of him was in Moscowv at the head of a victorious army; and in behalf of this par. ticular one Schnisky resigned his crown and retired S/range Stories from History. to a monastery, whence he was soon removed to a dungeon. At this juncture the King of Poland, having plans of his own for the union of Russia and his own king- dom, withdrew his countenance from Dmitri; and that prince retired from the business of governing, and devoted himself for the rest of his life to the less honorable, but perhaps equally lucrative, profession of highway robbery. He was again killed after awhile, this time by a Don Cossack. But even this public killing had small effect. A dozen or more newv Dmitri's appeared, claiming the throne; and some of them, says the historian Bell, " actually touched the sceptre for a moment, but only to recoil iil fear from the dangerous object of their insane am- 1)ition." After awhile, having found the task an unprofitable one, perhaps, Dmitri seems to have made up his mind to stay dead; but in due course a race of his sons sprang up quite as mysteriously, if not quite as per- sistently, to pester the Russians, and peace came to 242 A Prinlce whlo Would ANot Stay Dead. them only through the elevation of the Romanoffs to the imperial throne. Connected as they were by ties of blood with the race of Rurik , they brought legiti- inacy to the rescue of a land long torn by faction. The loyalty of the people to sovereigns whose right to rule was derived from Rurik , gave the dynasty a strength sufficient to maintain itself; and after a lit- tle while Peter the Great taught his Russians civili- zation, and a new era in Russian history was begun. THE END. 243 This page in the original text is blank. INTERESTING BOOKS FO1R YOUNG PEOPLEl. PuBLISIIED BY HARPER BIROTHERS. 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REDEEMING THE REPUBLIC. 2 Interesting Books for Young People. INDIAN HISTORY FOR YOUNG FOLKS. By FRANcis S. DRAKE. CO- piously Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, 3 00. HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE. Volumes IX. (1888) and VIII. (1887J), 4to, Cloth, 3 ,50 each. (Volumes I., II., Ill., IV., V., VI., and VII., out of prilt.) Each Volume contains the Numbers for a year, with over 800 pages and about 700 Illustrations. HARPER'S YOU-NG PEOPLE SERIES. Ill'd. 16mo, Cloth, 1 00 per vol. TORY TYLER; OR, TFN WEEKS WITH A CI- r1HE FOUR IACN ICOLS. By Villiam Black. CU-S.--MIR. STt'11sS BROTHER (Sequel THE TALKING An Indian Story. Toly Tyler ,).-TI.FF AND) Tip.-RAISIG -Two ARRows. A Stiry of Red and THE l' EARL. "-LEFT BEHIINDO OR, TN White. ByIV 0. Stdad DAYS A NEWISUOY.-SILENTET BY StoBdayd. James Otis. TIIE ICE QUF:N. By Ernest Ingersoll. THEE NIORAL PIIRATIR.-TIFE CRUISE OF THE THE [.OST CITY; OR, THIE BOY EXPILORERS ' GHOST."-T11E CRUISE OF TIlE CANOE IN CENTRIAL ASIA.-INTO LNKNOWN SEAK CLUB. _TI1E ADVEN-TURE-S OF JIMMY By tlavid Ker. BROWN .-A NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE. By PRINCE IAZYI3ONES, AND OTHER STORIES. W. L. Alden. By Mrs. J. W. Ilays. MILDRED'S BARGAIN, AND OTHER STORIES STRANGE STORIES FROM HISTORY FOR YOUNG -AN-._ROLF H(OUSE.-J0'S OPPO)RTC- PEOPLE. By (. Cary Eggleston. NITY-TIIE STORY OF MrSIC AND MUI-8- CIANS. -THE COLONEL'S M[ONEY. -THE WAKULLA: A Story of AdventIure in Flor- HIIUSEHOLD OF GLEN HOLLY. By Lucy ida-rTlE FI.rINo1 FE ATIIRE.-DER- C. Lillie, RICEK STEII.ING.-CRYSTAL. JACK CO. II;O WAS PAUL GRAYSON By John Hab- AND DELTA Bixny. By C. K. Mtinroe. berton. UNCLE PETEIIs TRUST. By Geo. B. Perry. DIDDIE, DUMPS, AND TOT; OR, PLAN'TATION CHILD-LIFE. By LOUISE CLARKE-PYRNELLE. Illustrated. 161mo, Cloth, 1 0(. NEW GAMES FOR PARLOR AND LAW-N. By G. B. BARTLETT. lmo, Clotl, 1 00. FROM THE FORECASTLE TO THE CABIN. By Capt. S. SAMrELS. Illustrated. 12mo, Extra Cloth, 1 50. POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICA'NS. By CHARLES NORDHOFF. 12mo, Half Leather, 75 cents; Paper, 40 cents. GOD AND THE FUTURE LIFE. The Reasonableness of Cllristianity. By CHARLES NORD1IOEF. 16mo, Cloth, 1 00. ANIMAL LIFE IN TIIE SEA AND ON THIE LAND. A Zoology for Young People. By SARAH COOPER. Profusely III'd. 12mo, Cloth, 1 25. Interesting Books for Young People. THE BALL OF TIIE VEGETABLES, and Other Stories in Prose and Verse. By MARGARET EYTINGE. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, 2 00. TIlE HISTORY OF A MOUNTAIN. By ]ELISiE RECLUS. Illustrated by L. BENNETT. l2nio, Cloth, 1 25. THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG NATURALIST. By LUCIEN BIART. With 117 Illustrations. l2mo, Cloth, 1 75. AN INVOLUNTARY VOYAGE. By LUCIEN BIART. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, 1 25. TIlE BOY101OD OF MARTIN LUTHER. By IIENRY MAYHEW. Ilus- trated. 1 6nio, Cloth, 1 25. THlE STORY OF TIIE PEASANT-BOY PIIILOSOPHER. (Founded on the Early Life of Ferguson, the Shepherd-Boy Astronomer.) By HIENRY MAYHEW. 16Io, Cloth, 1 25. YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. By HENRY MAYHEW. Illustrated. 6ino, Cloth, 1 25. TILE WONDERS OF SCIENCE; or, Young Ilumphry Davy. The Life of a Wonderful Boy. By HENRY MAYHEW. 16mo, Cloth, 1 25. THE BOYHOOD OF GREAT MEN. By JoHN G. EDGAR. Illustrated. 1 l60o, Cloth, 1 00. THIE FOOTPRINTS OF FAM1OUS MEN. By JOHN G. EDGAR. I1luS- trated. l6mo, Cloth, 1 00. HISTORY FOR BOYS; or, Annals of the Nations of Modern Europe. By JOHN G. EDGAR. Illustrated. l6mo, Cloth, 1 00. SEA-KINGS AND NAVAL IIEROES. A Book for Boys. By JOHN G. EDGAR. Illustrated. 61mo, Cloth, 1 00. THE WARS OF THE ROSES. By JOHN G. EDGAR. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, 1 00. 3 Interesting Books for Young People. HOW TO GET STRONG, AND HOW TO STAY SO. BV WILLIAM BLAIKIE. With Illustrations. 6lmo, Cloth, 1 00; Paper, 50 cents. SOUND BODIES FOR OUR BOYS AND GIRLS. By WILLIAM BLAIKIE. Illustrated. 16mo, Clotlh, 40 cents. DOGS AND THEIR DOINGS. By Rev. F. 0. MORRIS, B.A. Illustrated. Square 8vo, Cloth, Gilt Sides, 1 75. TALES FROM THE ODYSSEY FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. By C. M. B. 32mno, Paper, 25 cents; Cloth, 40 cents. CAST UP BY THE SEA; or, The Adventures of Ned Gray. By Sir SAMUEL WV. BAKER. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, 1 25; 4to, Paper, 15 cents. TIlE ADVENTURES OF REUBEN DAVIDGER; Seventeen Years and Four Montlhs Captive among the Dyaks of Borneo. By J. GREENWOOD. 8vo, Cloth, 1 25; 4to, Paper, 15 cents. WILD SPORTS OF TIHE WORLD. A Book of Natural History and Adventure. By JAMES GREENWOOD. Illustrated. Ciown 8vo, Cloth, 2 50. HOMES WITHOUT HANDS: Being a Description of the Habitations of Animals. By the Rev. J. G. WOOD, M.A., F.L.S. With about 140 Illus- trations. 8vo, Cloth, 4 50; Sheep, 5 00; Half Calf, 6 75. THE ILLUSTRATED NATURAL HISTORY. By the Rev. J. G. WOOD. M.A., F.L.S. With 4.50 Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, 1 05. CAMP LIFE IN THE WOODS; and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making. By W. HAMVILTON GIBSON, Autlor of "Pastoral Days." Illus- trated. 12mo, Cloth, 1 00. NIMROD OF THE SEA; or, The American Wialeman. By WILLIAM M. DAVIS. With many Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth, 2 00. ODD PEOPLE: Being a Popular Description of Singular Races of Man. By Captain MAYNE REID. With Illustrations. 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents. 4 Interesting Books for Young People. 5 COUNTRY COUSINS. Short Studies in the Natural HistorI of the United States. By ERNEST INGERSOLL. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, 2 50. FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. Glimpses of American Natural His- tory. By ERNEST INGERSOLL. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, 1 00. PAUL B. DU CIIAILLU'S WORKS ON AFRICA. Five Volumes. II- lustrated. 1 2iiio, Clotl, 1 50 eatb. THE COUNTRY OF T1lE DWARFS. MY APINGI KINGDO11. WILD LI1E UNDER THE EQUATOR. LOST IN THE JUNGL. STORtIES OF THE GORILLA COUNTRY. ROUND TIlE WORLD; inieluding a Resideince in Victoria, and a Jour. ney by Rail across North America. By a Boy. Edited by SAMUEL SMILES. Illustrated. 12nio, Cloth, 1 50. TIHE SELF-HELP SERIES. B! S. SMILES. 12mo, Cloth, 1 00 each. SELF-IIELB. CiH ARACTER. THRIFT. DUTY. STORIES OF IN-VENTORS AND DISCOVERERS in Scienice and the Useful Arts. By JoHiN TiMBus. Illustrated. 12mno, Cloth, 1 50. OUIR CHILDREN'S SONGS. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, 1 00. FA.MOUS LONDON MERCHANTS. A Book for Boys. By 1H. R. Fox BOURNE. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, 1 00. PRAIRIE AND FOREST. A Description of the Game of North Amer- icla, with Personal Adventures in their Pursuit. By PARKER GILLMORE. Illustrated. 12nio, Cloth, 1 50. PU-SS-CAT MEW, and Other New Fairy Stories for my Children. By E. II. KNATCHBL'LI.-HUGESSEN. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, 1 25. FAIRY TALES OF ALL NATIONS. By EDOUARD LABOULATE. Trans. lated by MARY L. BOOTH. Illustrated. 12mno, Cloth, Bevelled Edges, 2 00; Gilt Edges, 2 50. LAST FAIRY TALES. By EDOUARD LABOCLAYE. Translated by MARY L. BOOTH. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, Bevelled Edges, 2 OO; Gilt Edgcs, 2 6Q 6 Interesting Books for Young People. TILE THOUSAND AND ONE XNIGHTS; or, The Arabian Nights' Enter- tainments. Translated and Arraned for Family Reading by E. W. LANE. 600 Illustrations. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, 3 50. JACOB ABBOTT'S WORKS. SCIENCE FOR THE YOUNG. Illustrated. 4 vols., 12mo, Cloth, 1 50 each. HEAT. WATER AND LAND. LIGHT. FORCE. FRANCONIA STORIES. Illustrated. itmo, Cloth, 75 cents each. MALLEVIJ.LE. WAI.IACE. MARY ERSKINE. MARY BELL. BEECHNUT. RODOLPHUS. ELLEN LINN. STUYVESAN'T. CAROLINE. AGNES. LITTLE LEARNER SERIES. Illustrated. lamo, Cloth, 75 cents each. LEARNING TO TALK. LEARNING TO THINK. LEARNING ABOUT COM1MON' TIIINGS. LEARNING AIBOUT RIGHT AND WRONG. LEARNING TO READ. MARCO PAUL SERIES. Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels in the Pursuit of Knowledge. Illustrated. lmo, Cloth, 75 cents each. IN NEW YORK. IN VERMONT. ON THE ERIE CANAL. IN BOSTON. IN THE FORESTS OF MAINE. AT THE SPRINGFIELD ARMORY. RAINBOW AND LUCKY SERIES. Illustrated. lMmo Cloth, 75 cents each. HANDIE. THE TIIREE PINES. RAINBOW'S JOURNEY. SELLING LUCKY. UP THE RIVER YOUNG CHRISTIAN SERIES. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, 1 75 each. THE YOUNG CHRISTIAN. THE CORNER STONE. THE WAY TO DO GOOD. HOARYHEAD AND M'DONNER. THE YOUNG CHRISTIAN. A Memorial Volume. With a Sketch of the Author by one of bis Sons. Steel-Plate Portrait of the Author, and Wood-cuts. 12mo, Cloth, 2 00. Interesting Books for Young People. ABBOTTS' (JACOB AND J. S.C.) BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORIES. lustrated. 16mo, Cloth, 1 00 per volume. CYRUS TEIE GREAT. DARIUS THE GREAT. XERXES. ALEXANDER THE GREAt ROMULUS. HANNI BAL. PYRRHUS. JULIUS C-ESAR. CLEOPATRA. NERO. AIFRED THE GREAT. WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. RICHARD I. RICHARD II. RICHARD III. MARGARET OF ANJOU. M1ARY QUEEN' OF SCOTS. QUEEN ELIZABETH. CHARIES I. qHARIES II. HERNANDO CORTEZ. HENRY IV. LOUIS XIV. MARIA ANTOINETTE. MADAME ROLAND. JOSEPHINE. JOSEPH BONAPARTE. HORTENSE. LOUIS PHILIPPE. GENGHIS KHAN. KING PHILIP. PETER THE GREAT. TIlE HISTORY OF SA.NDFORD AND MELRTON. By THOMAS DAY. 18ino, Half Bound, 75 cents. J( GIN BONNER'S C1IILD'S HISTORIES. CHILD'S HISTORY OF GREECE. Illustrated. 2 vols., 16mo, Cloth, 2 50. CHILD'S HISTORY OF ROME. Illustrated. 2 vols., 16mo, Cloth, 2 50. CHIILD'S HISTORY OF TILE UNITED STATES. New Edition, Revised, and brought down to the Close of the Rebellion. Illustrated. 3 vols., 16mo, Cloth, 3 75. THE STORY OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY, for Boys. By BENSON J. LossISG. Illustrated. 12mno, half Leather, 1 75. FRENCH IIISTORY FOR ENGLISH CHILDREN. By SARAH BROOK. With Illustrations and Colored Maps. 16mo, Cloth, 1 00. CHIILD'S HISTORY OF ENLGLAN\D. By CHARLES DICKENS. Illustrated. 2 vols. in one, 16mo, Half Leather, 60 cents. 7 I. Interesting Books for Young People. THE HISTORY OF A MOUTHFUL OF BREAD, and its Effect on the Organiization of Men and Animals. By JEAN MACi. Translated by Mrs. ALFRED GATTY. 12ino, Cloth, 1 75. THE SERVANTS OF THE STOMACH. By JEAN MACi. Reprinted from the London Edition, Revised and Corrected. 12mno, Cloth, 1 76. HOME FAIRY TALES. By JEAN MIACE. Illustrated. 12mno, Cloth, 1 75. YOUTH'S HEALTH-BOOK. 32mo, Paper, 25 cents; Cloth,40 cents. STORIES OF THE OLD DOMINION. From the Settlement to the End of the Revolution. By JOHN ESTEN COOKE. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, 1 50. FRED M1ARKIIAM IN RUSSIA; or, The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar. By W. H. G. KINGSTON. Illustrated. Small 4to, Cloth, 75 cents. SELF-MADE MEN. By CHARLES C. B. SEYMOUR. Mlany Portraits. 12mo, Cloth, 1 75. ROBINSON CRUSOE, of York, Mariner; with a Biography of DEFOE. Illustrated. Complete Edition. 12mo, Cloth, 1 00. TIlE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON. Ill'd. 2 vols., 18mo, Cloth, 1 50 THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON-Continued: being a Sequel to the Foregoing. 2 vols., 18mo, Cloth, 1 50. THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. By JOHN BUNYAN. With a Life of the Author by ROBERT SOUTHEY. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, 1 00; Gilt Edges, 1 50. THE CATSKILL FAIRIES. By VIRGINIA W. JOHNSON. Illustrated by ALFRED FREDERICKS. Square 8vo, Illulminiated Cloth, 3 00. WHAT MR. DARWIN SAW in his Voyage round the World in the Ship "Beale." Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, 3 00. 8

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