nefs: the French had not yet, by their ambition, difturbed the repose of the natives of the east, and, therefore, were not the objects of their vengeance.

The conquerors, after plundering the royal palace of every thing valuable, prepared for their departure, taking with them the brother-in-law of the late king, and leaving the other natives at liberty. Laval was a voluntary passenger to Bengal, and there he began to concert the means of a paffage to Europe.

While engaged in these plans, the Mogul declared war against the Prince of Bengal, who affembled a prodigious army to oppose him. However, before hoftilities commenced, Laval found means to withdraw himself to the coaft of Malabar, from whence he proceeded to Calicut. At that place he remained eight months, waiting for a paffage in a Dutch fhip; but being at laft difappointed, he travelled to Cochin, where he had the misfortune to be taken ap and imprisoned as a spy.

At laft, however, he made his escape from prifon, and fled to Goa; but fortune was not yet wearied of exerting her malice against him: here he was again thrown into prison, and confined for fome time. By his addrefs, as well as the juftice of his caufe, he raised up fome powerful interceffors among the Jefuits, who, at length, procured his liberation; and failing for Europe, he arrived in fafety at Rochelle, on the 16th of February 1611, after an abfence of nearly ten years, in which he had run through a series of adventures equally dangerous and distressing.

SINGULAR

OF AN ENGLISH VESSEL

NEAR

Spitsbergen.

HORT as the following narrative may appear, it bears fuch marks of fimplicity and truth, that we were unwilling to omit it. On fuch a fubject ingenuity might have faid much; but no force of language can heighten the general effect of this picture of mifery. The reader's imagination with painful affiduity will fill up the chafms of events.

John Cornelius of Maniken, being ordered upon the whale fithery, in the year 1646, left the Texel on the 6th of May, and on the third of June arrived in the neighbourhood of Spitzbergen, but was prevented from anchoring in the bay, by the fhoals of ice. Accordingly he kept out to fea; and chancing to discover two whales in the offing, he fent his floop well manned in purfuit of them.

While they were rowing up and down, watching an opportunity to make a fuccefsful attack upon one of thofe enormous creatures, they difcovered a large ice fhoal floating at a diftance, with fomething white upon it, which they supposed to

be bears. But Ellert Johnfon, the harpooner, infifting that it was fomething else, and that it was in motion, perfuaded them to row up to it. To which propofal, after fome altercation, they affented; and perceived it, on a nearer view, to be a fort of fignal of diftrefs, waved by a man.

This difcovery induced them to approach it as faft as they could, and there, to their great furprife, they found four living men, and one dead. By their language they knew them to be English. They took them into the floop, and conveyed them on board their fhip in the bay.

They were at this time reduced to the last extremity by hunger and cold, having had nothing to feed upon for fome time before they faw the floop, but a leather belt, which they had divided into equal fhares, and eaten up. The furgeon took all the care he could to recover them; but three of them died in spite of all his endeavours, in five or fix days after their being brought on board. The fourth alone furvived, who was brought to Delft, upon the Meufe, in September, 1646; from whence he go. a paffage home to England.

The account he gave was, that their vessel be ing wrecked on that ice fhoal, from which he was taken, the crew confifting of forty-two men, faved themfelves upon it, with fome tools, victuals, and their floop;-that they cut a deep hole, like a cave, into the ice, blocking it round the mouth with fuch pieces as they dug out, to fhelter them from the violence of the wind and waves, which intention it in fome measure answered;-and that in this hole they burrowed fourteen days,

In a few days, the commander, thinking it impoffible that they should furvive long upon this

thoal,

fhoal, refolved, with feventeen of his men, to make the land in the floop, and fend her off for the reft with an account of his fuccefs. But, as it blew a hard ftorm foon after, and they never heard more of them, there was reason to think they perished before they reached the fhore.

Twenty-four of them remaining still upon the ice, and provifions growing daily more fcanty, fo that they were reduced to a famithing condition, and scarcely hoped for relief from any thing but death, they refolved to feparate, and quarter upon different thoals, in hope that by fome lucky turn of fortune they might be driven to land. But whether they were taken up by any other ships, or whether they reached the fhore, was never known.

It is most likely, indeed, that they were swallowed up by the ocean: for John Cornelius ordered his floop upon a cruise in search of the furvivors, but without any fuccefs.

Melancholy as the fate of these men must appear, this is only one of the many inftances of diftress in which northern voyages, above all others, are prolific. Scarcely a feafon paffes without the Jofs of lives and fhips, and frequently attended with circumftances of peculiar calamity.