cution of public business." He returned his grateful acknowledgments for the honour done him, which he observed "would be of service to his children." In the year following he was appointed minister plenipotentiary from the United States to Holland. In his way thither he was captured and carried to England, and there committed a prisoner to the tower of London on suspicion of treason; and was officially mentioned by Sir Joseph York as "styling himself president of the pretended congress." The commitment was accompanied with orders "to confine him a close prisoner to be locked up every night-to be in the custody of two warders --not to suffer him to be out of their sight one moment, day or night -to allow him no liberty of speaking to any person, nor to permit any person to speak to him to deprive him of the use of pen and ink-to suffer no letter to be brought to him, nor any to go from him." Mr. Laurens was then fifty-six years old, and severely afflicted with the gout and other infirmities. In this situation he was conducted to apartments in the tower, and was shut up in two small rooms which together made about twenty feet square, with a warder for his constant companion, and a fixed bayonet under his window; without any friend to converse with, and without any prospect or even the means of correspondence. Being debarred the use of pen and ink, he procured pencils, which proved an useful substitute. After a month's confinement he was permitted to walk out on limited ground, but a warder with a sword in his hand followed close behind. This indulgence was occasionally taken for about three weeks, when lord George Gordon, who was also a prisoner in the tower, unluckily met and asked Mr. Laurens to walk with him. Mr. Laurens declined the offer, and instantly returned to his apartment. Governor Gore caught at this transgression of orders, and locked him up for thirty-seven days, though the attending warder exculpated him from all blame.

About this time an old friend and mercantile correspondent having solicited the secretaries of state for Mr. Laurens's enlargement on parole, and having offered his whole fortune as security for his good conduct, sent him the following message: "Their lordships say if you will point out any thing for the benefit of Great-Britain in the present dispute with the colonies, you will be enlarged." This proposition filled him with indignation, and provoked a sharp reply.

The same friend soon after visited Mr. Laurens, and being left alone with him addressed him as follows: "I converse with you this morning, not particularly as your friend but as the friend of Great-Britain. I have certain propositions to make for obtaining your liberty, which I advise you should take time to consider." Mr. Laurens desired to know what they were, and added, "that an honest man required no time to give an answer in a case where his honour was concerned." "If," said he," the secretaries of state will enlarge me upon parole, I will strictly conform to my engagement to do nothing directly or indirectly to the hurt of this kingdom. I will return to America, or remain in any part of England which may be assigned, and surrender myself when demanded." It was answered, "no sir, you must stay in London among your friends. The ministers will often have occasion to send for and consult you: you can write two or three lines to the ministers and barely say you are sorry for what is past. A pardon will be granted. Every man has been wrong at some time or other of his life, and should not be ashamed to acknowledge it." Mr. Laurens replied, "I will never subscribe to my own infamy and to the dishonour of my children."

Though Mr. Laurens was not allowed to see his own friends, pains were taken to furnish him with such newspapers from America as announced the successes of the British in SouthCarolina after the surrender of its capital in 1780--that the inhabitants had given up the contest, and generally taken British protection; and that the estates of Henry Laurens, and of the other obstinate rebels who still adhered to the ruined cause of independence, were under sequestration by the British conquerors. To such communications Mr. Laurens steadily replied, "none of these things move me."

In the year 1781 lieutenant colonel John Laurens, the eldest son of Henry Laurens, arrived in France as the special minister of congress. The father was requested to write to the son to withdraw himself from the court of France, and assurances were given that it would operate in his favour. To these requests he replied, "my son is of age, and has a will of his own, if I should write to him in the terms you request it would have no effect; he would only conclude that confinement and persuasion had softened

me. I know him to be a man of honour. He loves me dearly, and would lay down his life to save mine, but I am sure he would not sacrifice his honour to save my life: and I applaud him."

Mr. Laurens pencilled an address to the secretaries of state for the use of pen and ink to draw a bill of exchange on a merchant in London who was in his debt, for money, to answer his immediate exigencies. This was delivered to their lordships, but they returned no answer though no provision was made for the support of their prisoner. Mr. Laurens was thus left to languish in confinement under many infirmities and without the means of applying his own resources on the spot for his immediate support.

As soon as Mr. Laurens had completed a year in the tower, he was called upon to pay £97 108. sterling to two warders for attending on him. To which he replied, "I will not pay the warders whom I never employed, and whose attendance I shall be glad to dispense with."

1

Three weeks after, the secretaries of state consented that Mr. Laurens should have the use of pen and ink for the purpose of drawing a bill of exchange; but they were taken away the moment that business was done.

As the year 1781 drew near a close, Mr. Laurens's sufferings in the tower became generally known, and excited compassion in his favour and odium against the authors of his confinement. It had been also found by the inefficacy of many attempts that ne concessions could be obtained from him. It was therefore resolved to release him, but difficulties arose about the mode. Mr. Laurens would not consent to any act which implied that he was a British subject; and he had been committed as such on charge of high treason. Ministers to extricate themselves from this difficulty, at length proposed to take bail for his appearance at the court of king's bench. When the words of the recognizance "Our sovereign lord the king" were read to Mr Laurens, he replied in open court, "not my sovereign;" and with this declaration he, with Mr. Oswald and Mr. Anderson as his securities, entered into an obligation for his appearance at the courts of king's bench the next Easter term, and for not departing thence without leave of the court. Mr. Laurens was immediately released. When the

time of his appearance at court drew near he was not only discharged from all obligations to attend, but was requested by lord Shelburne to go to the continent in subserviency to a scheme for making peace with America. Mr. Laurens was startled at the idea of being released without any equivalent, as he had uniformly held himself to be a prisoner of war. From a high sense of personal independence, and unwillingness to be brought under an apparent obligation, he replied, "That he durst not accept himself as a gift; and that as congress had once offered lieutenant-general Burgoyne for him, he had no doubt of their now giving lieutenantgeneral earl Cornwallis for the same purpose."

The contrast between this close confinement in the tower for more than fourteen months, and the active life to which Mr. Laurens had been accustomed, so far undermined his constitution that he never afterwards enjoyed good health. Soon after his release he received a commission from congress to be one of their ministers for negociating a peace with Great-Britain. He repaired to Paris; and there, in conjunction with Dr. Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay, signed the preliminaries of peace on the 30th of November, 1782; by which the independence of the United States was acknowledged. Mr. Laurens soon after returned to Carolina. His countrymen, well pleased with his conduct, stood ready to honour him with every mark of distinction in their power to confer; but he declined all solicitations to suffer himself to be elected either governor, member of congress, or of the state legislature. When the project of a general convention was under consideration for revising the federal bond of union, he was without his permission elected one of its members; but declined serving. He retired from all public business, and amused himself with agricultural experiments, and promoting the happiness of his children, domestics, friends, and neighbours. His health, which had

• Mr. Laurens's treatment of his domestics was highly commendable. He was strict in making them do their proper business, and enforced among them the observance of decency, order, and morality; but amply supplied their wants, and freely contributed to their comforts. Few labourers in any country had more of the enjoyments of life than the cultivators of his grounds. They accordingly lived long, and their natural increase was great. To their religious instructions he was also attentive.

long been delicate, gradually declined; and on the 8th of December, 1792, near the close of his sixty-ninth year, he expired. His will concluded with these words:" I solemnly enjoin it on my son as an indispensable duty, that as soon as he conveniently can after my decease he cause my body to be wrapped in twelve yards of tow cloth, and burnt until it be entirely consumed, and then collecting my bones, deposit them wherever he may think proper." This request was fulfilled.

CRITICISM.-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

An essay on the causes of the Variety of Complexion and figure in the human species, &c. &c. By Samuel Stanhope Smith, D. D. L. L. D. &c. &c.' (Continued from p. 163.)

ANOTHER Subject which calls for a few preliminary remarks, is the very extraordinary and, as we conceive, incorrect representation, given by Dr. Smith, of the native population of our own country. That the reader may possess a perfect knowledge of our author's sentiments on this point, instead of laying before him a mere abstract of them, by which they might possibly be mutilated or misrepresented, we shall communicate them to him in his own words.

"Another example, says he, of the power of climate to change the complexion, and even to introduce great alterations into the whole constitution, is presented to the view of the philosophic observer, in the native population of the United States. Sprung, not long since, from the British, the Irish, and the German nations, who are the fairest people in Europe, they have extended themselves over the American continent from the thirty-first to the forty-fifth degree of northern latitude. And, notwithstanding the recent period at which the first European establishments were made in America; and the continual influx of emigrants from the old continent, and their frequent intermarriages with the native Anglo-Americans; and what is of not less consequence in this question, notwithstanding ideas of personal beauty derived from