boy and young Slocum, aged thirteen, and little Frances, aged five, and prepared to depart. But finding young Slocum lame, at the entreaties of the mother, they sat him down and left him. Their captives were then young Kingsley and the little girl. The mother's heart swelled unutterably, and for years she could not describe the scene without tears. She saw an Indian throw her child over his shoulder, and as her hair fell over her face, with one hand she brushed it aside, while the tears fell from her distended eye, and stretching out her other hand towards her mother, she called for her aid. The Indian turned into the bushes, and this was the last seen of little Frances. This image probably was carried by the mother to her grave. About a month after this they came again, and with the most awful cruelties, murdered the aged grand-father, and shot a ball in the leg of the lame boy. This he carried with him in his leg nearly sixty years, to the grave. The last child was born a few months after these tragedies! What were the conversations, what were the conjectures, what were the hopes and the fears respecting the fate of the little Frances, I will not attempt to describe. Probably the children saw that in all after life, the heart of the stricken mother was yearning for the little one whose fate was uncertain, and whose face she could never see again.

As the boys grew up and became men, they were very anxious to know the fate of their little fair-haired sister. They wrote letters, they sent inquiries, they made journeys through all the west and into the Canadas, if peradventure they might learn anything respecting her fate. Four of these long journeys were made in vain. A silence, deep as that of the deepest forest through which they wandered, hung over her fate, and that for sixty years.

My reader will now pass over fifty-eight years from the time of this captivity, and suppose himself far in the wilderness, in the farthest part of Indiana. A very respectable agent of the United States is travelling there, and weary and belated, with a tired horse, he stops at an Indian wigwam for the night. He can speak the Indian language. The family are rich, for Indians have horses and skins in. abundance. In the course of the evening he notices that the hair of the woman is light, and her skin, under her dress, is also white.She told him she was a white child, but had been carried away when a very small girl. She could only remember that her name was Slocum, that she lived in a little house on the banks of the Susquehanna, and how many there were in her father's family, and the order of their ages! But the name of the town she could not remember.— On reaching his home, the agent mentioned this story to his mother, she urged and pressed him to write and print the account. Accordingly he wrote and sent it to Lancaster, of this State, requesting that it might be published. By some, to me unaccountable blunder, it lay in the office two years before it was printed. But last summer it was published. In a few days it fell into the hands of Mr. Slocum, of Wilkesbarre, who was the little two and a half years old boy, when Frances was taken. In a few days he was off to seek his sister,

taking with him his oldest sister, (the one who aided him to escape,) writing to a brother who now lives in Ohio, and who I believe was born after the captivity, to meet him and go with him.

The two brothers and sister are now (1838) on their way to see litle Frances, just sixty years after her captivity. After travelling more than three hundred miles through the wilderness, they reached the Indian country, the home of the Miami Indian. Nine miles from the nearest white, they find the little wigwam. "I shall know my sister," said the civilized sister, because she lost the nail of her first finger. You, brother, hammered it off in the black-smith shop when she was four years old."-They go into the cabin and find an Indian woman having the appearance of seventy-five. She is painted and jewelled off, and dressed like the Indians in all respects. Nothing but her hair and covered skin, would indicate her origin, They get an interpreter and begin to converse. She tells them where she was born, her name, &c., with the order of her father's family "How came your nail gone?" said the oldest sister. My older brother pounded it off, when I was a little child, in the shop!" In a word, they were satisfied that this was Frances, their long lost sister! They asked her what her Christian name was. She could not remember. Was it Frances? She smiled and said "yes." It was the first time she had heard it pronounced for sixty years! Here, then, they were met-two brothers and two sisters! They were all satisfied they were brothers and sisters. But what a contrast! The brothers were walking the cabin unable to speak; the oldest sister was weeping, but the poor Indian sat motionless and passionless as indifferent as a spectator. There was no throbbing, no fine chords in her bosom to be touched.

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When Mr. Slocum, was giving me this history, I said to him, "but could she not speak English!" "Not a word." "Did she know her age?" "No-had no idea of it." "But was she entirely ignorant?" "Sir, she didn't know when Sunday comes?" This was indeed the consummation of ignorance in a descendant of the Puritans!

But what a picture for a painter would the inside of that cabin have afforded! Here were the children of civilization, respectable, temperate, intelligent and wealthy, able to overcome mountains to recover their sister. There was the child of the forest, not able to tell the day of the week, whose views and feelings were all confined to their cabin. Her whole history might be told in a word. She lived with the Delawares who carried her off, till grown up, and then married a Delaware. He either died or run away, and she then married a Miami Indian, a Chief, as I believe. She had two daughters, both of whom are married and live in the glory of an Indian cabin, skin cloths, and cow skin head dresses. Not one of the family can speak a word of English. They haye horses in abundance, and when the Indian sister wanted to accompany her new relatives, she whipped out, bridled her horse, and then, a la Turk,

mounted astride and was off. At night she could throw a blanket around her, down upon the floor, and at once be asleep.

The brothers, and sister tried to persuade their lost sister to return with them, and if she desired it, bring her children. They would transplant her again on the banks of the Susquehanna, and of their wealth make her home happy. But no. They had always been kind to her, and she had promised her late husband on his death-bed, that she would never leave the Indians. And there they left her and hers, wild and darkened heathens, though they sprung from a pious race. You can hardly imagine how much this brother is interested for her. He says he intends this autumn to go again that long journey to see his tawny sister-to carry her some presents, and perhaps will go and petition Congress that if ever these Miamis are driven off, there may be a tract of land reserved for his sister and her descendants. His heart yearns with an indescribable tenderness for the helpless one, who, sixty-one years ago, was torn from the arms of the mother.Mysterious Providence! How wonderful the tie which can thus bind a family together with a chain so strong that nothing can break its links!

I will only add that nothing has ever been heard of the boy Kingsley. The probability certainly is, that he is not living. This account, hastily and imperfectly given, I had from the lips of Mr. Slocum, the brother, and the same who was two and a half years old when little Frances was carried away. I believe I have altered nothing, though I have omitted enough to make the good part of an interesting volume.

In the late American Revolution, Britain had the inhumanity to reward these sons of barbarity for depredations committed upon those who were struggling in the cause of liberty!-It was through their instigation that the hatchets of the Indians were made drunk with American blood!-the widow's wail, the virgin's shriek, and infant's trembling cry, was music in their ears. In cold blood they struck their cruel tomahawks into the defenceless head of a Miss M'CREA, a beautiful girl, who was that very day to have been married! The particulars of the inhuman transaction follow:-Previous to the late war between America and Great Britain, a British officer by the name of JONES, an accomplished young man, resided near Fort Edward-his visits thither became more frequent when he found himself irresistibly drawn by charms of native worth and beauty.Miss M'CREA, whose memory is dear to humanity and true affection, was the object of his peregrinations.

Mr. JONES had not taken the precautions necessary in hazardous love, but had manifested to the lady by his constant attention, undissembled and ingenuous demeanor, that ardent affection, which a susceptible heart compelled her implicitly to return. In this mutual

interchange of passions, they suffered themselves to be transported on the ocean of imagination, till the unwelcome necessity of a separation cut off every springing hope. The war between Great Britain and America commenced--a removal from this happy spot was in consequence suggested to Mr. JONES, as indispensable. Nothing could alleviate their mutual horror, but duty--nothing could allay their reciprocal grief, so as to render a separate corporeal existence tolerable, but solemn vows, with the ideas of a future meeting. Mr. JONES repaired to Canada, where all intercourse with the Provincials was prohibited. Despair, which presented itself in aggravated colours when General BURGOYNE's expedition through the States was fixed, succeeded to his former hopes. The British army being encamped about three miles from the Fort, a descent was daily projected. Here Mr. JONES could not but recognize the spot, on which rested all his joys. He figured to his mind the dread, which his hostile approach must raise in the breast of her, whom of all others, he thought it his highest interest to protect. In spite of errettes and commands to the contrary, he found means secretly to convey a letter, intreating her not to leave the town with the family, assuring her, that as soon as the fort should have surrendered, he would convey her to an assylum, where they might peaceably consummate the nuptial ceremony. Far from discrediting the sineerity of him who could not deceive her, she heroically refused to follow the flying villagers. The remonstrances of a father, or the tearful entreaties of a mother and numerous friends could not avail! It was enough that her lover was her friend--she considered herself protected by the love and voluntary assurance of her youthful hero. With the society of a servant maid, she impatiently waited the desired conveyance. Mr. JONES finding the difficulty into which he was brought, at length, for want of better convoy, hired a party of twelve Indians, to carry a letter to Miss M'CREA, with his own horse, for the purpose of carrying her to the place appointed. They set off, fired with the anticipation of their promised premium, which was to consist of a quantity of spirits, on condition that they brought her off in safety. which, to an Indian was the most cogent stimulous the young lover could have named. Having arrived in view of her window, they sagaciously held up the letter, to prevent the fears and apprehensions which a savage knows he must exeite, in the sight of tenderness and sensibility. Her faith and expectations enabled her to divine the business of these ferocious missionaries, while her frightened maid uttered nought but shrieks and cries. They arrived, and by their signs convinced her from whom they had their instructions. If a doubt could remain, it was removed by the letter--it was from her lover. A lock of his hair, which it contained, presented his manly figure to her gloomy fancy.

Here, reader, guess what must have been her ecstacy. She resolved to brave even the most horrid aspect, which might appear between her and him, whom she considered already hers, without a sigh--she did not for a moment hesitate to follow the wishes of her