with great affection.

I have had thirty-nine grandchildren

and four great-grandchildren.

I am now in the winter of life, and feel sensibly the effects of old age. I live on the same spot where the Indians took us from in 1754; but the face of Nature has so changed that old savage fears are all banished. My vacant hours I often employ in reflecting on the various scenes that have marked the different stages of my life. When viewing the present rising generation, in the bloom of health and enjoying those gay pleasures which shed their exhilarating influence so plentifully in the morn of life, I look back to my early days, when I, too, was happy and basked in the sunshine of good fortune. Little do they think that the meridian of their lives can possibly be rendered miserable by captivity or a prison: as little, too, did I think that my gilded prospects could be obscured: but it was the happy delusion of youth; and I fervently wish there was no deception. But that Being who "sits upon the circle of the earth and views the inhabitants as grasshoppers" allots all our fortunes.

Although I have drunk so largely from the cup of sorrow, yet my present happiness is a small compensation. Twice has my country been ravaged by war since my remembrance. I have detailed the share I bore in the first in the last, although the place in which I live was not a field of bloody battle, yet its vicinity to Ticonderoga and the savages that ravaged the Coos country rendered it perilous and distressing. But now no one can set a higher value on the smiles of peace than myself. The savages are driven beyond the lakes, and our country has no enemies. The gloomy wilderness, that forty years ago secreted the Indian and the beast of prey, has vanished away, and the thrifty farm smiles in its stead; the Sundays, that were then employed in guarding a fort, are now quietly devoted to worship; the tomahawk and scalping knife have given place to the sickle and ploughshare; and prosperous husbandry now thrives where the terrors of death once chilled us with fear.

My numerous progeny often gather around me to hear the sufferings once felt by their aunt or grandmother, and wonder at their magnitude. My daughter Captive still keeps the dress she appeared in when brought to my bedside by the French nurse at the Ticonderoga hospital, and often refreshes my memory with past scenes when showing it to her children. These things yield a kind of melancholy pleasure.

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Instances of longevity are remarkable in my family. My aged mother, before her death, could say to me, Arise, daughter, and go to thy daughter; for thy daughter's daughter has got a daughter;" a command which few mothers can make and be obeyed.

And now, reader, after sincerely wishing that your days' may be as happy as mine have been unfortunate, I bid you adieu.

CHARLESTOWN, June 20, 1798.

Names of Persons killed by the Indians in Charlestown, No. 4.

Isaac Goodale,

}

Nathaniel Gould. October, 1747.

Obadiah Sartwell, June, 1749.

Lieutenant Moses Willard, June 18, 1756.

Asahel Stebbins, August, 1758.

Josiah Kellogg, 1759.

BURNING OF ROYALTON.

As a union of interest always strengthens the bonds of affection, so a participation in extreme sufferings will never fail to produce a mutual sensibility. Prompted by a generous glow of filial love and affection, we generally take delight in surveying whatever gave our forefathers joy, and are ready to drop a sympathetic tear when we review the sufferings which they have undergone. But, contrary to the laws of sympathy and justice, the attention of the public is often engrossed with accounts of the more dreadful conflagrations of populous cities in foreign countries or the defeat of armies in the field of carnage; while the destruction of small frontier settlements by the Indian tribes in our own country is at the same time little known, if not entirely forgotten. Thus the miseries of our neighbors and friends around us, whose bitter cries have been heard in our streets, are too often suffered to pass unnoticed down the current of time into the tomb of oblivion.

The burning of Royalton was an event most inauspicious and distressing to the first settlers of that town. Nor is it a little strange that, among the numerous authors who have recorded the events of the American revolution, some of them have not given place in their works to a more full detail of that afflictive scene.

Laboring under all the difficulties and hardships to which our infant settlements were subject, and striving by persevering industry to soar above every obstacle which might present itself to obstruct their progress, they had filled their

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barns with the fruits of the land, their storehouses were crowded with the comforts of life, and all nature seemed to wear a propitious smile. All around them promised prosperity. They were far removed from the noise of war; and, though conscious of their danger, fondly hoped they should escape the ravages of a savage foe.

Royalton was chartered in the year 1779. A considerable settlement, however, had taken place previous to that time, and the town was in a thriving condition. Large stocks of cattle, which would confer honor upon the enterprise of farmers in old countries, were here seen grazing in their fields.

United by common interest, living on terms of friendship, and manifesting that each one in a good degree “loved his neighbor as himself," harmony prevailed in their borders, social happiness was spread around their firesides, and plenty crowned their labors. But, alas! the dreadful reverse remains to be told. While joys possessed were turned to sorrows, their hopes for joys to come were blasted. And as the former strongly marked the grievous contrast between a state of prosperity and affliction, the latter only showed the fallacy of promising ourselves the future.

On the morning of the 16th of October, 1780, before the dawn of day, the inhabitants of this town were surprised by the approach of about three hundred Indians of various tribes. They were led by the Caghnewaga tribe, and had left Canada intending to destroy Newbury, a town in the eastern part of Vermont, on Connecticut River. A British lieutenant, by the name of Horton, was their chief commander; and one Le Mott, a Frenchman, was his second. Their pilot, or leader, was a despicable villain, by the name of Hamilton, who had been made prisoner by the Americans at the taking of Burgoyne in 1777. He had been at Newbury and Royalton the preceding summer on parole of honor, left the latter place with several others under pretence of going to survey lands