Bishop had effected his escape; and the necessity of abandoning my generous benefactress when surrounded by danger; joined to the affliction of returning to my native country,—the country of my birth, my heart, and my pride!—without name, without fortune, without friends! no parents to receive me, no protector to counsel me; unacknowledged by my family,—unknown even to the children of my father!—Oh! bitter, bitter were my feelings!—Yet when I considered that no action of my life had offended society, or forfeited my rights to benevolence, I felt my courage revive, for I trusted in Providence. Sleep then visited my eye-lids, though hard was the bed upon which I sought it; hard and cold! the month was December. Happy but short respite of forgetfulness! Four days and nights followed, of the most terrible anxiety, ere Ambroise returned. He then brought me the dismaying intelligence, that circumstances had intervened, in his own affairs, that made it impossible for him, at that moment, to quit his country. Yet less than ever could my voyage be delayed, the commissary having, in his fury, advertised a description of my person, and set a price upon my head; publicly vowing that I should be made over to the guillotine, when found, for an example. Oh reign so justly called of terrour! How lawless is its cruelty! How blest by all mankind will be its termination.

'It now became necessary to my safety, that Ambroise, who was known to be a domestic of the Marchioness, should not appear to[Pg 719] belong to me; and that, to avoid any suspicion that I was the person advertised by the commissary, I should present myself to the pilot as an accidental passenger.

[Pg 719]

'Ambroise had found means, during his absence, to communicate with the Marchioness; from whom he brought me a letter of the sweetest kindness; and intelligence and injunctions of the utmost importance.

'The commissary, she informed me, immediately upon my disappearance, had presented the promissory-note to the bankers; but they had declared it not to be valid, till it were either signed by the heir of the late Earl Melbury, or re-signed, with a fresh date, by Lord Denmeath. The commissary, therefore, had sent over an agent to Lord Denmeath, to claim, as my husband, the six thousand pounds, before my evasion should be known. The Marchioness conjured me, nevertheless, to forbear applying to my family; or avowing my name, or my return to my native land, till I should be assured of the safety of the Bishop; whom the commissary had now ordered to be pursued, and upon whom the most horrible vengeance might be wreaked, should my escape to 

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