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cent circumstances have too fatally testified,) with that part of our naval force employed by government on the preventive service. Some of the vessels on the station are perpetually hovering along on the coast; but in spite of their utmost vigilance, immense quantities of contraband goods are almost nightly landed, and no where with more daring frequency than in the Isle of Wight.

In my rambles along its shores, the inhabitants of almost every cottage and fisherman's cabin, for many miles round, became known to me. I have always a peculiar pleasure in conversing with these people, in listening with familiar interest (to which they are never insensible) to the details of their feelings and opinions, and of their family concerns. With some of my new acquaintances I had ventured to expostulate on the iniquitous, as well as hazardous nature of their secret traffic, and many wives and mothers sanctioned, with approving looks and half-constrained expressions, my remonstrances to their husbands and sons. These heard for the most part in sullen down-looking silence, (not however expressive of ill-will towards me,) or sometimes answered my arguments with the remark, that "Poor folks must live ;" that " half of them, during the war, had earned an honest livelihood in other ways; but now they were turned adrift, and must do something to get bread for their little ones; and, after all, while the rich and great folks were pleased to encourage their trade, it was plain they could not think much harm of those who carried it on." This last was a stinging observation, one of those with which babes and sucklings so often confound the sophistry of worldly wisdom. Amongst these humble families there was one, at whose cabin I stopped oftenest, and lingered longest, in my evening rambles. The little dwelling was wedged in a manner into a cleft of the grey rock, up which, on every slanting ledge, the hand of industry had accumulated garden mould, and fostered a beautiful vegetation; and immediately before it, a patch of the loveliest green sward sloped down to the edge of the sea-sand, enamelled with aromatic wild thyme, and dotted, next the ocean, with tufts of thrift, centaury, and eringo, and with the gold-co

loured blossoms of the horn poppy The peculiar neatness of the little cabin had early attracted my attention, which was further interested by the singular appearance of its owner. He was a large tall man, of about sixty, distinguished in his person by an air of uncommon dignity, and by a dress, the peculiarity of which, together with his commanding carriage, and countenance of bold daring, always suggested the buccaneer of romantic legends to my fancy. He wore large loose trowsers of shaggy dark-blue cloth, a sort of woollen vest, broadly striped with grey, for the most part open at the throat and bosom, and buckled in at the waist with a broad leathern belt, in which two pistols were commonly stuck, and not unfrequently an old cutlass; and over his shoulder was slung a second belt of broad white knitting, to which a powder-flask, a leathern pouch, and often a thick short duck-gun, were suspended. A dark fur cap was the usual covering of his head, and his thick black hair was not so much intermingled with grey, as streaked with locks of perfect whiteness. Notwithstanding this formidable equipment, the harmless avocation of a fisherman was his ostensible employment, though, to all appearance, not very zealously pursued; for, in the day-time, he was oftener to be seen lying along the shore in the broad sun, or strolling by the water's edge, or cleaning the lock of his gun, under the shadow of a projecting crag, busied with the hook and line in his little boat, or mending his nets by the cabin door. At almost all hours of the night, a light was seen burning at the cottage window, and the master of the family, with his son, was invariably absent, if (as was sometimes my cus tom) I looked in on them after dark, on my return from some distant spot towards my own habitation,

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At such an hour I was sure to find the female inmates, (the wife and widowed daughter of the man I have been describing,) in a state of visible perturbation, for which it was easy to assign a cause; but I had remonstra ted in vain with the infatuated husband, and it was still more fruitless to argue with the helpless women. Ri chard Campbell was not a native of the Isle of Wight, nor one trained from his youth up to " the sea in ships, and occupy his busi go down to

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ess in great waters." For many ge- longings, and would not control those erations, his family had owned and of his child, especially as he had another ultivated a small farm in the North son, a fine promising lad, who took f England; himself had been bred willingly to the business of the farm, pa tiller of the ground, contrary to and already lightened his father's lais own wishes, for they had pointed bours. The mother grieved sore at om his very cradle to a seafaring parting from her first-born, (what feelfe; and all his hours of boyish pas- ings are like those of a mother tome and youthful leisure, were spent ward her first-born?) and the young the briny element, close to which, Maurice was her most loving and duthe head of a small bay, or inlet, tiful child, and she had reared him ood his paternal farm. Just as he with such anxious tenderness as only ad attained his twentieth year, his mothers feel, through the perilous years ther died, leaving him (an only child) of a sickly infancy. But the father he inheritor of all his little property, jested with her fears, and entered with nd at liberty to follow the bent of his the ardour of a boyish heart into his wn inclination. The temptation was son's enterprizing hopes; and at last rong:-Tumultuous wishes, and the youth won from her an unwilling owerful yearnings, were busy in his consent. And when she shook her head eart; but he was "the only son of mournfully to his promises of bringis mother, and she was a widow." ing rare and beautiful things from e staid to comfort her old age, and foreign parts for her and his little › cultivate his little inheritance, part- sister, coaxed a half smile into her influenced perhaps in his decision tearful looks, by concluding with, y his attachment to a pretty blue-" And then I will stay quiet with ed girl, whose sweeter smiles re- you and father, and never want to arded his filial piety, and whose hand leave you again.' -"My Maurice left as very shortly its richer recompense. us," said the mother, "and from that he widowed mother continued to time every thing went wrong. Before well under her son's roof, tended, like he had been gone a month, we buried aomi, by a daughter-in-law as loving my husband's mother; but God called Ruth, but happier than the Hebrew her away in a good old age, so we had atron in the possession of both her no right to take on heavily at her loss, ildren. though we felt it sorely." In addition to his own land, Campbell rented some acres of a neighbouring gentleman, whose disposition was restlessly litigious, and Campbell being unhappily fiery and impetuous, disputes arose between them, and proceeded to such lengths, that both parties finally referred their differences to legal arbitrement. After many tedious, and apparently frivolous delays, particularly irritating to Campbell's impatient spirit, the cause was given in favour of his opponent; and from that hour he adopted the firm persuasion that im→ partial justice was banished from the land of his fathers. This fatal prejudice turned all his thoughts to bitterness, haunted him like a phantom in his fields, by his cheerful hearth, in his once-peaceful bed, in the very embraces of his children," who, were born," he would tell them, in the midst of their innocent caresses,"slaves in the land where their fathers had been free men."

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Many children were born to the ung couple, as likely boys and rls as ever the sun shone upon,” said e wife of Campbell, from whom, at fferent times, I gleaned "the sime annals” I am relating. "But God as very good to them. He increased eir store with their increasing fami, and provided bread for the little ouths that were sent to claim it. She ver grudged her labour, and a betr nor a kinder husband than she was essed with, never woman had. To sure, he had his fancies and partilar ways, and when he could steal a oliday, all his delight was to spend on the bay that was near their farm, he worse luck) for many an anxious our had she known even then, when e was out in his little boat shooting ild-fowl in the dark winter's nights. ut no harm ever came to him, only eir eldest boy, their dear Maurice,' The mother never named him without glistening eye)" took after his faer's fancy for the sea, and set his art on being a sailor." And the faer called to mind his own youthful

In this state of mind he eagerly listened to the speculative visions of a few agricultural adventurers, who

had embarked their small capital on an American project, and were on the point of quitting their native country to seek wealth, liberty, and independence, in the back settlements of the United States. In an evil hour, Campbell was persuaded to embark his fortunes with those of the self-expatriated emigrants. The tears and entreaties of his wife and children were unavailing to deter him from his rash purpose; and the unhappy mother was torn from the beloved home, where her heart lingered with a thousand tender reminiscences, and most tenaciously in the persuasion, that if her lost child was ever restored to his native country, to the once-happy abode of his parents his first steps would be directed. The ship in which the Campbells were embarked, with their five remaining children, and all their worldly possessions, performed twothirds of her course with prosperous celerity; but as she approached her destined haven, the wind, which had hitherto favoured her, became contrary, and she lost sea-way for many days. At last, a storm, which had been gathering with awfully gradual preparation, burst over her with tremend ous fury. Three days and nights she drove before it, but on the fourth her masts and rigging went overboard, and before the wreck could be cut away, a plank in the ship's side was stove in by the floating timbers. In the confusion which had assembled every soul on deck, the leak was not discovered till the water in the hold had gained to a depth of many feet; and though the pump was set to work immediately, and for a time kept going by the almost superhuman exertions of crew and passengers, all was unavailing; and to betake themselves to the boats was the last hurried and desperate resource. Campbell had succeeded in lowering his three youngest children into one of them, already crowded with their fellow-sharers in calamity, and was preparing to send down his eldest son and daughter, and to descend himself with their mother in his arms, when a woman pressing before him with despairing haste, leapt down into the crowded boat, which upset in an instant, and the perishing cry of twenty drowning creatures mingled with the agonizing shriek of parents, husbands, and children, from the deck of the sinking ship. The other boat

was yet alongside, and Campbell was at last seated in her with his two surviving children, and their unconscious mother, who had sunk into a state of blessed insensibility, when the drowning screams of her lost little ones rung in her ears. Five-and-twenty persons were wedged in this frail bark, with a cask of water, and a small bag of biscuit. An old sail had been flung down with these scanty stores, which they contrived to hoist on the subsiding of the storm, towards the evening of their first day's commitment in that "forlorn hope," to the wide world of waters. Their compass had been lost in the large boat, and faint indeed were their hopes of ever reaching lan from whence they had no means c computing their distance. But the unsleeping eye of Providence watched over them, and on the fourth day of their melancholy progress, a sail making towards them was descried o the verge of the horizon. It neared and the ship proved to be a homewardbound West India trader, into which the perishing adventurers were rece ved with prompt humanity; and en her reaching her appointed haven, (Portsmouth) Campbell, with his companions in misfortune, and th remnant of his once-flourishing family, once more set foot on British earth. He had saved about his person a sma!!! part of his little property; but the whole residue was insufficient to equip them for a second attempt, had he even been so obstinately bent on the prosecution of his trans-Atlanticscheme as to persist in it against (what appeared to him) the declared will of the Almighty. Once, in his younger days, he had visited the Isle of Wight, and the remembrance of its stone cot tages, and beautiful bays, was yet fresh in his mind. He crossed over with his family, and a few weeks put him in possession of a neat cabin and sma fishing-boat; and for a time the little family was subsisted in frugal comfort by the united industry of the father and son. Soon after their settlement in the island, their daughter (mature to lovely womanhood) married a re spectable and enterprizing young man the owner of a pilot vessel. In the course of three years, she brought her husband as many children, and during that time all went well with them; but her William's occupation, a lucr tive one in time of war, exposed him

o frequent and fearful dangers, and ne tempestuous winter's night, haing ventured out to the assistance of perishing vessel, his own little vesel foundered in the attempt, and the norning's tide floated her husband's orpse to the feet of his distracted wife, s she stood on the sea-beach watch ng every white sail that became viible through the haze of the greylouded dawn.

The forlorn widow and her orphan abes found a refuge in the humble abin of her father, and he and his on redoubled their laborious exerions for their support. But these vere heavy claims, and the little faily but just contrived to live, barely upplied with the coarsest necessaries. When temptation assails the poor man y holding out to his grasp the means f lessening the hardships and privaions of those dear to him as his own oul, is it to be wondered at that he o often fails, when others, without he same excuses to plead, set him the xample of yielding? Campbell (haing first been seduced into casual and aconsiderable ventures) was at last nrolled in the gang of smugglers, who arried on their perilous trade along he coast; and from that time, though omparative plenty revisited his cotage, the careless smile of innocent seurity no longer beamed on the feaures of its inmates. Margaret strugled long with well-principled firmless against the infatuation of her husand and son; but, flushed with sucess, and emboldened by association with numbers, they resisted her anxius remonstrances; and at last, heartick of fruitless opposition, and shrinkng from the angry frown of him who ad been for so many years the affecionate sharer of her joys and sorrows, he first passively acquiesced in their roceedings, and in the end was peruaded to contribute her share towards urthering them, by secretly disposing f the unlawfully obtained articles.

During my abode in the Isle of Wight, I had become acquainted with wo or three families resident within few miles of the spot where I had aken up my habitation. With one of hese (consisting of a widow lady of ank and her two grown-up daughters) I had been previously acquainted in London, and at other places. They had been recommended by the medical adviser of the youngest daughter, who

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was threatened by a pulmonary affec-
tion, to try the effects of a winter at
the back of the island, and I was
agreeably surprised to find them inha-
bitants of a beautiful villa, "
tage of humility," about three miles
from my own cabin at the Under-
cliff. They were agreeable and ac-
complished women; and a few hours
spent in their company formed a plea-
sing and not unfrequent variety in my
solitary life; and in the dearth of so-
ciety incident to their insulated re-
treat, my fair friends condescended to
tolerate, and even to welcome the ec-
centric old bachelor with their most
gracious smiles. One November even-
ing my ramble had terminated at their
abode, and I had just drawn my chair
into the cheerful circle round the tea-
table, when a powdered footman en-
tered, and spoke a few words in a mys-
terious half whisper to the elder lady,
who smiled and replied, "Oh, tell
her to come in; there is no one here
of whom she need be apprehensive."
The communication of which assu-
rance quickly ushered into the room
my new acquaintance Margaret Camp-
bell. An old rusty black bonnet was
drawn down lower than usual over her
face, and her dingy red cloak (under
which she carried some bulky parcel)
was wrapped closely round a figure
that seemed endeavouring to shrink
itself into the least possible compass.
At sight of me she half started, and
dropt her eyes with a fearful curtsey.

Ah, Margaret !" I exclaimed, too
well divining the object of her dark-
ling embassy. But the lady of the house
encouraged her to advance, laughing-
ly saying, "Oh, never mind Mr
he will not inform against us, though
he shakes his head so awfully-Well,
have you brought the tea?"
"And
the lace, and the silk scarfs?" chimed
in the younger ladies, with eager cu-
riosity sparkling in their eyes, as they
almost dragged the important budget,
with their own fair hands, from be-
neath the poor woman's cloak. “Have
you brought our scarfs at last? what
a time we have been expecting them!"
-"Yes, indeed," echoed Lady Mary;
" and, depending on your promise of
procuring me some, I have been quite
distressed for tea-There is really no
dependance on your word, Mrs Camp-
bell; and yet I have been at some
pains to impress you with a just sense
of your Christian duties, amongst

which you have often heard me remark, (and I am sure the tracts I have given you inculcate the same lesson,) that a strict attention to truth is one of the most essential-Well! where's the tea?"-" Oh! my lady," answer ed the poor woman, with a humbly deprecating tone and look, “if you did but know what risks we run to get these things, and how uncertain our trade is, you would not wonder that we cannot always oblige our customers so punctually as we would wish-I have brought the silks and scarfs for the young ladies, but the

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"What! no tea yet? Real ly it is too bad, Mrs Campbell; I must try if other people are not more to be depended on."- "Indeed, my lady, we have tried hard to get it for your ladyship; but there's such a sharp look-out now, and the Ranger has been lying off the island for this week past, our people haven't been able to get nothing ashore, and yet I am sure my husband and son have been upon the watch along the beach, and in the boat these three nights in all this dreadful weather; and to-night, though it blows a gale, they're out again;" and the poor woman cast a tearful shuddering glance towards the window, against which the wind beat dismally, accompanied with thick driving sleet, that half obscured the glimpses of a sickly moon.

The lady was pacified by these assurances, that the foreign luxury should be procured for her that night, if human exertions, made at the peril of human life, could succeed in landing it. The silks, &c. were examined and approved of by the young ladies, and finally taken and paid for, after some haggling about the price of blood," as the purchase-money might too justly have been denominated. Mrs Cambell received it with a deep sigh, and, humbly curtseying, with drew from the presence, not without (involuntarily, as it were) stealing an abashed glance towards my countenance as she passed me. She was no sooner out of the room than her fair customers began to expatiate, with rapturous volubility, on the beauty and cheapness of their purchases-an inconsistency of remark that puzzled me exceedingly, as, not five minutes before, while bargaining with the seller, they had averred her goods to be of very inferior manufacture, and

exorbitantly dear. "Ay, but," observed the prudent mother, "you were in such a hurry, or you might have made better bargains; but it's always the way-and yet I winked and winked at you both. I should have got those things half as cheap again.

Indulgently tender as I am inclined to be to the little whims and foibles of the sex, I could not, on the present occasion, refrain from hinting to my fair friends a part of what was passing in my mind. At first they laughed at my quizzical scruples, and replied to them with the common-place remark, that "the few things they oc casionally purchased could make no difference; for that the people would smuggle all the same, and find encouragement from others, if not from them." And when I pressed the question a little further, suggesting to their consciences whether all who encouraged the trade were not, in a great measure, answerable for the guilt incurred, and the lives lost in the prosecution of it, they bade me not talk of such horrid things, and huddled away their recent purchases in a sort of disconcerted silence, that spoke any thing rather than remorse of conscience and purposed reformation. My "sermonizing," as it was termed, seemed to have thrown a spell over the frank sociability that usually enlivened our evening coteries. Conversation languished-the piano was out of tune and the young la dies not in a singing mood. Their mamma broke her netting-thread every three minutes, and, from a dissertation on the degenerate rottenness of modern cotton, digressed insensibly into a train of serious observations on the dangers impending over Church and State, from the machinations of evangelical reformers-ever and anon, when the storm waxed louder and louder, interspersing her remarks with pathetic complaints of the perverse ness with which the very elements seemed to conspire with Government against the safe landing of the precious bales.

The storm did rage fearfully, and its increasing violence warned me to retrace my homeward way, before the disappearance of a yet glimmering moon should leave me to pursue in total darkness. Flapping my over my eyes, and wrapping myself snugly round in the thick folds of a

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