ou know, ma'am, one does not like to be forward about speaking of
troubles to strangers--and those so kind as you, it seems like begging,
which I am not forward to do."

Mrs. Sackville assured Mrs. Barton, that she felt great interest in
knowing how she came into her present circumstances.

"My husband," she said, "was a corporal in the fortieth ----. We were
in Spain through all Wellington's campaigns, and had just crossed the
Pyrennees into France, and were thinking of going home to England
again, when the regiment was ordered to America. This was no great
disappointment to me--I have no known relation in the world but my
husband and child--then I had but the one. My husband is a sober man,
who fears God and serves his king with all his heart: and his pay with
my earnings, (for I did up all the linen of our officers) furnished us
a decent living. When we arrived at Quebec, our regiment was sent into
Upper Canada.

"Soon after we came to Newark, a detachment from the De Watteville
regiment was ordered to make an attack on Fort Erie. In this detachment
was a corporal, a great friend to us, who once saved my boy from
drowning. At the moment he was ordered off, he had a child seemingly at
the last gasp. The poor man was distracted like, and my husband, who had
that tender heart that he could never bide to look on misery, offered to
go as his substitute, and he went. You've doubtless heard of the sortie
of Erie: that dreadful night my husband was taken prisoner. He got a
letter written to me from Buffalo, to tell me all his ill-fortune. He
had been mistaken by some American soldiers for a deserter from the
American army; and not being with his own regiment when he was taken, or
even among his acquaintance, he could not prove who he was. He had been
ironed, and was to be taken to Greenbush, near Albany.

"He entreated me to procure from his captain, the necessary papers to
prove that he was a true man, and to forward them to him. Our captain
was a great friend to us; he gave me the writings, and I determined
myself to go to Greenbush. I met with some troubles, and much kindness
by the way. The people in your States, ma'am, are the freest and the
kindest I have ever seen. They seemed to me like God's stewards, always
ready to open their storehouses to the naked and hungry. I had money
enough to pay for my boy's riding the most of the way; for myself I
seldom felt weary, but pressed on beyond my strength; still I did not