t
day.

Most of the characters introduced have their existence in real
history--Hansford lived, acted and died in the manner here narrated, and
a heart as pure and true as Virginia Temple's mourned his early doom.

In one of those quaint old tracts, which the indefatigable antiquary,
Peter Force, has rescued from oblivion, it is stated that Thomas
Hansford, although a son of Mars, did sometimes worship at the shrine of
Venus. It was his unwillingness to separate forever from the object of
his love that led to his arrest, while lurking near her residence in
Gloucester. From the meagre materials furnished by history of the
celebrated rebellion of Nathaniel Bacon the following story has been
woven.

It were an object to be desired, both to author and to reader, that the
fate of Thomas Hansford had been different. This could not be but by a
direct violation of history. Yet the lesson taught in this simple story,
it is hoped, is not without its uses to humanity. Though vice may
triumph for a season, and virtue fail to meet its appropriate reward,
yet nothing can confer on the first, nor snatch from the last, that
substantial happiness which is ever afforded to the mind conscious of
rectitude. The self-conviction which stings the vicious mind would make
a diadem a crown of thorns. The _mens sibi conscia recti_ can make a
gallows as triumphant as a throne. Such is the moral which the author
designs to convey. If a darker punishment awaits the guilty, or a purer
reward is in reserve for the virtuous, we must look for them to that
righteous Judge, whose hand wields at once the sceptre of mercy and the
sword of justice.

And now having prepared this brief preface, to stand like a portico
before his simple edifice, the author would cordially and respectfully
make his bow, and invite his guests to enter. If his little volume is
read, he will be amply repaid; if approved, he will be richly rewarded.

HANSFORD.

CHAPTER 1.

"The rose of England bloomed on Gertrude's cheek;
What though these shades had seen her birth? Her sire
A Briton's independence taught to seek
Far western worlds."
_Gertrude of Wyoming._

Among those who had been driven, by the disturbances in England, to seek
a more quiet home in the wilds of Virginia, was a gentleman of the name
of Temple. An Englishman by birth, he was an unwilling spectator of the
revolution which erected the dynasty of Cromwell