However, to guard as much as possible against the gloomy consequence of these casualties, the keepers of all inns and taverns, and all apothecaries in Amsterdam, and in every other city in Holland, are compelled under a heavy penalty to keep a printed paper containing the most approved method of resuscitating the suspended animation of drowned persons, in a conspicuous part of their houses. The government is also very liberal in distributing rewards to those who, at their personal peril, rescue a fellow-creature from destruction. Upon such occasions, gold, silver, or medals are bestowed, according to the risk and rank of the preserver. The first society for the restoring of drowned persons was formed in this city in 1767, and the utmost encouragement was every where given throughout the united provinces, by the magistrates in particular, and afterwards by the states-general, and the success of it has been equal to its humanity. To the Dutch nation the English are indebted for these admirable institutions, by which so many of our countrymen have at various times been snatched from the gripe of death, and restored as it were to a new existence, and to their agonized families. It is a curious circumstance to remark, that the visible disarrangement which the human frame experiences, from being a considerable time in water, is very little, so little that many are the instances where the sufferer has, in the first instance, displayed all the indicia of death, and has within a few hours been enabled to thank his deliverer in person. The body, during this temporary suspension of animation, resembles a clock, upon its pendulum being accidently stopped, its works are not mutilated nor shaken out of their proper places, but are competent to renew their functions the moment the former is touched by some friendly hand. As a memorable illustration, I beg to relate an anecdote of an illustrious hero and august personage, who shedding light and happiness upon nearly forty millions of beings, and ruling once the most extensive empire upon the face of the earth, felt that he added a new ray of glory and happiness to his imperial dignity in preserving, by his own perseverance, a miserable fellow-creature from a watery grave.