body, with which view he was educated. When at the age of sixteen, he found the discipline and austerities of a monastic life so ill suited to his inclination, that, on a trivial dispute with the superior of his college, he ran away, and enlisted himself in a French marching regiment. In this situation he sustained all the hardships of hunger, long marches, and incessant alarms; and, as it was in the hottest part of the war between France and England, about the year 1743, it may easily be imagined that his situation was by no means enviable. He fought as a foot-soldier at the battle of Dettingen; he was also at the battle of Fontenoy; and landed, as an ensign in the French troops, at Murray Frith, during the rebellion of 1745. He joined the rebels a little before the battle of Prestonpans, marched with them to Derby, and retreated with them to Scotland. He was wounded at the battle of Culloden, and fled with a few friends to the woods of Lochaber, where he remained the greater part of the summer 1746, living upon the roots of trees, goats’ milk, and the oatmeal and water of such peasants as he durst confide in. Knowing, however, that it would be impossible to continue this course of life during the winter, he began to devise means of effecting his return to France—perfectly unconscious that, in the country where he was suffering all the miseries of an outcast criminal, he was entitled to the possession of an ample estate and title. His scheme was to gain the coast of Galloway, where he hoped to get on board some smuggling vessel to the Isle of Man, and from thence to France. The hardships which he suffered in the prosecution of this plan would require a volume in their description. He crept through by-ways by night, and was forced to lie concealed among rocks and woods during the day. He was reduced almost to a state of nudity, and his food was obtained from the poorest peasants, in whom only he could confide. Of this scanty subsistence he was sometimes for days deprived; and, to complete his misfortunes, he was, after having walked barefooted over rocks, briars, and unfrequented places, at length discovered, seized, and carried before a magistrate near Dumfries. As his name was Maxwell, which he did not attempt to conceal, he would have suffered as a rebel, had not his commission as a French officer been found in the lining of his tattered coat, which entitled him to the treatment of a prisoner of war. This privilege, however, only extended to the preservation of his life. He was confined in a paved stone dungeon so long, that he had amused himself by giving names to each stone which composed the pavement, and which, in after-life, he took great pleasure in relating and pointing out to his friends. An old woman, who had been his nurse in childhood, was at this time living in Dumfries, where he was a prisoner; and having accidentally seen him, and becoming acquainted with his name, apparent age, etc.,