"_Visit to the Grave of André._--We stopped at Piermont, on the widest part of Tappan Bay, where the Hudson extends itself to the width of three miles. On the opposite side, in full view from the hotel, is Tarrytown, where poor André was captured. Tradition says that a very large white-wood tree, under which he was taken, was struck by lightning on the very day that news of André's death was received at Tarrytown. As I sat gazing on the opposite woods, dark in the shadows of moonlight, I thought upon how very slight a circumstance often depends the fate of individuals and the destiny of nations. In the autumn of 1780, a farmer chanced to be making cider at a mill on the east bank of the Hudson, near that part of Haverstraw Bay called 'Mother's Lap.' Two young men, carrying muskets, as usual in those troubled times, stopped for a draught of sweet cider, and seated themselves on a log to wait for it. The farmer found them looking very intently on some distant object, and inquired what they saw. 'Hush, hush!' they replied; 'the red coats are yonder, just within the Lap,' pointing to an English gun-boat, with twenty-four men, lying on their oars. Behind the shelter of a rock, they fired into the boat, and killed two persons. The British returned a random shot; but ignorant of the number of their opponents, and seeing that it was useless to waste ammunition on a hidden foe, they returned whence they came with all possible speed. This boat had been sent to convey Major André to the British sloop-of-war Vulture, then lying at anchor off Teller's Point. Shortly after André arrived, and finding the boat gone, he, in attempting to pass through the interior, was captured. Had not those men stopped to drink sweet cider, it is probable that André would not have been hung; the American revolution might have terminated in quite a different fashion; men now deified as heroes might have been handed down to posterity as traitors; our citizens might be proud of claiming descent from Tories, and slavery have been abolished eight years ago, by virtue of our being British Colonies. So much may depend on a draught of cider! But would England herself have abolished slavery had it not been for the impulse given to free principles by the American revolution? Probably not. It is not easy to calculate the consequences involved even in a draught of cider, for no fact stands alone; each has infinite relations. A very pleasant ride at sunset brought us to Orange Town, to the lone field where Major André was executed. It is planted with potatoes, but the plough spares the spot on which was once his gallows and his grave. A rude heap of stones, with the remains of a dead fir tree in the midst, are all that mark it; but tree and stones are covered with names. It is on an eminence commanding a view of the