While in the north of Europe, I met with a rather extraordinary person, whose account of himself might afford a subject for a pretty romance; a sort of new Paul and Virginia; but with what different catastrophe, it is not fair to presage. He described himself as a Frenchman, a native of Bourdeaux; where, at an early age, he was put on board a merchant ship, to learn the profession of a seaman. About that time war broke out between Great Britain, and the lately proclaimed Republic of France; and the vessel he was in, being attacked, and taken by an English man-of-war, he was carried a prisoner into England. When there, his naturally enterprising character would not submit itself to a state of captivity; and, soon making his wishes understood, he entered on board a British sloop, bound to New Holland. While gazing with rapt astonishment on the seeming new heavens which canopied that, to him, also, new portion of the globe; while the stars of the Cross were exciting his youthful wonder; and he could no where find the constellations of the Great, or Little Bear in the midnight firmament, the sky was suddenly overcast with a cloud, like the pall of nature, and a fearful tempest burst from it. The scene was dreadful on that wide waste of waters; and the vessel being driven at last into the rocky labyrinths of the Society Isles, was finally wrecked on one not many leagues from the celebrated Otaheite. Laonce, the young Frenchman, and one seaman of the sloop, an honest north Briton, were the only persons who escaped; for when morning broke, they found themselves, restored from insensibility, lying on the shore, and not a trace of the ship, or of those who had navigated her, was to be discerned. The inhabitants of the island, apparently wild savages by their almost naked state, instead of seizing them as a prey, took them to their huts, fed, and cherished them. Hope for awhile flattered them that some other vessel, bound for New Holland, might also be driven upon those islands, though not with the same hard fate, and that by her means they might be released, and conveyed back to Europe. But days, and weeks, and months, wearing away without any such arrival, they began to regard the expectation less, and to turn their minds to take a more intimate interest in objects around them. Time, indeed, accustomed them to what might be called barbarous, in the manners of the people; by degrees, even themselves laid aside their European habits; they exchanged their clothing for the half-exposed fashion of the native chiefs; and, adopting their pursuits and pleasures, became hunters, and bold fishers in the light canoe. Finally, they learnt to speak the language, as if they had been born in the island; and, at length, sealed their insular destiny by marrying native women. Laonce was hardly eighteen when he was first cast ashore amongst them; but having a handsome person, and those engaging manners, from a naturally amiable