“No occasion whatever,” said the Duke sternly, and somewhat irritated at the want of confidence which the demand implied. “Do as you are desired, sir. I’ll answer for the consequences.” The officer, however, continued to press his request, and reiterated his desire to be put in possession of documentary evidence that what he was about to do was done by authority. Impatient at his importunity, and desirous of getting quit at once of the subject and his pertinacious visiter, the Duke hurriedly looked about the apartment for paper on which to write the desired order; but he could see none. While looking for the paper, however, he accidentally turned up a corner of the carpet with his foot, and brought to view a card which had been lying beneath it. The Duke observing it, hastily stooped down and picked it up, exclaiming, as he did so—“Oh, here, this will do well enough for the death-warrant of a parcel of rebel scoundrels!” And he immediately wrote the fatal order with a pencil on the back of the card. This card was the nine of diamonds, the same which had been lost a few evenings before; and such is one version, at any rate, of the tradition that has given to this particular card the startling title of “The Curse of Scotland.” LEAVES FROM THE LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. Every reader has heard of the infamous speculation which is still known by the name of the South Sea Bubble. It produced a mania in the mercantile world, and brought ruin and misery to the hearths of thousands. Many who laid their head upon their pillow at night believing themselves to be rich, awoke beggars in the morning. Now, at the time when the South Sea scheme was at its height, there resided in Newcastle a Mr Hamilton, who had come from the neighbourhood of Peebles, when but a mere boy, as a clerk to a merchant; but he possessed much of the caution, the sobriety, and the prudence for which many of his countrymen are noted; and he not only obtained the confidence of his employers, but rose to be an eminent merchant himself. For more than thirty years he carried on business prosperously; he was believed to be wealthy, and he was so. But he had always been a speculative man, one whose temperament was too ardent, and he entered into the South Sea project with his whole heart, embarking in it his entire capital. He was a widower, and had an only son, named Alexander, who, at the age of twenty-one, he took into partnership with himself. The senior Mr Hamilton was a man who well knew the painful labour attending self-teaching, for he had himself experienced it; and, though he had always intended his son to be a merchant, he had sent him to Cambridge for his education, saying, “A British merchant is a citizen of the world, and stands in greater need of more languages than one, than a divine does. Therefore, my son shall be a scholar.”