, having the opportunity imprudently
afforded them, jumped on shore, and reported that the British had
already commenced hostilities.

Upon this the Surinam was detained, and Captain Tucker was ordered on
shore, and informed that he must consider himself a prisoner of war.
At first he was not put under strict surveillance, and he therefore
employed the weary hours in taking plans of the forts and batteries of
the island. His occupation, however, was soon discovered, and highly
disapproved by the authorities, who immediately placed him in close
confinement in a room of the barracks.

On the first night of his captivity two musket-balls were fired into
his room, one of which struck a table at which he had been seated a
few moments before. These murderous attempts were frequently repeated
during his imprisonment, and he must inevitably have been shot in his
bed, had he not taken the precaution of constantly moving its
position, and thus baffled the treacherous designs of his cowardly
assailants.

A friendly warning was given to him, that where bullets failed,
_poison_ might succeed; and he was thenceforth obliged to watch most
narrowly, lest it should be administered in his food. In this wretched
state of suspense, he lingered for four months, when happily he and
his officers were released in exchange for nine Dutch clergymen.

We regret that our pen should have to record such treachery as that we
have described. We ask, and others have asked, were these soldiers and
gaolers free men and Christians, or were they slaves and heathens? It
must, however, be remembered that politics ran very high at that time;
and in this particular instance, at the outbreak of a war, men's minds
were half frantic, and we must not judge of the character of a nation
by the isolated acts of a petty colonial government.

THE GRAPPLER.

CHAUSSEY, or Choye, is a group of islets lying off the coast of
Normandy, about twenty miles from Jersey, and nine from Granville.
They stretch north, east, and west, and cover a space of nearly twelve
miles. The principal of them is called the Maitre Isle, and is the
resort of a few French fishermen during the summer, but being only a
rock, and totally devoid of vegetation, its inhabitants are entirely
dependent on the neighbouring shores for all the necessaries of life,
excepting what their nets may produce. At the time of which we are
writing, the winter of 1803, this group of islets was in the han