omotives were now in operation, anticipating a quick and pleasant
ride to Bordentown. For a time all went well: various surmises were made
as to our rate; some calculated it at twenty miles in the hour; D----n
and the Belgian minister, Baron de B----r, were disputing the point,
watch in hand, when an alarm was given from the rear: our attention was
quickly arrested by loud cries to "stop the engine," coming from the
windows of every carriage in the train.

On the halt being accomplished, the carriages were deserted in a moment;
for it was discovered that one of those in the rear had been overturned
in consequence of the axle breaking,--its occupants' fate as yet
unknown.

I was soon on the spot, and what a scene was here to witness! Out of
twenty-four persons only one had escaped unhurt. One man was dead,
another dying, and five others had fractures, more or less serious; a
couple of ladies (sisters) dreadfully wounded; the children of one of
them, two little girls, with broken limbs.

Never were sufferers more patient; one of them was a surgeon, a fine
young fellow, who immediately set about doing the best his skill could
accomplish for those most desperately hurt. D----n and I volunteered as
his assistants; and with such splints as the shattered panels of the
carriage supplied, the fractured limbs were bound up.

It was a melancholy task; but this gallant fellow stuck to it until he
saw such of his patients as it was possible to remove disposed of in one
of the baggage-cars, emptied for this purpose. I had, in the course of
his task, frequently observed him pause, as though either faint, or
finding some difficulty in the act of stooping, which was constantly
required; but it was not until he had seen the last of his
fellow-sufferers disposed of to his best ability that he examined his
own condition, when it was discovered that two of his ribs were broken.

It was full three hours before the wounded could be removed from the
sandy bank on which they had been stretched; and it was an afflicting
thing to see them lying here, bloody and disfigured, exposed to the
glare of a hot sun, without the possibility of procuring them shelter;
for we were some miles from the nearest village when the accident
occurred.

The ex-president, Mr. Quincy Adams, was in the carriage immediately
attached to the one overturned: by his direction an inquest was held
upon the deceased before we departed; and, this being concluded, the
trai