North Wales Gazette

SATURDAY, MAY 1. THE French mail has brought accounts from Gibraltar to the 9th inst. These state the arrival there of the North Pole from Ilieros, which was sent in by his Ma- jesty's ship Active, for a breach of block- ade off Algiers, on the 1st. The master of this vessel reports that Vice-Admiral Sir H. Neale had landed six days before at Algiers, to confer with the Dey- The Vice-Consul at Oran was allowed to go about and do bnsiness, aud had shipped several cargoes, two of which had arrived at Gibraltar, one under English colours. Reports were current that Bona had been destroyed by two English frigates. Letters from Marseilles had been receiv- ed, dated April 20, which state that his Majesty's ship Revenge. Sir H.Neale. had sailed on the 19th for Malta. They also say, that no probability existed, of any speedy settlement of the differences with Algiers, and that all the posts of that ter- ritory were subjected to a rigorous block- ade. Convoys had been granted for the protection of the trade between Leghorn and the Straits; but there was not the slightest risk of capture, as it was ascer- tained no Algerine Cruizers were at sea. Ad vices from Genoa of the 17th instant, state, the arrival there of an ves- sel, the Master of which reported that the Dey of Algiers li;id scutiled and sunk his ships in the Mole, and planted taeir guns on newly erected batteries on the shore. Several letters lately received from Rio Janeiro announce the assembling of a very large French naval force ill the neigh- bourhood of that port; theseaccouuls are a little indistinct and in some degree con- tradictory; but we still have enough of clear and consistent information from them to remove all doubt of the presence of a larger French force i" thp. Brazilian seas iiian can have any proper business there. Some of the apologists for France stute, thilt (his squadron attends merely for the service aud succour of the EmperorPedro. — But with whodl is this Emperor at war ? if with Portugal, we presume that the aid tendered by France is all act of hostility against the European as well as the trans- atlantic authority of his faithful Majesty, and we are to expect another invasion of the Peninsula. But this is idle specula.. tion. If the French fleet is really engaged to serve the Emperor Pedro, it is to servo him against his own subjects; and tIll; questioll of interference w;dl South Ame- rica by France is thus thrown open in a way in which our Government cannot overlook it. Augsbargh, Jpt'H 7.—^ome of our poli- ticians fearing that the obstinancy of the Divan in liot complyiti?(Ir vrith the demand,s of Russia, conformably to stipulations (If the Treaty of Bucharest, is to be ascribed to a Convention said to have been con- eluded in 1822, by which Austria and England are stated to have guaranteed the integrity of the Ottoman empire, and that therefore, Russia cannot make war on the Porte without the fconsent or the participation of these Powers. Intelli- gence has been received that the English Admiral has required of the Regencies of Tunis and Tripoli what part they mean to take in the present state of hostility between England and Algiers. Their an swer has been very simple—they have declared that the Dey of Algiers not having consulted them when he insulted the English Consul, they would not inter- fere in Ihematter, and would, consequent- ly, maintain a strict neutrality. This resolution is the more remarkable, as se cret agents from Constantinople brought them positive orders from Sultan, to assist the Regency of Algiers with all their power in the contest in which it is engaged. Accounts from Batavia' have reached town to the beginning of December,which state the arrival of advices from Palambang giving a statement of an attempt having been made by several of the officers in the King's service, nsisted by.ihe half-blood natives, to overturn the Government of Manilla. The revolutionists took pos- session of the place during the absence of the Governor (who had gone up the country with part of the European troops), the PhLllines, and concluded that these designs were accomplished but with a a promptitude entirely unforeseen by the insurgents, the Governor, with some faith- [ ful troops, marched against the city, re- covered the principal fortress, and before the new-made sovereign and his adherents could recover from their surprise, they were taken prisoners, and by a summary process, the principal and ring-leaders ¡ ordered to be shot. The ci-devant Em- peror, with several snbalterds and serjpan £ s to the number of nine-teen, suffered death by which tranquillity was restored.

ESCAPE FROM A TIGER IN INDIA. --$> THE following is an extract of a letter from a British Officer in India ft was after along day's march of fifteen miles, across a country where \fith difficulty an ancient road could be traced, and that made by deep ravin ire, cut with the rain, with' here and there upright stones, that we arrived at a jungle .unusually swampy, which, from its size, and the fatigued state of the soldiers and cattle, I thought it prudent to defer passing until the following morning. I had but just entered my tent, and wrapped myself in lilY boat cloak, with a view to doze the remaining hour or two away before we broke up for another day's march, when the report of a musket roused me. I instantly started to the entrance of my tent, and was questioning the sentinel who stood there, as to the direction of the sound, when a huge tiger, with monstrous bounds, passed within a few yards of the spot where I was^standing, with one of our brave fellows struggling in his jaws. My sentinel immediately'fired at him; y but the agitation of the moment prevented his taking a deadly aim. The ball, to all appear- ance, struck him, from the enormous bound he immediately made, but only to increase hisspaed. We were, however, enabled to follow him, by some blood that now fell from him or his unhappy prey, and had already entered the jungle several hundred yards, before we began to despair of finding the latter alive, and of aiding his rescue. Judge of our horror, on hearing a kind of sullen growl or roar, which made the hiils echo a still more dreaaTal sound; and the next moment, to our joy, on being greeted with a hearty halloo from our lost companion, about fifty yards far- ther in the jungle than we had penetrated, which was as heartily returned by those who joined me in the pursuit, and in a few moments more we met him limping towards us, with as joyous a face as ever I witnessed. The following account of his escape he after- wards committed to paper:— I was just coming down the jungle, where I had been taking some victuals to my bedfellow, when I heard 3. kind of rustling noise in some bushes about six or seven yards behind me and before I could turn to ascertain the cause, I was pounced upon, and knocked down with such force as to deprive me of my senses, tili I arrived op- posite your tent, when the sudden report of a musket, together with a kind of twitching in my thigh, brought me to myself, and to the sense of the great danger in which I was but, neverthe- less I did not despair. I now began to think of saving myself, and though carried away very rapidly, I felt, as well as saw, that your sentinel's ball, instead of hitting the tiger, struck me, and that I was losing blood very fasL I remembered that my bayonet was in my belt, and reflected, that if it was possible for ma to draw it, I might yet escape the horrible death that awaited me. I with difficulty put my arm back, and found it, and several times attempted to draw it from its sheath, but, from my posi- tion, I was unable. To describe the fear I now felt would be im- possible I thought it was all over. At last, thank 1-teaven after another attempt with my utmost force, I drew it out, and instantly plunged it into his shoulder. He bounded aside, and his eyes flashed frightfully; he let me down, and in- stantly seized me again above the hip, which at first presented me from drawing my breath I now had, from the change of position a fair op- portunity of killing the monster, and saving my life. I stabbed him behind the shoulder several times as deeply as the bayonet would enter, he staggered, and fell, and again let me go, rolling several yards beyond me. I now had the advantage of a fallen enemy, which I forgot not to turn to the best account, and again plunged my bayonet into his side which, I suppose, from his struggles, pierced his heart. I then fell on my knees, and endeavoured, but, from the fullness of my heart, I was unable, to return thanks aloud to Almighty God for his gracious goodness in delivering me from so terrible a death. I rose and hallooed; my halloo was returned, and just afterwards I met you, orperliaps I might have been lost from my weakness." It would appear that the tiger, either from the distance of his leap, or the hardness of the sol- dier's cartouche box, fortunately missed his hold, and seized him, after he had knocked him down, by his clothes, the cartouche-box saving him from being bitten. But I am convinced, that never did any man-if we take into consider- ation the distance he was carried before he re- leased himself, and the circumstance of his being wounded by the ball intended for the tiger, which directed us what road to follow-more providen- tially escape, to all appearance, an inevitable and lingering death.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTWES OF SOME OF THE VENEOEAN GENERALS.* -4-- BONCHAMPS. THE name of Bonchamps is universally known his exploits have immortalized his memory. It will, perhaps, be interesting to learn what were his maimers and his habits in those days when he was far from expecting the celebrity which he afterwards obtained, or even desiring it. Natu- rally humble and modest, he did not waste his time in idle hopes. He entered the service in his sixteenth year, possessed of bat an imperfect edu- cation,—and was solely indebted for what .he afterwards became, to the happy qualities with which Heaven had endowed him. His manners were noble and agreeable: he was of middliug stature, but well made ais features were expressive, his complexion dark, his hair thick and curly his lips, which were rather thick, gave an expression of simplicity to his counts- iiance his teeth were of a brilliant whiteness,and his eyes sparkled with intelligence. His lan- guage, though somewhat laboured, gave a just conception of his ideas. When he spoke of his campaign in India, made under M. de Suffren, in the second battalion of Aquitaine commanded by M. de Damas, his com- rades pressed around him to listen to his story; and there was not a dry eye to be seen when he described the disorder under which he laboured on board the ship, and from which he recovered only by a sort of miracle. Like Madame de Maintenon, he was destined to return from the gates of death to fill the world with his name.— Nobody was ever more beloved or more re- spected; not even the officers of his regiment.— He was sensible to the charms of friendship, and was no less attached to all that tends to the lux- ury and enjoyment of life. His exterior was bril- liant, his expenses considerable an income, of thirty thousand livres would scarce have sufficed to meet them, and he did not possess half that re- venue. Every distinguished officer that arrived in our garrison was entertained by him. He was fond of s'udy, and had a taste for the fine arts. He never went to bed at night, without having first read for several hours by the light ofalamp, which was placed in the middle of the apartment so as to illuminate the whole. In the morning his servant called him very early, and placed by his bed-side a pair of red slippers, silk pantaloons, and an elegant dressing-gown. As soon as he arose, he placed himself before a glass, and sang some of his favourite airs, accompanying himself at the same time on the harp. He cultivated, in succession, the studies of drawing, music, li- terature, and mathematics. He followed the fashion in his dress, at least so far as his military costume would allow him to do so. A portion of his afternoon was devoted to the practice of ail kinds of military evolutions, which he executed on a table with metal soldiers, both horse and foot. His evening was divided be- tween society and play. He was often a consi- derable loser, yet his wit and gaiety suffered no diminution. His conversation was always the same; it was instructive and varied though sometimes dege- nerating into punning, of which he was rather fond. ° He was desirous of advancing in the military profession, yet this desire was kept within proper bounds; and his humanity, which was so strik- wgly displayed at the time of his death, rendered hiiti beloved both by the officers and soldiers.— Two of our men were turned out of the regiment ,i-iiile we were in garrison at Mezieres, and were condemned to fight a duel before their departure. M. de Bonchamps opposed the sentence; is it not enough," said he to dishonour them, with- out ooliging them to kill each other?" The offi- cers yielded to his advice. As for Bonchamps, he never fought a duel in liis life he detested them, and the gentleness and amenity of his manners kept him out of the way of them. The MM. Soyer informed of the admirable answer he gave Stofflet on being challenged by him No, Sir, I will not accept your chal- lenge God and the King can alone dispose of my life, and your cause would suffer too great a loss if it were deprived of yours." He was naturally too kind-hearted to be in- sensible to the charms of female beauty, and he conceived for the daughter of a gentleman of I Brittany, an attachment which absence had only served to increase he solicited her hand in mar- riage, but her father opposed his desires. This disappointment affected him deeply, and he used to tell me that he could never be happy again.— We shared the same apartments, and the same table our pleasures and our sorrows were in common. For the space of five years, few days have passed without his having spoken to me of his charming Brittanese. He was often seized with fits of melancholy which lasted whole hours, and we then took great care not to disturb his si- lence. When his serenity returned, he felt grate- ful for this attention. I was also his travelling companion. The first thing he did when we stopped at any town, was to look out for a tavern where lie could play at chess. He has left me alone, young- as I was, and ignorant of Paris, for a whole day, while he was playing game after game, at the Cafe Valois. Yet he was my Men- tor, and was greatly attached to me, and I felt sincerely grateful for his attentions. What most astonished me was, that fond as he was of application, even in abstract studies, he took no care of his fortune and his affairs, but lelt us, who were so much younger than him- self, to discharge his accounts at the inns, the billiard-rooms, and the shops; that sensible as he was to female beauty, the prettiest woman was indifferent to him, unless she had also some talent to recommend her and that with all his taste for grandeur, and his desire of advance- p ment, he disdained intrigue and adulation. I accompanied him to Paris when he went to solicit the hand of Mademoiselle de Scepeaux in marriage. The first evening of our arrival, having gone to one of the theatres, we saw there a young fe- male whose grace and beauty attracted the at- tention of every one. Bonchamps recognised her, and the tears started I into his eyes. I guessed that this was the young lady whom he had so deeply loved; an1"1 was not misUikea. When the play was over he had an affecting interview with her, in the course of which he lamed that she. was married tola Capt. in the navy. Happily Mademoiselle de Scepeaux yielded to his solicitations, and put a period to his sorrows; ambition also contributed to re- move them, but the revolution prevented the ac- complishment of his hopes. He wished to rise only by honourable degrees, and he only looked for happiness in retirement and in the bosom of his family. For this reason he did not accompany our re- giment emigration. The reign of terror oc- casioned him to abandon Paris; he returned to hjs paternal chateau, situated in the neighbour- hood of St. Fiorent, on a small hill between two rivers. He wished to have spent his days the.e in solitude but Heaven had destined him to be the object of the admiration of Uldnkinl, and the model of every virtue. But for the war or La Vendee, Bonchamps would have remained un- known, and might have furnished an illustration of those beautiful lines of Gray:— Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark untathomed caves of ocean bear Full many a iiower i. born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness en the desert air. These notices (with the exeep ion of that of MM. Sapinaud,) were wiiite.. by s m of Madame de Sapinaud de Bois-Uaguei, wh ise .n:r,ne is so dear to the Vendeans, and who -ttansiated the psalms into French veise.)—N^te qf the Editor. ANECDOTES of AMUSEMENTS in ENGLAN) Tus invading Norniaas, and their imuiedia-e successors, it is well known, were adepts chie in the rougher sports-, though the games ofCha s and Dice found also general encouragenriJ it amongst them, when the usual gymnastic ex cises were prevented by the weather or nigu' otherwise the* recreated' themselves in shoo tin? the arrow, racing, leaping, throwdng stones, baiting bulls aad boars, horse-racing, and even cock-fighting, exclusively of their excellence in hawking and hunting. The lowest gradation of amusement calculated to promote military pur- poses, is described by Fitz-Stephen, and was of a ludicrous andratber dangerous nature. A post was set upright in the Thames, on which a iihpld had been formerly fa3te;1hl; a boat, with a plat* form on the bow, which supported a yoaug m:ui armed with a spear, was rowed with great vio- lence towards the pest; when arrived within reach, the man strained every muscle to break his weapon against the shield, that he might thus gain the prize and avoid a severe ducking-, the "inevitable consequence of failure. Every precaution was used to prevent drowning on these, occasions, and Fl says their immer- sion caused infinite merriment to the spectators. THE QUINTAIN, mentioned by Stowe, had its origin from a whimsical idea, and those who practised with it were compelled to exert no trifling degree of agility to avoid the heavy blows it inflicted. In this instance, a strong' post was placed erect in the ground, on which was a piece of wood, turned by means of a spindle; at oae extremity a bag ofsan 1 was suspended, • and the other presented a surface sufficiently broad to make it practicable to strike it with aspear when on full gallop on horseback; the pressure from the spear caused an instantaneous whirl of the wood, which was increased by th3 weight of the sand, and that saluted the back of the horseman in no very gentle manner, if the speed of his courser happened to be less than that of the quin- tain. So" that lise," says our author, that hit not the broad end of the ouinten was of ail men laughed to scorne and he that hit it full, if it rid not the faster, had a sound blow in his necke with a bagge full of sand hanged on the other end." A more costly and elaborate ma- chine, resembling an armed human figure, and which required still superior agility in attacking it, is alluded to by Shakspeare in As You Like it, where Orlando says, my better parts Are all thrown down & that which here stands up Is but a quintain' a mere lifeless block. This game of the quintain, Vegetius informs us, was familiar to the Romans, and derived its name from Quint us one of that people, A particular description of this game, as it was represented before Queen Elizabeth, is given in the work in- titled the Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth; and it continued to amuse our rustic forefathers for more than a century afterwards. It is supposed to have given origin to 1 TILTS AND TOURNAMENTS, which being more elegant and splendid in their costume, superseded it during the prevalence of chivalry. These were the most dignified and expensive of all entertain- ments, and for that reason were confined to Princes, Barons, and Knig'nis, as even the Es- quires were forbidden to enter the lists at them. A modern can hardly imagine the interest and splendour of these martial exhibitions, which, in many respects equalled, and in some excelled, those of the Roman Circus. The area of the Tournament was the Theatre on which Emperors, Kings, and their Nobles of every rank, who were Knights, contended for the prize due to superior skill in arms: and when we consider that the spectators, both male and female were composed of all that was powerful, honourable, and beau- tiful, from every part of Europe, we may readily conceive the magnificence of the scene, the po- lished armour, the dazzling display of rich silks, embroidered with gold and silver, and the jew- ellery of the ladies. One of the methods contrived to amuse the do- mestic hours of the Monarch and his Court in these times, and which continued, in fact, long afterwards, was the custom of retaining FOOLS on JESTEKS:—This kind of amusement was, according to the opinion of a late writer, the device of some sage politician, who, originally deceiving his king by presenting him with a sup- posed fool to bear every indignity of language, procured in reality a shrewd fellow, whose in- clination and abiliiies rendered him competent to censure and ridicule all the vices and follies around him with impunity. Since the custom of retaining a person bearing the outward appear- ance of idiotism has been discontinued in the Court of England, and in the houses of great men, we are at a loss to conjecture how it could have continued from the Norman limes (Rayhere being minstrel or jester to Henry I,) until James I, whose jester, Archee, published his Book of Jests," and was, no doubt, a very shrewd fel- low. The manners of the higher ranks, it has been observed, were certainl V very different from their present polished state, as we now, with diffi- culty, bear the absurdities of a Clown in a pan- tomine. These fools, who wore a particoloured or motley dress, are frequently mentioned iu Shakspeare's dramas, and the office is still re- membered in the vulgar teriiiof" the Lord Mayor's fool." TENNIS was a great amusement of the reign of Charles II, and one at which his Majesty him- self frequently played a newspaper of 16S0 tells its readers, that on Tuesday morning, there was a great match at Tennis, on White- hall where his Majesty and his Royal highness were present. After which his Majesty played himself, with one Lord of his side, against two more of the Nobility; and his Majesty had the better ofil." A quack who exhibited upon a stage in Covent Garden the following year, aiivtsed his specta- tors with taking thirteen grains of some poison- ous drug. The German operator, as he was, termed, performed this experiment under the in- spection of several surgeons and physicians and retiring, contrived, by means best known to him- self, to evacuate it, of prevent any visible ill effects from a dose that, Benskin says, in his DlJ- mestic Intelligence, would have killed twenty men. One of the most splendid masquerades which has taken place in England, was that given by the King or Denmark at the Opera house in 1/0 3,000 persons, or nearly that number, were pre- sent, and received an entertainment, consisting of every delicacy in the upmost profusion. The nature of these and other modern species of amusement, are too well known to need describing.