ground till the light-horse appeared in view, and then retreated with great precipitation and disorder; many of them fell into the hands of their pursuers, and were sent back to town and secured. When they had reached the bridge at King's-falls, being met by those who had before retired, they halted and exhibited the appearance of an intention to dispute the pass: but a few officers and gentlemen on horse-back having, with great spirit and address, taken most of their officers, and principal men from the midst of them, they betook themselves to flight in great confusion, and returned to their respective abodes. The whole affair was conducted with much coolness and moderation; and though orders were repeatedly given by some of the officers of the insurgents to fire on their assailants, there was happily no blood spilt on either side. The mob being dispersed, the troops returned into town, where they met, or were afterwards joined by large bodies, which arrived after the business of the day was over.

About forty prisoners were taken, among whom were most of their officers and leading men, who, upon acknowledging the heinousness of their conduct, and professing great contrition for it, have experienced the undeserved clemency of government, in a full pardon and discharge, five excepted, who are delivered over to the civil authority to be punished as rioters, together with two others of the ringleaders who escaped at the time, but have been since taken. The body under arms amounted to upwards of two thousand, three hundred of whom were horse, all ready to run any risk to preserve legal government, and the due execution of the laws: the spectators, many of whom could not arm themselves, though they discovered no less zeal to support government, amounted to upwards of three thousand. The sentiment, "How can we "live without government, and shall we give our

"selves up to the government of a mob," was constantly re-echoed. If the legislature appeared magnanimous the day before a free government, the people's government shone with a splendor that never was excelled, seldom equalled!

An Extract of a Letter from the Rev. Cotton Mather, of Boston, to Dr. John Woodward, of London, Fellow of the Royal Society. Communicated by JOSHUA COFFIN, A. M.

At Hampton, a Town about Fifty miles from this place, there were Twin sisters, whose names were Bridget and Jane Moulton. The perpetual Harmony and Sympathy between the sisters was the observation of all the neighbourhood. They were never contented except they were together. If the one were desirous to go abroad, the other would be impatient of staying at home. If the one were merry, the other would be airy. If the one were troubled, the other would be chagrin[ed.] When one was for carding, the other was for spinning. For their Dispositions and Satisfaction there was a very strange Agreement betwixt them. The particulars wherein every body with pleasure and wonder saw how they were agreed, and how like your famous Twins of Hippocrates, which you tell us would Flere et Ridere simul, were numberless. They lived a Virgin life, and in this good accord, reached about threescore years. Then Death after a short sickness arrested the one of them. The other grew full of pain, and bid her friends not be in a hurry about her sister's funeral for her's must accompany it. By dying within a few hours after her sister, she answered their expectations. Mr. John Cotton, the worthy minister of the place preached a Funeral sermon for this occasion on those words, 2 Samuel I: 23. “In

their Death they were not divided." The nearest unto these congruities, would be those of a true friendship, a blessedness which I am willing to find celebrated among the heathens, and the Regularity they consulted in it cried up and this made an Article of an Elogy, They died, having lived without reproach in Friendship. Nevertheless, I can by no means allow this Astrea has wholly left our world and that the Moderns and Christians are strangers to it, and that the maxims of our Saviour's Holy religion would not move unto a degree of Strictness and Fineness beyond what was ever known in Paganism. I only wish for the experiment, which might be made in my having oftener and nearer opportunities of meriting the esteem of being, Sir,

Your Friend and Servant. To Dr. Woodward, London.

1716. Copied from a MS. Volume in possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

AN ADDRESS,

Delivered before the New-Hampshire Historical Society, at the Annual Meeting, 11th June, 1828, by Hon. SALMA HALE.

THE utility of History has been the theme of writers of all ages, and all classes. It has been termed philosophy teaching by example. It has been called the instructor of politicians, the guide of statesman, and the school of virtue. Commanders have resorted to it to acquire perfection in the art of war; moralists to give a sanction to their precepts; orators to embellish and illustrate their harangues; and poets to give dignity to their effusions. It has, by common consent, been placed highest on the list of useful and liberal studies, and an acquaintance with it has been deemed in

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sect, or one party, at the expense of another, or to defend one that has, in his view, been misrepresented; and this is the principal cause why so few histories have been written to which entire credit should be given. Most of them are made the medium of error rather than of truth, and none so much as those which aspire to the character of philosophic or speculative historics, and, from a partial knowledge of facts, presumptuously speak of the causes of events, and of the motives of men.

The single circumstance of want of materials, would, in the absence of all other reasons, justify us in receiving with extreme distrust, the narratives of the earliest historians. Before the art of printing was invented, but few documents existed, and tradition furnishes almost the only materials for history. How much falschood tradition gathered in its progress, and how much truth, modifying and almost changing the aspect of the truths it transmitted, was lost on the way, could only be the subject of conjecture. Every one who reads the accounts of the first ages of Greece and Rome, would naturally conclude that much related as truth must be false; and recent investigations have confirmed these first and natural conclusions. By comparing various ancient histories with each other; by consulting authors in other branches of literature; by weighing probabilities, and displaying the discrepancies of the same historian, late writers have furnished convincing proof, that much heretofore received as truth, is false, and that nothing anterior to the middle ages of Greece and Rome can be relied on. The birth place of Homer has long been a subject of contest; it is now doubted whether such a man as Homer ever existed. Many a weary hour has been spent in vain to ascertain the site of ancient Troy; not less vain in the opinion of some, have been the labors to prove that Troy, famous Troy, which has so of