incumbent upon them, in order to deal a death blow to all future attempts of the same nature, to punish all the noblemen and other leading characters connected with it, in the most severe and exemplary manner. Acting upon the above principle, the Privy Council caused immediately to be arrested, about thirty of the Scotch and English nobility, the majority of whom fell by the bloody axe of the executioner, whilst the remainder were sentenced to perpetual banishment.

Amongst this latter class of insurgents, was George Armstrong, Earl of Derwentwater, who succeeded to his father's rank and title, immediately after his decease, which happened somewhere about the year 1694. Some time previous to his death, however, the old earl, through his influence with the crown, had obtained the grant of a large tract of land in the province of South Carolina, near the mouth of the Roanoke river, which was soon after settled by these minor and remote branches of his own extensive family, whose fortunes had become sadly dilapidated by the frequent intestine revolutions which happened in Great Britain during the latter part of the seventeenth century. Upon the accession of Queen Anne to the English throne, the old earl fell into disgrace with the ministry, and with his family retired soon after that event, to his plantations in America. Shortly after his arrival, however, the change of climate proved fatal to his advanced age, and brought on an intermittent fever, which ended his life, and caused his only son, George Armstrong, to succeed to his grand title and extensive estates.

Although the character of the young earl, differed in many important respects from that of his father, still, in one great feature there was an exact resemblance between them. The disposition of the old earl was stubborn, artful and avaricious, whilst that of his son, was frank, open and generous. In temper, the former was cunning, revengeful and unforgiving, whilst that of the latter, though hasty and violent in its outbreaks, would a moment afterwards pass away, leaving no lingering trace of its harsh and cruel effect upon the young earl's strong and vigorous mind. Here, the wide contrast between the characters of the father and son ended,—for the same vaulting ambition which had animated the father, through a long and eventful life, descended upon the son in its full and unstinted measure, whilst in blind and extravagant adherence to the house of Stuart, and the Roman Catholic religion, the son greatly outstripped the father, who had been moderate enough in his political and religious machinations to ensure to him his titles, and cause his estate to remain unconfiscated, and in his own particular keeping.

Instead, however, of copying the temporizing and crafty policy of his father, the young earl, soon after his accession to the title and fortune of the former, began openly to hold a correspondence with the court of the pretender, which finally resulted in his becoming one of the first noblemen to assist in raising the rebel banner in Scotland, in the year 1715. After running through a short career of active service, George Armstrong the last Earl of Derwentwater, found his vast estates confiscated to the crown, and himself a prisoner in the Tower of London. This event happened during the spring of 1716. Early in the summer of the same year, he, with a number of others was brought to trial before a special commission appointed for that purpose, found guilty of high treason, (and although, others who had taken a less active part in the rebellion, were doomed to immediate execution.) The earnest intercession of the French Ambassador at the court of St. George Armstrong, to be commuted to foreign and perpetual banishment, and in accordance with this sentence, he was about to join his brother-in-law, a rich South American merchant, who was located at Rio Janeiro in Brazil, when his progress was somewhat singularly arrested by the adventure commenced in our first chapter.

Having related as much of the earl's previous history, as is consistent with the progress of our story, the next of our voyagers in order of description, is his fair niece, Mary Hamilton. In form, as we have before said, she was stately and beautiful, her features were striking and regular, though they could not be called pre-eminently beautiful, whilst her complexion was fair and elegantly transparent. Her hair, which was as dark in color as the plumage of the raven, as it clustered in short, rich, silken curls over her small white neck, gave conclusive evidence, when combined to a pair of large, languishing black eyes, that she was not born beneath the ruddy influence of England's cold and vacillating climate. And such was the fact, for the mother that bore her was of pure Castilian blood, who had fallen in love with and married William Hamilton, whilst residing with her father, who, at that time, held the high situation of Governor of the Island of Cuba. Under the warm and enervating influences of the climate of this island, Mary Hamilton first saw the light, but long before she had learnt to lisp her mother's name, she was sent to England, there to receive, through the agency of her uncle, an education calculated to fit her for the station she would be called upon to assume, as the only child and heir of the ancient house of Hamilton. As she advanced from infancy to childhood, and her young mind began gradually to expand, nature (that beautiful but mystic chain which connects man with his Creator,) prompted her to ask for her mother. The answer which fell from her aunt's lips, in cold and icy tones, which precluded all farther questioning, was,

'Mary, your maternal parent is dead, but I will be a mother to you so long as I live, and my husband shall be to you an indulgent father. And now, dear Mary,' continued Lady Armstrong, 'for various reasons which cannot now be explained, I must strictly prohibit you from alluding to your real mother in my presence, or that of my husband.'

Many a long and bitter hour as she passed from childhood to youth, and from thence to woman's estate, did the future heiress of the House of Hamilton ponder sadly over the mysterious and cruel prohibition of her noble aunt, and as she thus pondered, a strong but indefinite presentiment of future sorrow and grief and misery in connection with the fate of her real parents became so completely fastened upon her mind as to cause her whole deportment to become tinged with a sort of sad and mournful melancholy, which all the seductive arts of a London life could not eradicate.

Although numberless suitors of almost every variety of rank and character had knelt in real and assumed adoration before the virtuous shrine of the beautiful West Indian heiress, she had turned from them all with almost loathing indifference, and the summons which she received (about three months previous to the commencement of our story) calling upon her to join her father, in company with her uncle, found her at the age of twenty-three, unmarried and unengaged. In less than a month however, after her embarcation on board of the Gladiator, a gradual change had taken place in her whole demeanor, caused by the deep interest she found herself constrained to take in the person of Henry Huntington, the son of Sir Arthur Huntington, who had followed the fortunes of the Earl of Derwentwater during the rebellion, and who had chosen also to share his banishment. The baronet was a fine specimen of the old English cavaliers, who had freely spent the greater portion of a handsome fortune in the service of the Stuart family, and now, when nearly at the close of a long and eventful life, he with his twin sons (whose poor mother had died in giving them birth,) had left their own dear and native soil, to live, and perhaps to die in a foreign land.

These twin sons and brothers, Henry and Arthur Huntington, had arrived (at the time of which we are speaking,) to the age of twenty-two, and in personal appearance they might have been considered as correct models of manly beauty.