nicer regard to their honour, or what other reafon I cannot tell, are more fenfibly touched with those general afperfions which are caft upon their fex, than men are by what is faid of theirs. When she had a little recovered herself from the ferious anger she was in, fhe replied in the following manner.

Sir, When I confider how perfectly new all you have faid on this fubject is, and that the itory you have given us is not quite two thoufand years old, I cannot but think it a piece of prefumption to difpute with you: but your quotations put me in mind of the fable of the lion and the man. The man walking with that noble animal, shewed him, in the oftentation of human fuperiority, a fign of a man killing a lion. Upon which the lion faid very justly, "We "lions are none of us painters, elfe we could "shew a hundred men killed by lions, for one "lion killed by a man." You men are writers, and can reprefent us women as unbecoming as you please in your works, while we are unable to return the injury. You have twice or thrice obferved in your difcourfe, that hypocrify is the very foundation of our education; and that an ability to dissemble our affections is a profeffed part of our breeding. These, and fuch other reflections, are fprinkled up and down the writings of all ages, by authors, who leave behind them memorials of their refentment against the scorn of particular women, in invectives against the whole fex. Such a writer, I doubt not, was the celebrated Petronius, who invented the pleasant aggravations

aggravations of the frailty of the Ephefian lady; but when we confider this question between the fexes, which has been either a point of dispute or raillery ever fince there were men and women, let us take facts from plain people, and from fuch as have not either ambition or capacity to embellish their narrations with any beauties of imagination. I was the other day amufing myself with LIGON'S "Account of Bar"badoes ;" and, in answer to your well-wrought

*

tale,

*The plan of this edition admits of very little enlargement, but a story fo fingular cannot well be paffed over, without fome illuftration. The very little that can be faid of it here, is taken from a French work too expensive to be common, and unrivaled in its kind. LIGON, on whofe authority the whole relation is ultimately refted, was in Barbadoes when this deteftable tranfaction happened; and his account, written with great fimplicity, has intrinfic marks of veracity. His defcription of Yarico is interefting, and he tells the fad ftory of her wrongs with commendable fimplicity, and honeft indignation. This lovely Indian foon found an admirer in the house of bondage, and not long after proved with child to a white domestic in the family of her matter. When the time of her labour came, fhe fecretly withdrew into a wood, from which the returned three hours after, bearing in her arms, with great gaiety, the fruit of her love, that promifed in time to be as beautiful as its mother. Her fellow flaves were not fufficiently numerous to undertake the revenge of her injuries, but they contrived to communicate their refentments to all the negroes in the island. Yarico's flagrant ill treatment, in concurrence with feverities inflicted on flaves, or faid to have been inflicted, by hard-hearted mafters about this time, became the caufe, or the occafion, of an alarming confpiracy of the negroes for a general maflacre, and in 1649, went very nigh to have coft the lives of all the English in Barbadoes. The intended infurrection was happily difcovered but just in time to prevent the perpetration of the mischief, in confequence of the lenity and kindnefs of an Englishman to his negro flave, who was in confederacy with the unforVOL. I.

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tunate

tale, I will give you (as it dwells upon my memory) out of that honeft traveller, in his fiftyfifth page, the hiftory of Inkle and Yarico.

Mr. Thomas Inkle, of London, aged twenty years, embarked in the Downs in the good ship called the Achilles, bound for the Weft-Indies, on the 16th of June, 1647, in order to improve his fortune by trade and merchandise. Our adventurer was the third fon of an eminent citizen, who had taken particular care to inftil into his mind an early love of gain, by making him a perfect master of numbers, and confequently giving him a quick view of lofs and advantage, and preventing the natural impulfes of his paffion, by prepoffeffion towards his interefts. With a mind thus turned, young Inkle had a perfon every way agreeable, a ruddy vigour in his countenance, ftrength in his limbs, with ringlets of fair hair loosely flowing on his fhoulders. It happened, in the course of the voyage, that the Achilles, in fome diftrefs, put into a creek on the main of America, in fearch of provifions. The youth, who is the hero of my ftory, among others went on shore on this occafion. From their firft landing they were tunate people of his complexion. For particulars the curious must be referred to the Hift. Gen. des Voyages, tom. XV. liv. vii. p. 598, 599, xix tomes 4to, a Paris; and "A true and "exact Hiftory of Barbadoes, &c." by Richard Ligon, Gent. fol. 1673, p. 55, &c. in which book there are paflages that illuftrate and authenticate, in feveral refpects, the account of the COURTEN Family, given in the TATLER, in fix vols. with notes, vol. VI. ad finem; now inferted more accurately, with the life of William Courten, Efq; in the new edition of the BIOGRAPHIA BRITANNICA.

obferved

obferved by a party of Indians, who hid themfelves in the woods for that purpofe. The Englih unadvisedly marched a great distance from the fhore into the country, and were intercepted by the natives, who flew the greatest number of them. Our adventurer efcaped, among others, by flying into a foreft. Upon his coming into a remote and pathlefs part of the wood, he threw himself, tired and breathlefs, on a little hillock, when an Indian maid rufhed from a thicket behind him. After the first furprise, they appeared mutually agreeable to each other. If the European was highly charmed with the limbs, features, and wild graces of the naked American; the American was no less taken with the drefs, complexion, and fhape of an European, covered from head to foot. The Indian grew immediately enamoured of him, and confequently folicitous for his prefervation. She therefore conveyed him to a cave, where fhe gave him a delicious repaft of fruits, and led him to a ftream to flake his thirst. In the midst of these good offices, she would fometimes play with his hair, and delight in the oppofition of its colour to that of her fingers: then open his bofom, then laugh at him for covering it. She was, it seems, a perfon of diftinction, for the every day came to him in a different dress, of the most beautiful shells, bugles, and bredes. She likewife brought him a great many fpoils, which her other lovers had prefented to her, fo that his cave was richly adorned with all the spotted fkins of beafts, and moft party - coloured fea

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thers of fowls, which that world afforded. To make his confinement more tolerable, fhe would carry him in the dusk of the evening, or by the favour of moon-light, to unfrequented groves and folitudes, and fhew him where to lie down in safety, and fleep amidst the falls of waters, and melody of nightingales. Her part was to watch and hold him awake in her arms, for fear of her countrymen, and wake him on occafions to confult his fafety. In this manner did the lovers pafs away their time, till they had learned a language of their of their own, in which the in which the voyager communicated to his mistress, how happy he should be to have her in his country, where she should be clothed in fuch filks as his waistcoat was made of, and be carried in houses drawn by horses, without being exposed to wind or weather. All this he promised her the enjoyment of, without fuch fears and alarms as they were there tormented with. In this tender correfpondence thefe lovers lived for feveral months, when Farico, inftructed by her lover, discovered a veffel on the coaft, to which she made fignals; and in the night, with the utmost joy and fatisfaction, accompanied him to a fhip's crew of his countrymen, bound for Barbadoes. When a veffel from the main arrives in that ifland, it feems the planters come down to the fhore, where there is an immediate market of the Indians and other flaves, as with us of horses and oxen.

To be fhort, Mr. Thomas Inkle, now coming into English territories, began feriously to re

flect