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troops under General Thompson, which had been ordered to Canada.

In the unfortunate attack on the British at Three Rivers he was made prisoner. Gen. Thompson, at the head of fourteen hundred men, had been ordered by Sullivan to join St. Clair, and proceed to this place, and if on a close inspection he should consider it advisable, to attack it. The force, under his command, about two thousand strong, dropped down the river in the night and drifting noiselessly by the British vessels that lay at anchor in the stream, rapidly approached the post. Thompson hoped to reach it before daylight and carry it by surprise, but, contrary to his expectations, he did not arrive till nearly sunrise. He had scarcely commenced landing when the rolling of the drum, beating to quarters, told him that he was discovered. Seeing that an open battle was now inevitable, he hastily marshalled his troops on the shore and prepared to advance. But to move direct on the place, he discovered, would expose his column to a raking fire from some vessels that lay in the stream, and he, therefore, made a circuit to avoid them. In doing so became entangled in a deep morass. While he was floundering through this, the British not only got time to prepare for his reception in front, but also to send a party to the rear and cut off his return to the boats. McCalla waded through the swamp side by side with his General, and when the latter took the desperate resolution to advance to the attack, moved with him into the fire. A sharp -conflict followed, but it was plain to the most unpractised eye how it must terminate, and that the enterprise

was a failure. They could not advance, while the retreat to the boats being cut off, it was equally impossible to fall back. Finding themselves thus blocked in before and behind, and exposed to a destructive fire, which was rapidly thinning their ranks, the main body plunged into a swamp near by, where the British did not deem it prudent to follow them. Thompson, however, with his chaplain and some two hundred others, were taken prisoners. With their usual hatred of "rebel parsons," (as they called them,) the British threw this accomplished scholar and divine into a loathsome prison ship, and subjected him to a treatment that would have disgraced savages. Crowded into the hold with the sick and dying, breathing the foulest air-made the companion of vermin, and compelled to perform the most menial offices, and asssailed with jibes and insults, he lay for months on board this filthy floating lazar-house. Food fit only for swine was given him, and even this, his brutal captors begrudged him so that he came near dying from starvation. His fate was that of a martyr, and he bore it like one -unsubdued, firm, and noble through all. At length, apparently tired of the attempt to wear out the life of this brave young chaplain, not yet thirty years of age, they, in the latter part of the year, released him on parole. Pale, wan, dirty, and in tatters, but with a spirit unsubdued, he was led forth once more into the free air. His form was bowed, though not with years, but the fire in his eye was undimmed. Leaving the spot where he had so long suffered a living death, he returned to his congregation. He had re

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sumed his charge, however, but a short time when he was accused of having broken his parole, because he publicly prayed for his beloved country, and for the success of its armies. Finding that for this heinous crime he was in danger of again being seized as a prisoner, he left his congregation and fled into Virginia. Chafing under the restrictions his parole placed on his words and actions, he sought, and eventually obtained a release from it by an exchange of prisoners. He continued a warm supporter of the American cause till the close of the war. He afterwards went to South Carolina, and was settled in Christ Church. parish, near Charleston, where he remained a “diligent student and faithful pastor to the close of his life.” He suffered from a protracted disease, which it is supposed was aggravated by the death of his only child, the wife of Dr. Witherspoon, at the early age of twenty-six.

He lived to see the country, for which he had labored and suffered, on the high road to prosperity, and in the sixty-second year of his age, in perfect peace, and in full confidence of a better life to come, passed to his reward.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

JOHN WITHERSPOON, D. D.

THE CLERGY AS STATESMEN.-WITHERSPOON A SCOTCHMAN BY BIRTH.-HIS EARLY LIFE. IS LICENSED TO PREACHI.-JOINS THE ARMY OF THE PRETENDER-TAKEN PRISONER AT THE BATTLE OF FALKIRK.-HIS EMINENCE AS A THEOLOGIAN.-Is ELECTED PRESIDENT OF PRINCETON COLLEGE.-FLATTERING RECEPTION IN THIS COUNTRY.-TAKES SIDES WITH THE COLONIES.-ELECTED MEMBER OF THE NEW JERSEY LEGISLATURE.-SCATIIING ATTACK OF GOVERNOR FRANKLIN.-ELECTED MEMBER OF CONGRESS.-HIS SPEECH ON THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.HIS GREAT SERVICES IN CONGRESS.-HIS Death.

THE clergy of the country were found not only in the pulpit and field upholding the cause of the American Colonies, and in the ranks fighting for it, but also in the counsels of the nation lending both the sanction of their office and the ripened fruit of long years of study to promote its success. Foremost among these was Dr. Witherspoon, a Scotchman by birth, but in every other respect an American patriot. He was born in Yester, near Edinburgh, in 1722. Licensed to preach when scarcely of age, he, in 1744, was presented with the parish of Beith by the Earl of Eglinton. A short time after he was ordained, the Pretender landed in the north of Scotland, and the Highlanders rallying with enthusiasm to his standard he moved southward. Carried away by the general enthusiasm, young Witherspoon raised a corps of militia, and putting himself at its head marched to Glasgow. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Falkirk and confined in the castle

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of Donne, where he remained till after the terrible overthrow of the Pretender at the battle of Culloden. He was then released, and returned to his ministerial labors. He soon rose to eminence in his native country, and his fame having reached this side of the water he was elected president of Princeton College. Embarking in May, 1768, he, after a long voyage, reached Philadelphia, where he was received with great honor. His arrival at Princeton was celebrated by an illumination of the college and town, and the whole province shared in the general joy felt at the accession of such a man to its seat of learning. Inaugurated president in August, he devoted himself with his accustomed energy to the duties of his position, and soon gave a new impetus to the cause of learning in the country, and elevated to a higher rank at home and abroad the character of the college. He threw himself with his accustomed ardor into the contest between the Colonies and the mother country, and at once took the position of leader of the patriots in New Jersey, which he ever after maintained.

When Congress appointed a day of fasting and prayer in May, 1776, Dr. Witherspoon preached a discourse, entitled "The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men," in which he went thoroughly into the great political questions of the day. The sermon being published, it was received with warm encomiums in America, but denounced in Scotland, where it was republished, with notes, and the author stigmatized as a rebel and traitor. A few days after its delivery the provincial Congress of New Jersey met, and