Anburey's Travels in America [pp. 710-712]

dnburey's Travels in dimer.ic[.
' of Col. Bird, of Westover. He gives a sketch of the Co lonel and of his seats.
He enlarges considerably upon tobacco, hunting rabbits
and opossums, quarter-racing, wood-ticks, seed-ticks and the
bubby flower-botanice, calyeanthus. He laughs at Col.
Bland's talking French; the Colonel, he says, had a West In dian negro for a servant; and when mounting his horse for his
accustomed daily parade of his light horse, asked his valet,
in French, to bring his scabbard-and the negro not taking,
the Colonel was fain to say, at last,' Donnez moi mon scab bard.' However, the gallant Lieuitenant's sarcasms on this
s ere som at misplaced; for it happened that the
sail. Blangas regularly educated, and spent tent
years in completing his ediion abroad.
Our Lieutenant paid a~ond visit to Richmond, and
calling again at Col. Randolph's residence, Tuckahoe, he
happened there to meet Col. Meade, Col. Laiirens, and another officer of Gen. Washington's staff. In conversation,
speaking of horses, Col. Meade said that to his horse, a
very fleet one, he was indebted for his safety at the battle of
Monmouth. In reconnoiter ing the enemy, he suddenly
c ame very near a group of British offic ers, on e of whora
fired a pist ol at him; whe reup on, he cla pped spurs to his
steed and Cmade off. Lieut. Anburey inqui r e d what was
the color ofis his hor se. He replied,' Black.'' Then,'
said Anburey,' the group of officers you encountered consisted of the Commander in Chief of the British army,
Gen. Howe, and his Aides-de-Camp.'' Had I known that
it was the British Generalissimo, I would have made a desperate e ffor t to c arry him off a prisoner,' replied Col,
Meade. Li eut. Anburey hahd heard from a British officers
who was present at the battle of Monmouth, the story of an
American officer, mounted on a fine black charger, having
approached very near Gen. Howe; and on hearing Col.
Meade speak of his adventure, recognized him as the same
officer.
Gen. Howe, despatching an officer to Charlottesville, for
exchange of prisoners or something of that sort, gave him a
detailed account of the battle of Monmouth, and drew a
plan thereof, but declined giving it to him, saying,' These
Americans will hang you if you are found with it;' but he
added-' Tell Phillips, I fought that day on velvet-he will,
understand what that means.'
Our Lieutenant is a writer of a very versatile genius.
He gives us an account of emigration, peach brandy, fire in
the mountains, Virginia riflemen, the fire-fly, an attempt to
kill a British officer, cotton, finance, persimmons, turkey
buzzards, negroes poisoning one another, want of provisions in the barracks, deserters, British and German, oxen,
sheep, dogwood, the tulip tree, sawyers, (insects,) rats in
the barracks, duels among the officers, &c.
Lieut. Anburey's old friend, Capt. Van Swearingham,
happened to visit Charlottesville. Anburey and Dunbar
implored him to intercede for their exchange with Gem.
Washington, which Capt. Van Swearingham promised he
would certainly do, as soon as he returned to Head Quarters,
At length, the period of release was at hand. Our hero
is delighted with the Blue Ridge, which he crosses, on the
way to Winchester, where he sojourns somne days, and
makes acquaintance with divers persons of whom he tells
sundry anecdotes. Finally, he starts for New-York to embark for merry Englan~d. On his journey, tarrying nine
days in company of some b~rother oflqcers at Fredericktowrn,
in Maryland, the landlord presented a bill for ~713 15s. paper currency, which he was relieved to find was equivalent
to only 4 guineas, in hard money.
Such are some random notes, scratched off upon a cursory perusal of these' Travels in the Interior of North
America' —a work which would afford capital selections
for a periodical —far better than long-winded addtresses about
nothing, or everlasting tales about worse thanl nothing.
ing inhumanity of abandoning their daughter in a deserted
home at such an hour of peril and alarm;
THE INDIANS.
Lieutenant Anburcy, after laboring hard to justify the
employment of the Indian axiliaries, in a subsequent part
of the book makes the following pleasant admissions:
" Those who have the rnanagement and conduet of them
[the Indians] are, from interested motives, obliged to indulge them in all their caprices and humors; and, like
spoiled children, they are more unreasonable and importunate upon every new indulgence granted them; but there
is no remedy. Were they left to themselves, they would
lbe guilty of enormities too horrid to think of; for guilty and
innocent women and infants would be their conmmon prey."
The author's: account of a battle-field strewed with the
wounded and the dead-the death and burial of the gallant
General Fraser, and the adventures of Lady Harriet Ackland, are very interesting, but too long to transcribe.
Lieutenant Anb-urey's second volume, contains a cur-ious
history of the trial of anl American officer for outrages
charged to have been committed upon certain British soldiers, prisoners of war, Gen. Burgoyne prosecuting in person, and Judge Tudor defending the accused. He was acquitted and resumed his command, but was shortly after relieved by Col. Lee, of Virginia, who proved much more to
their liking.
Our author gives us a picturesque account of the march
of Burgoyne's captive army, prisoners of war, by courtesy
styled convention troops from Boston, where they were
some time quartered, to Charlottesville, Virginia, where
they arrived in January, 1779. Here the Lieutenant was
fated to spend some years in a state of inglorious inaction,
during which he made sundry excursions, and found ample
leisure to excogitate on the manners and customs of the
Virginians, and the characteristic rascalities of the Americans in general.
The work contains several engravings; and in this part
of it we have a view of Charlottesville and the barracks of
the convention troops. The Lieutenant in his letters written at this place, descants at large upon plantations, iplanters, tobacco) negroes, roads, turkey-traps, and divers other
matters great and small. He gives a burlesque account of
~ol. Bland riding about with two tatterdemallion dragoons
in front and two ditto in rear with drawn swords; but he
admits that the Colonel treated the prisoners of war in a
very gentlemanly style. Our author, and some ether officers, shortly after their arrival at Chlarlottesville, are permitted to visit Richmond upon parole. They visited Col.
Randolph, of Tuckahoe, Col] Car, of Warwick, Chesterfield, and Col. Goode, of the same county; and Lieu,tecnant
Anburey gives us an account of their country seats.
After breakfast at Warwick, Col. Cary proposed to his
guests to take a ride to Petersburg, which they expressed a
strong desire to do, but were debarred by their parole; upon
which, the Colonel drew from his pocket a letter from the
American officer in commtand at Charlottesville, granting
them permission to go there-Col. Cary having requested it
for them. They accordingly rode to Petersburg, and were
amused on the way by stories of Pocahontas and Powliatan, related by their host.
Gert. Phillips, who was then a prisoner at Charlottesville,
after he was exchanged, burnt Col. Cary's valuable mills,
burnt the tobacco warehouses in Petersburg, and finally
died there amid the thunders of La Fayette's cannon.
Sporting gentlemen will be much edified with a very nlnute description of Col. Randolph's celebrated race-horse
Shakspeare, of whom the Colonel was so careful, that he
made the groom lodge in a room directly overhead of the
stable in which he was kept.
Gen. PCillips quart ered at Blenheim-aa satbetonging to
Col. Carter.
Licut. Anburey passed a night at Belvidera, a plantation
'YI2
[SF,PTF,M-BER, 1840.
I