Phenix Gazette

From a Foreign Journal.
THE JEW OF WILNA.

In the advance of the French against Russia, a Colonel, strolling the suburbs of Wilna, heard cries of distress from a house, & entering to ascertain the cause, he found four soldiers, engaged in plundering and ill treating an aged Jew and a young girl. The marauders, not being inclined to relinquish their prey, proceeded to blows, but the Colonel, who was an excellent swordman, laid two of his assailants dead on the spot, and drove the other two from the house severely wounded—he himself received slight wounds, and a ball grazed his cheek. On the return of the remnant of the French army, oppressed with fatigue, want, and disease, the worn out soldier, in rags, sought the dwelling of the Jew, and with difficulty was recognized; so completely changed was his appearance.—The Jew completely furnished his wardrobe, and contrived to send him through the hostile armies— to France. At the peace, the colonel was obliged to retire on a miserable pension, which an aged mother and a sister shared. He had forgotten the Jew of Wilna, when one evening, in the spring of 1816, a man called at his humble abode, in the suburbs of Paris, and having satisfied himself as to his identity, placed in his hands a packet, and vanished. On opening it, the Colonel found bills. on a banker in Paris, to the amount of 15000 with the following note:—“He whose daughter you preserved from a brutal ravisher, whose life you saved, and whose house you protected from plunder, at the risk of your own existence, sends you an offering of his gratitude; the only return he requires is if ever you hear the Jews contemned, you will say, that one of that race, knew how to be grateful.' The old Jew died at Vienna; his daughter the heiress of his immense wealth, the largest portion of which was in the French funds, visited Paris; it was natural she should seek the brave man who had preserved her from the worst of fates, and with no common emotion he found the young girl he had protected, now a blooming and beautiful woman, and amiable as she was engaging. He became a lover, and she consented to be a wife.—With her hand he received more than 1100,000.