Edwardsville Spectator

GRATITUDE.

In the advance of the French army in the fatal campaign against Russia, a French Colonel, whilst strolling the suburbs of Wilna, heard cries of distress from a house, and entering to ascertain the cause, he found four soldiers engaged in plunder, and ill-treating an aged Jew, and a young girl, who appeared the only inhabitants. He instantly interfered, but the marauders not being inclined to relinquish their prey, proceeded to blows, and the Colonel, who was an excellent swordsman, laid two of his assailants dead on the spot, and drove the other two from the house severely wounded: he himself received some slight wounds and a ball grazed his cheek. The old Jew and his daughter were profuse in their thanks, and the Colonel at their request, made their house his head-quarters during the period his regiment remained in Wilna. 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. Every service that active benevolence and gratitude could prompt was instantly exerted; the Jew, his daughter, and household, wept over him, watched his bedside, nursed him with the fondest care, and when the Russians entered, kept him concealed till he was perfectly recovered. The Jew then 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 pittance, 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 five hundred pounds, 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 imminent risk of your own existence, sends you an humble offering of his gratitude, in the hope it may be useful to you, and which he can well spare from the ample means he possesses; the only return he requires is, that if ever hereafter you hear the Jews contemned, you will say that one of the race knew how to be

grateful." The sequel is still more extraordinary. 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 emotions he found the young girl he had protected now a blooming and beautiful woman, and grateful as she was engaging. He soon became a lover, and she soon consented to be his wife; and with her hand he received more than £300,000 as a dowry. Eng. Pap.