Transcriber's Note: This cover has been created by the transcrier using the original cover found at the end of the text and adding the words. It is placed into the public domain.

FEMALE WARRIORS.

MEMORIALS OF
FEMALE VALOUR AND HEROISM, FROM
THE MYTHOLOGICAL AGES TO THE PRESENT ERA.
BY
ELLEN C. CLAYTON
(MRS. NEEDHAM),
AUTHOR OF
"QUEENS OF SONG," "ENGLISH FEMALE ARTISTS," Etc.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.
1879.
[All Rights Reserved.]

PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO.,
10, LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.

CONTENTS.

FEMALE WARRIORS.

I.

Captain Bodeaux, Female Officer in the French Army.—Christian Davies, alias Mother Ross.—Female Soldier in the 20th Foot.—Women of Barcelona.—Hannah Snell, Private in the Line and Marines.—Phœbe Hessel, Private in the 5th Regiment.—Paul Daniel, a Female Recruit.—Hannah Whitney and Anne Chamberlayne, Female Sailors.—Mary Ralphson.—"Pretty Polly Oliver."—Miss Jenny Cameron.—Anne Sophia Detzliffin, Prussian Female Soldier.—Madame de Drucourt (Siege of Louisburg).—Madame Ducharmy (Capture of Guadeloupe).—Chevalier d'Eon.—Deborah Samson, Private, and Molly Macaulay, Sergeant in the American Revolutionary Army.—Elizabeth Canning.—Catherine the Second of Russia and the Princess Daschkova.—Doña Rafaela Mora, Female Captain in the Spanish American Service (How Nelson Lost an Eye.)—Female Sailor on Board Admiral Rodney's Ship.

During the eighteenth century there were to be found in nearly every European army, one or more female soldiers. They sometimes held commissions as officers, but more frequently served as non-commissioned officers or privates. Those women and girls who enlisted in the British Army were generally wives or sweethearts of soldiers whose regiments had been ordered abroad, and the women, preferring to encounter the dangers and hardships of a foreign campaign rather than the miseries of separation, disguised themselves in male attire and enlisted in some battalion which was embarking for the seat of war. Sometimes, indeed, women, deserted by their husbands, resolved to follow their unfaithful spouses all over the world: and, unable to afford travelling expenses, enlisted at the first recruiting depôt, and trusted to chance for meeting with or hearing of the object of their search. As no personal examination of recruits took place in those days, either in Great Britain or elsewhere, there was no way of finding out the imposture until afterwards, more especially as the female soldiers behaved themselves quite as manly as their comrades.

Of course in every country there have been local celebrities whose names even are unknown beyond the frontiers, for a man or woman must perform very great deeds to become famous in foreign lands. Thus it happens, while we are familiar with the names of many an English female soldier, we know of only two or three women who served during the last century in the armies of France. Yet the world well knows that Frenchwomen are second to none in warlike esprit. One of these Gallic warriors was Captain Bodeaux, an officer holding a commission as lieutenant in one of the regiments which went over to Ireland under the command of St. Ruth, to assist James the Second. This gallant officer distinguished herself at the battle of the Boyne, July 1st, 1690, where she met with Mr. Cavanaugh, father of Christian Davies. She stopped at the house of that gentleman (who was also fighting for King James) till about three in the morning, when, being alarmed, they fled together precipitately. Christian Davies describes this officer as "a very handsome young French gentleman," though the real sex of Bodeaux was not unknown to her. At the siege of Limerick, June, 1691, she held Thomond bridge, over the Shannon, with a small body of troops, against the English, till at last she fell, covered with wounds. Such was the bravery of this young French officer that her death was lamented even by the foe. Great was their astonishment when they found their valiant antagonist was a woman.

The most famous woman who has ever served as a private in any modern European army, was Christian (or Christiana) Davies, alias Mother Ross. She was born in 1667, in Dublin, "of parents whose probity acquired them that respect from their acquaintance which they had no claim to from their birth." Her father, Mr. Cavanaugh, was a brewer and maltster, employing upwards of twenty servants, exclusive of those engaged on his farm at Leslipp, where his wife and daughter resided. Christiana never liked sedentary work, and in the matter of education never made much progress. She had barely sufficient patience to learn reading, and to become a good needle-woman. Open air exercises were her delight; ploughing, hay-making, using the flail, and, above all, riding on horseback. "I used," she says, "to get astride upon the horses and ride them bare-backed about the fields and ditches, by which I once got a terrible fall and spoiled a gray mare given to my brother by our grandfather." Mr. Cavanaugh never discovered the offender; but, to purchase the silence of a cowherd who saw her and the mare fall into a dry ditch, she was obliged, for a long time, to give him a cup of ale every night.

In 1685, when the Irish were arming for King James, Mr. Cavanaugh sold his corn and equipped a troop of horse, with which he joined that monarch. After enduring great hardships he was dangerously wounded at the battle of Aughrim, June 12th, 1691, and died a few days after. His property was confiscated by Government.

Previous to this, shortly after the departure of Mr. Cavanaugh from home, the Roman Catholic inhabitants of Leslipp blocked up the door of the parish church during divine service, with logs of wood, butchers' blocks, and any other heavy articles which came to hand. Christiana was at home when this occurred; but her mother being, with others, blockaded in the sacred edifice, she seized up a spit and ran to the rescue. Being resisted by a sergeant, she thrust the spit through his leg; then removing the things which blocked up the door, set the congregation free. Christiana was arrested for wounding the sergeant, but was afterwards liberated.

After the death of her father, Christian went on a visit to her aunt, the landlady of a public-house in Dublin, who, at her death, left the establishment to her niece. The latter married Richard Welsh, a good-looking young fellow who acted as barman and general assistant. After two boys had been born, her happiness was suddenly blighted by the mysterious disappearance of Richard, of whom nothing was heard for several months. At last, when she had given him up for dead, a letter arrived (the twelfth he had written) telling her how, on the day of his disappearance, he had been invited by an old friend on board a transport with recruits on board; the vessel set sail, and they had reached Helvoet Sluys before he could get ashore. Having no way of getting back to Ireland, he enlisted in a foot-regiment.

Christian resolved to follow her husband to Flanders. Letting the public-house, leaving her furniture with different friends, and placing one child with her grandmother and the other with a nurse, she dressed herself in a suit of her husband's clothes, cut her hair short, and went to the "Golden Last," where Ensign Laurence told the new recruit that she was "a clever, brisk young fellow," and enrolled her, under the name of Christopher Welsh, in the Marquis de Pisare's regiment of foot.

The recruits were disembarked at Williamstadt, in Holland. Thence they marched to Gorkhum, where they received their uniforms; and the next day they advanced to Landen, which they reached a day or two before the great battle of July 19th, 1693. Here they were incorporated into their respective battalions. Christian found the drill very easy, "having been accustomed," as she says, "to soldiers, when a girl, and delighted with seeing them exercise. I very soon was perfect," she adds, "and applauded by my officers for my dexterity in going through it."

The same night that she arrived at Landen, being on night-guard at the door of the Elector of Hanover (afterwards George I.), Christian was wounded by a musket-ball which grazed her leg, barely missing the bone. She was thus laid up for two months.

During the summer of 1694, Christian being out with a foraging party, was made prisoner, and brought, together with three-score English and Dutch, to St. Germain-en-Laye. When the ex-Queen of England heard that Christian and her companions were English soldiers, she ordered that each man should have a pound of bread, a pint of wine, and five farthings each per diem, with clean straw every night. But the Dutch prisoners were not allowed these luxuries. The Duke of Berwick, a Marshal of France, visited the prison, and tried to persuade the British to follow his example and enter the service of the Grand Monarque. The chief annoyance which Christian suffered was the fear of being recognised by her cousin, Captain Cavanaugh, a French officer, who visited the prison nearly every day.

About nine days later, the English prisoners were exchanged, and on being set free they waited upon the Queen to thank her for her kindness. Her regiment passed the winter of 1694-5 in Gorkhum, where Christian passed her time "very merrily" by making love to the young and pretty daughter of a wealthy burgher. After a few weeks' courtship "the poor girl grew absolutely fond" of her military wooer. This harmless frolic led to a duel between Private Welsh and a sergeant of the regiment who wished to engage the girl's affections. Having dangerously wounded the sergeant, Christian was ordered under arrest; but the old father, who was in ignorance of the real state of the case, exerted his influence with the authorities, and procured her discharge from the regiment.

Bidding farewell to the girl, under pretence of going to purchase a commission, Christian enlisted in the 6th Dragoons, commanded by Lord John Hayes, and served all through the campaign of 1695, including the siege of Namur. Nothing remarkable happened to her till the Peace of Ryswick, Sept. 20th, 1697, when she was discharged, and went home to Ireland. None of her friends recognised the stalwart dragoon as being identical with Mrs Welsh; so, in place of claiming her property she found other means of support, until the War of the Spanish Succession broke out, in 1701. Returning to Holland, Christian re-enlisted in the 6th Dragoons.

She served through the campaigns of 1701-2, under the Duke of Marlborough, without being wounded. She was one of the captors of Venlo, Sept. 23rd, 1702, which proved a profitable investment for the English, for they found more than thirty pieces of cannon, twenty thousand florins, and a quantity of plate and jewellery. Christian complains that, the Grenadiers having the start of the Dragoons, she "got very little of the plunder." "I got, however," she confesses, "a large silver chalice and some other pieces of plate," which prize was sufficient to console her.

The Dragoons wintered at Venlo, and a night or two after their arrival she was ordered, with others, to escort the Duke of Marlborough along the banks of the Meuse. "During our march," says Christian, "by the darkness of the night we mistook our way, and going up the country fell in with a hogstye where was a sow with five pigs, one of which I made bold with. I was possessed of it some time," she adds, "when one Taylor, a corporal belonging to Brigadier Panton's Regiment of Horse, attempted to spoil me of my booty, whereupon some words arising, he drew, and made a stroke at my head, which I warding with my hand, had the sinew of my little finger cut in two; at the same time, with the butt-end of my pistol I struck out one of his eyes." Pretty discipline for British soldiers!

After serving all through the campaign of 1703, including the battle of Eckeren, and the sieges of Bonn and Lembourg, she was wounded in the hip at the battle of Donawert, July 2nd, 1704. The musket-ball lodged so firmly in the bone that the efforts of three surgeons in the hospital near Schellenberg were insufficient to extract it. Christian with difficulty warded off the discovery of her sex.

She left hospital just in time to assist in plundering the Bavarians. "We spared nothing," says she; "burning or otherwise destroying whatever we could not carry off. The bells of the churches we broke to pieces that we might bring them away with us. I filled three bed-ticks, after having emptied them of the feathers, with bell-metal, men's and women's clothes, some velvets, and about one hundred Dutch caps which I had plundered from a shop." Besides these things she got several pieces of plate, as spoons, mugs, cups, etc.

After the battle of Blenheim, August 2nd, 1704, in which she was in the midst of the fight, under the hottest of the fire, Christian was appointed one of the guard despatched with the prisoners to Breda. Having halted to refresh themselves with a pint of beer and a pennyworth of bread each (the prisoners being allowed the same indulgence), Christian saw the long-lost Richard Welsh, now a sergeant in the Earl of Orkney's regiment of foot, making love to a Dutch woman. She abused him heartily at first, but she soon forgave him. It was agreed that she should remain in the army and pass as his brother. On her return to her regiment she assisted in the siege of Landau. Nothing of any consequence happened to her during the campaign of 1705.

On the 23rd of May, 1706, was fought the great battle of Ramilies. When the French were retreating, Christian, who had fought valiantly during the engagement, was struck in the head by "an unlucky shell" fired from a mortar planted on the steeple of the church. Her skull was fractured, and she was carried to the hospital of Meldré or Meldret, where her head was trepanned. During a ten weeks' illness the long-dreaded discovery of her sex was made. The surgeons sent word to Brigadier Preston that his "pretty Dragoon" was a woman. The Brigadier, who would at first scarcely believe the news, told Christian that he had always looked upon her "as the prettiest fellow, and the best man he had." The story soon spread through the regiment, and Christian was visited by Lord John Hayes and all her officers and comrades. Lord John gave strict orders that she should want for nothing, and promised that her pay as a dragoon should be continued till she had quitted the hospital.

Of course she could no longer stop in the regiment. "Brigadier Preston" she says "made me a present of a handsome silk gown; every one of the officers contributed to furnishing me with whatever was requisite for the dress of my sex, and dismissed me the service with a handsome compliment." Her husband having been questioned relative to their previous acquaintance, it was thought prudent to have them married again; and this second wedding was celebrated with much solemnity, in presence of all the officers, "who, everyone, at taking leave, would kiss the bride, and left me," adds Christian, "a piece of gold, some four or five, to put me in a way of life."

For a short time she carried on the business of cook to the 6th Dragoons; but finding the work too heavy, she turned sutler, and was permitted, as a special favour, to pitch her tent in the front of the army, the other sutlers being driven to the rear. She spent much time in marauding; and one day in 1708, being in male garb, she and her mule were taken prisoner. However, she persuaded the French officer to let her go. Shortly before this she hired herself as cook to the head sutler of the British army, Mr. Dupper, who afterwards kept a tavern on Fish Street Hill, London.

Richard Welsh was slain at the siege of Mons, in September, 1709. Her grief, she tells us, was something terrible. It was on this occasion that she first came to be styled Mother Ross. "Captain Ross came by, who seeing my agony, could not forbear sympathizing with me and dropped some tears, protesting that the poor woman's grief touched him nearer than the loss of so many brave men. This confession from the Captain gave me the nick-name of Mother Ross, by which I became better known than by that of my husband."

Eleven weeks after the death of Welsh, his sorrowing widow was persuaded to bestow her hand on Hugh Jones, Grenadier, who was killed at the siege of St. Venant, 1710. During this and the following year Christian held the post of under-cook in Lord Stair's kitchen.

On the close of the campaign of 1712 she returned to England, and called on the Duke of Marlborough; but he, being in disgrace, advised her to wait on the Duke of Argyle. The latter told Christian to draw up a petition to the Queen. Her majesty received Mother Ross very graciously, and gave her an order on the Earl of Oxford for fifty pounds. But having waited on the Earl several times and seen neither him nor the money, she petitioned the Queen again. Anne granted a second order for the same sum, payable this time on Sir William Windham, and Christian was also put on the pension list for a shilling a day. Sir William at once paid the fifty pounds; but the Earl of Oxford, without speaking to Queen Anne, cut down the pension to five-pence. On the accession of George I., she succeeded in having it raised again to a shilling; and this pension she retained till her death.

Immediately after receiving the money, Christian returned to Dublin; but being unable to recover either her house or furniture, she set up a beershop. She was keeping herself very comfortably, "till my evil genius," she laments, "entangled me in a third marriage." This time the bridegroom was named Davies, and belonged to the Welsh Fusileers. His regiment was ordered, soon after the marriage, to England; Christian therefore sold her effects, and returned to London, where she established a shop in Willow Walk, Tothill Fields, Westminster, for the sale of strong liquors and farthing pies. This was in 1715. She prospered so well, that after the return of her husband from Preston (where he had gone to fight the Pretender), she was able to purchase his discharge; but "in two days after his arrival in London, being drunk, he enlisted in the Guards." During the November of this year, Mother Ross kept a sutler's tent in Hyde Park where the Life and Foot Guards were encamped.

Her husband was a constant source of trouble and vexation. Some friends having obtained his discharge, he spent her money so fast that she was obliged to give up, successively, public-houses at Paddington and in Charles-street, Westminster. She returned to Dublin, when the Lord-Lieutenant granted her the exclusive privilege of selling beer in the Phœnix Park on review-days. Tiring of this, in less than a year, she returned to England; and after living three years in Chester, she entered Chelsea College as a Pensioner. She also succeeded in obtaining a sergeantcy in the College for her husband. Here she resided till her death: being supported by the benevolence of several members of the nobility—principally officers who had known her as Mother Ross. She went to Court twice a-week to keep herself in the minds of her patrons; "but," she laments, "the expense of coach-hire, as both my lameness and age increases, for I cannot walk ten yards without help, is a terrible tax upon their charity, and at the same time many of my old friends no longer going to Court, my former subsistence is greatly diminished from what it was."

For some months previous to her death Christian Davies's health was undermined by dropsy, scurvy, and other disorders. But the chief cause of her last illness was sitting up several nights by the bed-side of her husband. This brought on a severe cold, which threw her into a fever, of which she died, July 7th, 1739. She was interred with military honours in the burial-ground of Chelsea College. Her autobiography, edited by Daniel Defoe, was published in 1740. A second edition came out in 1741, with a vignette frontispiece representing Christian Davies first in her Dragoon's uniform, and then in the dress of a sutler.

According to the embarkation returns of the 20th Foot, dated 1st July, 1702, preserved among the Harleian MSS. at the British Museum, one of the soldiers in Captain St. Clair's Company was found to be a woman. The regiment was embarking to join the expedition against Cadiz.

During the war of the Spanish Succession, Catalonia having declared against Philip, the French claimant to the crown, was invaded and ravaged by the forces of Louis Quatorze. Barcelona, the capital, was invested for several months, and the formidable artillery of France played, almost unceasingly, on the walls. But the people, nothing daunted by the arrival of Marshal Berwick with twenty thousand men to reinforce the besiegers, made a most resolute defence. All who could bear arms flew to aid in the defence; the priests and the women enrolled themselves in the ranks, and fought with the same desperate valour as the rest. Their courage, however, was unavailing; for the city was taken by assault, Sept. 11th, 1714.

Hannah Snell, another British heroine, was born in Fryer-street, Winchester, on the 23rd of April, 1723. Military predilections ran in the family; her grandfather served under King William and the Duke of Marlborough, and was slain in the battle of Malplaquet. Her father, however, was a simple dyer and hosier. Hannah was the youngest but one of a family of three sons and six daughters.

On the death of her father and mother in 1740, Hannah came to London, and lived for some time in Ship-street, Wapping, in the house of one of her sisters, Mrs. Gray, whose husband was a carpenter. She had not resided in the house very long before she became acquainted with James Summs, a Dutch sailor, whom she married, Jan. 6th, 1743, after a courtship of about two years. Her marriage was not a happy one. After squandering the little property belonging to his wife, spending it in the lowest debauchery, James became heavily involved in debt, and deserted her altogether. Hannah, left without the means of support, was obliged to return to the house of her sister, where, two months after, her child, a girl, was born.

Notwithstanding his vile conduct, Mrs. Summs still dearly loved her husband; and on the death of her child, she resolved to set out in search of the truant. Dressing herself in a suit of clothes belonging to her brother-in-law, which, together with his name, she borrowed, Hannah left London, Nov. 23rd, 1743, and reached Coventry without hearing any news of her missing husband. On the 27th of the same month she enlisted, under the name of James Gray, in General Guise's regiment of Foot (the 6th, or Royal First Warwickshire). After remaining about three weeks in the town, during which she made numberless inquiries about James Summs, Hannah was sent with seventeen comrades to join her regiment at Carlisle.

She was soon very proficient in the drill; but at the same time she had the misfortune to incur the enmity of Davis, a sergeant in her company, who wished to employ the new recruit in a somewhat dishonourable affair with a girl who lived in Carlisle. Hannah, however, disclosed the real intentions of the sergeant to the intended victim, and gained the love of the girl, while she made a bitter enemy of Davis. The latter, from seeing Hannah and the other very frequently together, grew terribly jealous; he seized the first opportunity to charge his supposed rival with neglect of duty. Hannah was sentenced to receive six hundred lashes. After five hundred had been administered, the officers interceded, and obtained for her the remission of the other hundred.

The tyranny of Davis soon became unbearable; and, to make matters worse, a carpenter from Worcester, who had lodged in the house of Hannah's brother-in-law, enlisted in the regiment, and she was in constant terror lest he should recognise and betray her. To get away without the discovery of her sex was now the great object of her thoughts. She borrowed a small sum of money from the girl in Carlisle, deserted, and set off on foot for Portsmouth. About a mile from Carlisle she saw several men and women picking peas; their clothes lay about, at a short distance, and Hannah very speedily exchanged her soldier's coat for an old jacket.

At Liverpool she entered a small public-house; and, by affecting to make love to the landlady, made the landlord so jealous that a match of "fisticuffs" ensued. Boniface, however, got the worst of it, and was compelled to keep his bed all next day. Hannah borrowed some money of the landlady, and made the best of her way to Chester, where she took genteel lodgings in a private house.

It chanced that a pretty young mantua-maker lodged in the same house. Hannah contrived to make the acquaintance of the girl, and speedily won her heart, together with five guineas. The handsome young suitor levanted to Winchester, where, in an attempt on the heart of a widow, she met her match. She speedily quitted the town, with only a few shillings in her pocket.

In about a month from the day she left Carlisle, Hannah reached Portsmouth, where she enlisted in Colonel Fraser's Regiment of Marines. With others of her regiment, she embarked, three weeks later, for the East Indies. The "Swallow" formed part of Admiral Boscawen's fleet. Hannah soon earned the praises of the officers for her dexterity in washing, mending, and cooking. Mr. Wyegate, Lieutenant of Marines, was so greatly interested in the young private, that he invited her to become one at the officers' mess.

The "Swallow" suffered from some terrible storms, which destroyed almost all her rigging, and reduced the vessel almost to the condition of a wreck. It was refitted at Gibraltar; proceeding thence by the Cape of Good Hope to the Mauritius, which Admiral Boscawen unsuccessfully attacked. Thence the fleet sailed to Fort St. David on the Coromandel coast; where the marines being disbanded, joined the British force encamped before Areacoping. The place surrendered after a siege of ten days. During the siege Hannah displayed so much courage that she received the commendations of all her officers.

The British next laid siege to Pondicherry; but after suffering terrible hardships, they were forced by the rainy season to raise the siege in eleven weeks. Hannah was one of the first body of British soldiers who forded the river, breast high, under an incessant fire from the French batteries. She was also for seven nights successively on duty in the picket-ground, and worked exceedingly hard for upwards of fourteen days in the trenches.

She was dangerously wounded in one of the attacks. During this action she fired thirty-seven rounds, and received in return six shots in her right leg, five in the left leg, and a dangerous wound in the abdomen; the last-named being excessively painful. She was terrified lest these wounds would lead to the discovery of her sex; so in place of letting the army-surgeons dress all her wounds, she kept silence about the most dangerous of them, though it was at the risk of her life. Entrusting the secret to no one but a black woman who waited on her, Hannah extracted the bullet with her finger and thumb; the negress obtained lint, salve, and other necessaries for dressing, and the wound was soon perfectly cured.

Hannah was removed for the cure of her other wounds to the hospital at Cuddalore; and before her recovery, the greater part of the fleet had sailed. She was sent on board the "Tartar Pink," and performed all the regular duties of a sailor, till the return of the fleet from Madras, when she was turned over to the "Eltham" man-of-war. On board this ship she sailed to Bombay. The vessel sprang a leak, and they were obliged to stop here five weeks to repair.

One night the Lieutenant of the "Eltham," who commanded in the absence of Captain Lloyd, wishing to pass the time agreeably, asked Hannah for a song. She declined, on the plea of being unwell; but the officer would take no denial. Hannah became obstinate, but soon she had cause to regret her folly. Shortly after, she was accused of stealing a shirt belonging to one of her comrades. The Lieutenant, having a grudge against Hannah, ordered her to be put in irons; and after five days' confinement, ordered her to the gangway, where she received five lashes. The shirt was afterwards found in the box of the very man who had complained of losing it.

Returning to Fort St. David, the "Eltham" rejoined the squadron, which departed soon after on its homeward voyage. Hannah was terribly "chaffed" during the voyage because she had no beard; and she became known among the sailors by the name of Miss Molly Gray. But in place of resenting this, Hannah, to show she was as good a man as any of them, plunged headlong into all the amusements and enjoyments of the others, and they soon forgot the old nickname, for which they substituted that of "Hearty Jemmy."

One night, in a house of entertainment at Lisbon, she learned, from an English sailor who had been in a Dutch ship at Genoa, that James Summs, her husband, was dead. He had murdered a gentleman of high position in Genoa, and for this crime he was put into a bag full of stones, and flung into the sea.

The British fleet arrived at Spithead in 1750. Hannah left the "Eltham," and came to London, where she was cordially welcomed by her sister. The strange story of Hannah Snell soon became generally known; and as she had a good voice, the managers of the Royalty Theatre, Wellclose Square, engaged her to appear before the footlights as Bill Bobstay, Firelock, and other military and naval heroes, and to go through the manual and platoon exercises with a musket. But she did not long remain on the stage, as, in consideration of the wounds she received during the siege of Pondicherry, she was put on the out-pensioners' list at Chelsea Hospital. Her pension was increased by a special grant to twenty pounds a year, and paid regularly to the day of her death. With the assistance of some friends she set up a public-house at Wapping, by which she realized a very good income. On one side of the sign-board there was painted the figure of a jovial British tar, on the other a portrait of herself in her marine's uniform. Underneath the last was inscribed, "The Widow in Masquerade, or the Female Warrior."

Hannah preferred masculine attire, and continued to wear men's clothes for the rest of her life. She lived long to enjoy her prosperity; but during the latter years of her life she became a lunatic, and died, at the age of sixty-nine, in Bedlam.

Phœbe Hessel (or Hassel) was for many years a private in the 5th Regiment, and served under the Duke of Cumberland in many engagements, amongst others the battle of Fontenoy. The fatigues and hardships of war certainly did not tend to shorten her days. Born during the reign of Queen Anne, she lived to see the accession of George IV. Indeed, it was through the liberality of the last-named monarch that Phœbe was enabled to live comfortably during the latter years of her life. When the Prince Regent visited Brighton, he saw old Phœbe, who was living there, maintained by some of the more benevolent inhabitants. Having heard her strange story, the Prince told some one to ask her what sum she required to make her comfortable.

"Half-a-guinea a week," replied Phœbe, "will make me as happy as a princess."

This annuity was, by order of the Prince Regent, paid to her as long as she lived.

Phœbe Hessel was a woman of good information, and very communicative. Her stories were always worth hearing. She retained all her faculties till within a few hours of her death, which took place Dec. 12th, 1821. She was buried in Brighton Churchyard, and a tombstone erected over her grave by public subscription. The following inscription was carved thereon:—

"Sacred to the memory of Phœbe Hessel, born Sept. 1st, 1713. She served for many years as a private soldier in the 5th regiment, in different parts of Europe, and in 1745 fought under the Duke of Cumberland in the battle of Fontenoy, where she received a bayonet wound in the arm; her long life which commenced in the reign of queen Anne, induced his present Majesty George IV. to grant her a pension. She died at Brighton, where she had long resided, Dec. 12th, 1821, aged 108 years."

In August, 1761, as a sergeant was exercising some recruits on board a transport at Portsmouth, he noticed that one of them, who had enlisted under the name of Paul Daniel, had a more prominent breast than the others. When the firing was over, the sergeant sent for Daniel to the cabin, and told him his suspicion that he was a woman. After some evasions the recruit confessed her sex; and said that she had a husband, to whom she was devotedly attached, who, after squandering a plentiful fortune, had reduced himself and her to beggary, and had then enlisted. His regiment had been ordered to Germany in 1759 to serve against the French, and had remained abroad ever since. Not having heard from him for two years, she had resolved to roam the world in search of him. She heard that the British Government were sending more troops to Germany, so she enlisted in one of the regiments ordered thither, thinking to meet her husband. When the discovery of her sex frustrated this design, she declared herself to be inconsolable.

In October of the same year, a young woman aged about twenty, attired in nautical garb, was seized at Plymouth by the Press-gang, and sent to Captain Toby. On her capture she was placed for safety in the town jail. Not relishing her imprisonment, she roundly abused Captain Toby, told him she was a woman, that her name was Hannah Whitney, that she was born in Ireland, and had served on board several British men-of-war for upwards of five years. She concluded by informing the astounded captain that she would never have discovered her sex if they had not placed her in a common jail. Of course she was immediately released.

There is (or was) a monument in Chelsea church, commemorative of the masculine courage of Anne Chamberlayne, only daughter of Edward Chamberlayne, Doctor of Laws. She appears to have been infected with an ardour for naval glory by her two brothers, who were both distinguished officers on board men-of-war. Putting on the dress of a sailor, she joined the crew of a fine ship, commanded by one of her brothers; and in an engagement with the French, she fought most gallantly for upwards of six hours.

On the 27th of June, 1808, died at Liverpool Mary Ralphson, a Scottish heroine. She was born in Lochaber, June 1st, 1698; and married Ralph Ralphson, then a private in the British army. She followed her husband in all his campaigns under the Duke of Cumberland, and was present with him in several famous engagements. On the breaking out of the war in French Flanders she embarked with the troops, and shared their toils and vicissitudes. Being present on the field of Dettingen during the heat of the conflict, surrounded with heaps of the slain, she saw a wounded dragoon fall dead by her side. She disguised herself in his clothes, and regained the British camp; then returned with her husband to England. After this she accompanied him in his later campaigns under the Duke of Cumberland. She lived to a fine old age, and was supported during her declining years chiefly by some benevolent ladies of Liverpool.

There is just a hint of a loyal Jacobite heroine in a curious old Scotch ballad called "Polly Oliver's Ramble." The song commences:—

"As pretty Polly Oliver lay musing in bed,
A comical fancy came into her head;
Nor father nor mother shall make me false prove,
I'll list for a soldier and follow my love."

There is an old song on the Pretender which appears to be a parody on this ballad. This begins:—

"As Perkin one morning lay musing in bed,
The thought of three kingdoms ran much in his head."

In June, 1745, Charles Edward Stuart, the young Pretender, landed in Scotland to assert his father's right to the British crown. He was joined by most of the Highland chieftains with their clans, and he sent to all those lairds who had not yet paid their allegiance, to do so without delay. Lochiel, his lieutenant, wrote to Cameron, the Laird of Glendessary, commanding him to appear at head-quarters immediately, with as many of his clan, armed, as he could muster in so short a notice.

The laird was a minor, and, moreover, a youth of little capacity; so his aunt, Miss Jenny Cameron, roused the clan to arms, and marched, at the head of two hundred and fifty claymores, to the camp of Bonnie Prince Charlie. She rode into camp on a bay gelding decked out in green trappings, trimmed with gold. She wore a sea-green riding habit with scarlet lappets edged with gold. Her hair was tied behind in loose buckles, and covered by a velvet cap with scarlet feathers. In her hand, in lieu of a whip, she carried a drawn sword.

A female soldier was a sight not to be seen every day. The Prince immediately quitted the lines to receive her. Miss Jenny rode up to him without the slightest embarrassment; and giving the military salute, told him "as her nephew was not able to attend the royal standard, she had raised men, and now brought them to his highness; that she believed them ready to hazard their lives in his cause; and that, although at present they were commanded by a woman, yet she hoped they had nothing womanish about them; for she found that so glorious a cause had raised in her own heart every manly thought and quite extinguished the woman. What effect then must it have on those who have no feminine fear to combat, and are free from the incumbrance of female dress. These men," she added, "are yours; they have devoted themselves to your service, they bring you hearts as well as hands. I can follow them no farther," she said, "but I shall pray for your success."

The clansmen then passed in review before the prince. When this was over, he conducted Miss Cameron to his tent, where she was entertained with the utmost courtesy and hospitality. Prince Charlie gave her the title of "Colonel Cameron," and by this epithet she was distinguished for many years.

Miss Jenny remained with the Jacobite army until it invaded England, and joined it again on its return, in Annandale. She was still in camp in January, 1746, and fought in the battle of Falkirk on the 23rd; when she was made prisoner, and lodged in Edinburgh Castle. She was ultimately set at liberty, and returned to the guardianship of her weak-minded nephew.

A Highland song was composed in her honour, relating how:

"Miss Jenny Cameron,
She put her belt and hanger on,
And away to the Young Pretender."

Anne Sophia Detzliffin, who served four years in the Prussian army, was born in 1738 at Treptow on the Rega. In 1757, during the Seven Years' War, she was excited by a thirst for glory to quit her father's house and go to Colberg, where she enlisted in Prince Frederic's regiment of cuirassiers. She remained in this corps for two years, and fought in several actions; in one of which, near Bamberg, she received a sabre-wound in her left arm.

She next fought in the battle of Kunnersdorff. Her regiment returned some days later to Saxony, where Anne fell dangerously ill, and was sent to the hospital of Meissen. She soon recovered, but having no opportunity for rejoining her regiment, she enlisted in a battalion of Grenadiers, which was decimated shortly after in the actions of Strechlin and Torgau, in 1760. In the latter, fought on Nov. 3rd, Sophia Detzliffin received two severe wounds on the head, and was captured by the Austrians, who took her to the hospital at Dresden.

When she had almost recovered, the heroine found means to escape from the hospital. Passing through the Austrian outposts without being discovered, she enlisted (in 1761) with Colonel Colignon, who sent her to a regiment of Le Noble's Volunteers.

After serving in this corps for two months, she was accused on the 14th of July by one of her comrades of robbing him of fourteen-pence. There was not the slightest foundation for the accusation; but a subaltern immediately placed her under arrest. Anne was determined not to submit to such an indignity. Sending for her lieutenant, she told that she was a female, and declared that during four years' service in various regiments she had never once been ordered under arrest, nor even received a blow for neglect of duty. She concluded by telling the officer that after this insult she would no longer remain in the army—which was, however, a needless remark, as she would not have been permitted to stop after her sex was known.

This heroine, when she quitted the army, was twenty-three years old, with strongly-marked features, and a brown complexion.

On the 8th of June, 1758, General (afterwards Lord) Amherst, with an army of twelve thousand men, in which General Wolfe served as a brigadier, landed on the island of Cape-Breton, in Canada, and commenced the siege of Louisbourg. This town was so strongly fortified that the French, believing it to be impregnable, left only two thousand eight hundred men for its defence. The military commander, the Chevalier de Drucourt, was a brave and resolute soldier, and made a gallant defence. The British, however, determined to make up for all their recent disasters, commenced the siege with more than ordinary vigour and energy. The Chevalier was ably assisted in the defence by his wife; who, appearing on the walls among the common soldiers, exhorted them to fight bravely in defence of the town. And not only did she thus cheer them by encouraging words; she carried round food and ammunition to the exhausted soldiers, and occasionally took her turn at the guns, which she loaded and fired with skill and rapidity. But the efforts of the Chevalier and his wife were of no avail against the superior numbers of the English. Louisbourg surrendered on the 26th of June; and the Chevalier and Madame de Drucourt were made prisoners. However, General Amherst treated his brave captives with the greatest respect and hospitality.

In 1759, when the British were besieging Guadaloupe, the native planters were incited to resist the invaders by M. Dutril, the French Governor. Amongst others, Madame Ducharmy, wife of a planter, armed her servants and negroes, and led them to an attack on the British forces.

Amongst the celebrities of the eighteenth century, none was more famous than the Chevalier d'Eon. Even before the strange question as to his real sex had been raised, the Chevalier was well known in every European court as a skilful diplomatist and a brave soldier. In 1761, having attained the summit of his glory in the political world, he sighed for military renown. As aide-de-camp to Marshal Broglio, he distinguished himself most highly against the British and Prussians. Being entrusted with the removal of the military stores from Hoxter, which the French were evacuating, he passed the Weser with several boats, under a heavy fire from the enemy, and saved all the baggage. Shortly after this he was wounded in the head and thigh in a skirmish at Ultrop.

On the 7th September, at the head of the Grenadiers de Champagne and the Swiss Guards, the Chevalier attacked a Highland regiment ("Montagnards Ecossais," Broglio styles them in his despatch) near the village of Meinsloff, and after a slight skirmish, drove them back to the British camp. At Osterwick, with about fifty dragoons and hussars, D'Eon charged a Prussian battalion six or seven hundred strong, which was intercepting the communications of the French with Wolfembutel. The Prussians, seized with a panic, threw down their arms, and surrendered. The capture of Wolfembutel by Marshal Saxe was the result of this brilliant action.

The preliminaries of peace in September, 1762, terminated the Chevalier's military career, and he returned to the political world, where he had already made himself so distinguished. He was sent to London, as Secretary of Legation under the Duc de Nivernois, the Ambassador-Extraordinary. On the return of the Duc to Paris, the Chevalier remained in London first as resident, and afterwards as minister plenipotentiary at the Court of St. James's. At this period his star was at its zenith. Fortune lavished her favours upon him with the most profuse liberality. Suddenly the wheel turned; and, without any reason being assigned, D'Eon was dismissed from all his appointments, and compelled to reside, disgraced, in London. The French ministers who had negotiated the peace now effected his ruin. The treaty had been considered disgraceful to France, both by the king and the people; and the negotiators, afraid of the Chevalier, who knew too much, found means to disgrace him. Louis XV., however, settled upon D'Eon a pension of twelve hundred livres.

During the Chevalier's residence in London, suspicions arose in the minds of several persons that D'Eon was a disguised woman. The notion soon reached the Continent; and both in England and abroad, some very extraordinary wagers were made on the subject. In July, 1777, a trial took place before Lord Chief Justice Mansfield on an action brought by a Mr. Hayes against a Mr. Jacques, the latter of whom had received several premiums of fifteen guineas, to return one hundred whenever it should be proved, beyond a doubt, that the Chevalier D'Eon was a woman. MM. Louis Legoux and de Morande deposed to this as a fact so thoroughly established, that the defendant's counsel actually pleaded that the wager was unfair, because the plaintiff knew, before it was laid, that the Court of France had treated with the Chevalier as a woman. The plaintiff, however, obtained a verdict, which was afterwards set aside on the ground of the bet being illegal.

Shortly after the conclusion of the trial, the Chevalier d'Eon, for some unaccountable reason, put on female attire, which he contrived to wear until his death.

Everybody now believed that D'Eon was a woman. Several portraits were published representing him in various characters—as an officer of dragoons, as a French minister, as a fashionable lady, etc. Mr. Hooper, of Ludgate-hill, published a mezzotinto engraving of the Chevalier as Pallas, a casque on her head, a lance in her right hand, and the ægis on her left arm. Round the edge of the shield were the words At nunc dura dedit vobis discrimina Pallas. On each side were drums, muskets, pyramids of cannon-balls, heavy pieces of ordnance, and a pair of colours on which were written, Impavidam serient ruinæ. In the middle distance might be seen a citadel and a camp. The lower part of the engraving contained representations of the principal events of the Chevalier's life, with a eulogy, in English, on his talents and virtues. After rapturously praising the genius, the courage, the personal beauty of D'Eon, this eulogy concludes by saying that "her military comrades offer this homage as an eternal monument of their affection."

The breaking out of the French Revolution deprived D'Eon of his pension. He returned to France in 1792 and offered his services to the National Assembly. But they were declined; and on his return to England his name was placed on the list of Emigrants. He was now plunged into the depths of poverty, and supported himself as best he could by giving lessons in fencing. But he depended chiefly on the kindness of Elisée, first surgeon to Louis XVIII., and other friends. He died May the 21st, 1810, when Elisée assisted in the dissection of his body; and declared that the Chevalier belonged to the male sex.

During the American War of Independence several women donned masculine attire and enlisted in the Revolutionary Army. One of these heroines was named Deborah Samson. Born at Plymouth, U.S., of very poor parents, she was received at an early age into a respectable family, where the members treated her with great kindness. Her education was at first totally neglected, though she remedied this, to the best of her ability, by teaching herself to read and write; later in life she saved enough to pay for her schooling. In 1778, having dressed herself in male attire, she enlisted under the name of Robert Shirtliffe for the whole term of the war.

Deborah was used to all kinds of hardships, so the fatigues incident to her new life had as little effect on her as on her comrades. Her courage and obedience to military discipline, soon gained for her the esteem of the officers. She served as a volunteer in several expeditions, where her regiment was not engaged, and received two severe wounds—one in the head, the other in the shoulder. She managed, however, to avoid the disclosure of her sex.

At last Deborah Samson was seized with a brain fever in Philadelphia. The physician who attended her made the dreaded discovery, and sent word to the colonel of her regiment. When her health was restored, the colonel sent her with a letter to General Washington. Deborah saw that the truth was known, and it was with great reluctance she obeyed. Washington read the missive, without speaking a word. When he had finished, he handed Deborah Samson a discharge in which was enclosed some money and a letter containing good advice.

Some years after her discharge Deborah married Benjamin Garnett, of Sharon, Massachusetts. For her services as a revolutionary soldier, she was presented with a grant of land and a pension for life.

Another American heroine was Molly Macauley, a Pennsylvanian woman, who rose to the rank of sergeant in the national army, and fought bravely in several battles and skirmishes. Nobody suspected that she was other than she seemed to be—a brave, enthusiastic young American patriot. She was tall and stout, rough-looking, with all the manners of a soldier. In the enthusiasm of the moment she would swing her sabre over her head, and hurrah for "Mad Anthony," as General Wayne was styled.

She was wounded at Brandywine, and her sex discovered. She then returned home.

Another woman, whose name was long remembered in American homes, was Elizabeth Canning. She was at Fort Washington, her husband was slain, she took his place at a gun, loading, priming, and firing with good effect, till she was wounded in the breast by a grape shot.

Besides these examples, many women were frequently detected, disguised, in the American armies; and as they endured the same privations, with even less murmuring than the men, there was nothing, save accident, to reveal their sex. The instances are numerous of women and girls who aided in the defence of private houses. Their names, however, have very seldom reached Europe.

When Catherine the Second of Russia was conspiring to dethrone her husband, Peter III., she based her hopes of success almost entirely on the belief that the Imperial Guard would declare in her favour. On the 26th of June, 1762, she was seated in her palace at St. Petersburg, taking a slight repast in company with her early friend and confidant Catherine Romanowna, Princess of Daschkow, or Daschkova. The latter was born in 1744, a descendant of the noble family of Woronzoff, and became a widow at the early age of eighteen. She applied all her woman's wit to place Catherine on the throne. When their repast was concluded, Catherine proposed that they should ride at the head of their troops to Peterhoff; and to make themselves more popular with the soldiers, the Empress borrowed the uniform of Talitzen, a captain in the Preobraginsky Guards, while the Princess Daschkova donned the regimentals of Lieutenant Pouschkin, in which, she says, she looked "like a boy of fifteen." It chanced by good luck that these uniforms were the same which had been worn from the time of Peter the Great until superseded by the Prussian uniform introduced by Peter III.

On the 29th July the Empress and her friend, still in uniform, passed in review twelve thousand soldiers, besides numberless volunteers. As Catherine rode along the ranks, amidst the cheers of the soldiers, a young ensign, observing that she had no tassel on her sword, untied his own and presented it. Thirty years afterwards, this man died a field-marshal and a Prince of the Russian Empire. His name was Potemkin.

It is said the Princess (though she makes no mention of it in her memoirs) requested, as the reward of her services, to be given the command of the Imperial Guard. The Empress refused; and the Princess, finding her inflexible, gave up her military aspirations and devoted herself to study. After her return from abroad in 1782, she was appointed Director of the Academy of Sciences, and President of the newly-established Russian Academy. She wrote much in her native tongue; amongst other works, several comedies. She died at Moscow in 1810.

It is a curious fact that no one has been able to say precisely when and where Nelson lost his left eye. Some say that the disaster occurred during the siege of Bastia, in 1793, while others decide that it was at the siege of Calvi. According to Signor D. Liberato Abarca, general in the service of the Nicaraguan Republic, both these accounts are false. He says that it was in the year 1780, when the future "god of the seas," then a post-captain in the royal navy, was cruising along the coast of Central America, that he received the wound which added him to the list of one-eyed warriors. After inflicting every possible injury on the Spanish colonies, Nelson resolved to take the Castle of San Carlos de Nicaragua by assault. He rowed up the river of San Juan, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico, with a flotilla of launches and other flat-bottomed boats. The Spanish commander was laid up in bed with a severe illness; and the garrison, terrified at the imposing preparations of the English sailors, hastily evacuated the fort. Doña Rafaela Mora, the wife or daughter of the commander, was left alone in the castle; and with great—what would at first sight appear to be reckless—daring resolved to drive the enemy from before the place. The guns were pointed towards the river, and nearly all loaded. Snatching up a burning match which the terrified soldiers had thrown down in their hasty retreat, Rafaela fired all the cannons one after another. One of the balls struck the boat in which Nelson stood; a splinter from the bulwark hit him in the face, just below the left eye. Such was the force of the blow, he was knocked down, and rendered perfectly insensible. This disaster broke up the siege, and the flotilla descended the stream with all speed.

The heroine received by royal decree the brevet of a captain on active service, together with a full suit of regimentals, which she was permitted to wear whenever she pleased. Besides this, a pension was settled upon her for the rest of her life. General Thomas Martinez, Director of the Republic of Nicaragua, is a descendant of Doña Rafaela Mora. General Abarca says the truth of this story is proved incontestably by documents which he has seen in the archives of the city of Granada, in Nicaragua.

During a sea-fight between the British and French fleets, Admiral Rodney observed a woman helping at one of the guns on the main deck of his ship. He asked her what brought her there?

"An't please your honour," said she, "my husband is sent down to the cock-pit wounded, and I am here to supply his place. Do you think, your honour," she added, "I am afraid of the French?"

After the battle was over, the Admiral sent for the woman, and told her that she had been guilty of a breach of discipline in being on board at all. However, he modified his rebuke by a gift of ten guineas.

II.

The Furies—Rose Lacombe—Théroigne de Méricourt—Madame Cochet—Marie Adrian (Siege of Lyons)—Renée Langevin—Madlle. de la Rochefoucault—Madame Dufief (War in La Vendée)—Félicité and Théophile de Fernig, Officers on Dumouriez's Staff—Mary Schelienck—Thérèse Figueur, French Dragoon—"William Roberts," the Manchester Heroine, Sergeant in the 15th Light Dragoons and the 37th Foot—Mary Anne Talbot, Drummer in the 82nd, Cabin Boy on board the Brunswick, and Middy on board the Vesuvius—Highland Soldier's Wife at the Storming of New Vigie—Susan Frost—Peggy Monro (Irish Rebellion)—Martha Glar and other Swiss Heroines—Queen of Prussia at Jena—Marie Anne Elise Bonaparte, Princess Bacciochi—Maid of Saragossa—Manuella Sanchez, Benita, and other Heroines of Saragossa—Spanish Female Captain—Mrs. Dalbiac (Battle of Salamanca)—Ellenora Prochaska, Private in Lutzow's Rifle Corps—Augusta Frederica Krüger, Prussian Soldier—Louise Belletz, French Artillery Soldier—Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm (Chicago Massacre).

The Furies were the female warriors of the Reign of Terror. When we think of their ferocious bravery, their barbarous, maniacal cruelty, the ascendency which they held, even over the great Republican leaders, their wild cries and still wilder deeds, they seem more like the weird figures in some hideous German legend than real, living, sentient women, with human hearts. Women, indeed, they could scarcely be termed; Amazons they were, as brave and as cruel as those of the Euxine. Yet, fiends though they appeared, they had often the pangs of hunger to goad them on; and if cruelty such as theirs can be excused, starvation is the most reasonable plea that could be advanced.

Though many of the large towns possessed Furies in those days, Paris was their proper home. There they lived on the sight, the smell, the taste of human blood. To picture their history rightly, the pen should be dipped in blood. Blood, since they were denied bread was all they cared for; and when aristocratic heads grew scarce, these fiends turned on one another, like famished wolves, to glut their insatiable thirst. The Guillotine was a central rallying point for the Furies. Round it they danced and sang by day; its steps formed their pillow by night. There they crowded together—Tricoteuses, Fileuses, Poissardes—shouting, gesticulating, screaming the "Marseillaise" or the "Ça Ira" with their wild, demoniac voices, as they watched the red cart deposit its living freight at the foot of the National Razor. When hunger pressed them very sore, they would snatch up swords, pikes, or scythes, and rush in crowds along the narrow, muddy, ill-paved streets, beating drums, waving red flags, brandishing their weapons, to demand bread from those who professed to guide the Republic.

There was always some female leader, brave and eloquent, round whom the Furies would rally, and who was, if possible, more bloodthirsty, more ruthless than the rest. The great leaders of the Parisian Women were Rose Lacombe, the actress, and Théroigne (or Lambertine) de Méricourt, the Amazon of Liége. These two women, equally beautiful, equally brave, and equally popular, had wholly different reasons for plunging into the seething whirlpool of blood. Rose Lacombe (who was born in 1768, and was therefore past twenty when the Revolution broke out), appears to have joined in the scenes of atrocity through a love of excitement, a wish to be a leader, that feeling so natural in the breast of an actress. She was a wild, excitable girl, and although not great on the stage, had a certain fiery eloquence, which, though bombastic, exaggerated, even grotesque, was suited to an audience chiefly gathered from the Halles. Théroigne de Méricourt, however, had quite another object in coming forward as a Republican leader; this was an unquenchable thirst for revenge on the entire aristocracy, to one of whom she owed the shame of her life.

Théroigne was the daughter of a wealthy farmer in the village of Méricourt near Liége, and received a finished education. When scarcely seventeen her excessive beauty attracted the notice of a young Belgian noble, who owned a château close by her father's home. In those days of the old régime an aristocrat would never have recovered the disgrace of marrying a farmer's daughter; so the consequences of their mutual passion might easily have been foreseen. Deserted by her lover, Théroigne fled to England, and remained here for some months, in an agony of shame and grief. When Paris rose against the ill-starred Louis Seize, she returned to France, and became acquainted with Mirabeau, and through him she was introduced to to the Abbé Siéyes, Joseph Chénier, Brissac, Danton, Marat, Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins, Ronsin, Romme, and others of the Republican party.

Théroigne de Méricourt was barely eighteen in '89, when the first rumblings of the storm were heard. Plunging headlong into the vortex of Revolution, she soon acquired for her daring the names of "the Amazon of Liége" and "the Jeanne d'Arc of the Revolution;" while her surpassing beauty procured for her the title of "La Belle Liégoise." Attired in a blood-coloured silk riding-habit, and a hat surmounted by a magnificent plume of feathers, she made herself conspicuous in all those deadly conflicts between the People and the Royalists. She was first amongst the infuriate mob who burst open the gates of the Invalides and seized the cannon. She was foremost in the storming of the Bastille, June 14th, 1789; and such was her reckless valour on this occasion, that the victors, assembling on the spot, voted her a sabre d'homme. Another of the heroines who joined in the attack on the Bastille, afterwards joined the army, and fought against the enemies of the Republic, for which she was made Captain of Artillery. Her husband was a soldier.

On the 5th of October, Théroigne and Rose led eight or ten thousand starving Parisian Women against Versailles. Previous to this, Rose had commanded a body of Furies in the attack on the Hôtel de Ville, August 7th. Théroigne rode to Versailles astride on a cannon. By her side came Cut-Throat Jourdan, the "Man with the Long Beard." The expedition owed its success almost entirely to the Amazon of Liége. The triumph of the people was complete. Le Boulanger, la Boulangère, et le petit Mitron were brought to Paris, escorted by a seething, howling mob, preceded (as a hint to the aristocrats) by two pikes, on which were placed the heads of two Gardes-du-Corps. Several Poissardes performed the return journey on the backs of cannon.

For a time the popularity of Théroigne de Méricourt and Rose Lacombe was unbounded; they were estimated by the Parisians as the first of their sex. Rose founded a female club on the same plan as the Jacobins, and became the chief speaker there. Théroigne held a club at her own house, and frequently spoke at the "Old Cordeliers," of which Danton and Camille Desmoulins were the leaders. Speaking of the enthusiasm with which her orations were received, Camille says "Her similes were drawn from the Bible and Pindar. It was the eloquence of a Judith."

One evening Théroigne proposed that the Temple of the Representatives of the People should be erected on the site of the Bastille, the scene of their first triumph.

"To found and embellish this edifice," said she, "let us strip ourselves of our ornaments, our gold, our jewels. I will be the first to set the example."

And with these words she tore off all her jewels and flung them on the table.

Her power increased every day. She was appointed commander of the 3rd corps of the army of the Fauxbourgs; and so great was her ascendancy over the mob, that she could by a single word acquit or condemn a victim. She thus became both feared and hated by the Aristocrats. One day when she was at the zenith of her power, she recognised her faithless lover. He sought to avert his impending fate and humbly implored her forgiveness; but Théroigne had not the generosity to save him. He perished in the September massacres, 1792.

A fearful doom was reserved for the beautiful and unfortunate Théroigne de Méricourt. Like Robespierre, she believed that her power was such that she could at any moment arrest the progress of the Revolution. Only a few months after the death of her seducer, the very Furies whom she had commanded, by whom she had been almost worshipped, suspecting her of being a Girondist, turned against their Amazon leader with all the fury they had formerly displayed against Marie Antoinette. They surrounded her on the terrace of the Tuileries, May 31st, 1793, stripped her naked, and subjected her to a public flogging.

Abandoned and despised by all, the beautiful amazon became a raving lunatic. Years crept on. The Directory superseded the Convention, the Consulate the Directory, the Empire the Consulate, and the Restoration the Empire, and still, in a cold grated cell of the Bicêtre, in Paris, a gibbering, white-haired, wrinkled hag crawled on all fours to and from the bars of the window, whence she shrieked forth warlike orations to phantom meetings of Republicans; again and again calling for the blood of Suleau, the Royalist author. From the day of her fall till her death in 1817, she refused to wear clothes. Her only covering was her long white hair.

Rose Lacombe terminated her career more happily than her sister-in-arms. True, she also had her downfall, but it did not terminate so horribly. She fell violently in love with a young nobleman who was imprisoned in one of the dungeons of the Republic. With her usual wild impetuosity she tried to save him; but so far from rescuing him, she very nearly shared his fate. From this day Rose Lacombe's power was gone. Her voice was no longer listened to as it had once been. Jacobins and Cordeliers no longer strove to gain her support. Taking a more sensible view of the matter than one would expect, she retired from public life, and became a small shopkeeper. In this capacity she ended her days, selling petty articles over a counter all day long. The date of her death is unknown.

The citizens of Lyons, unlike those of Paris, were devoted to the Royal cause. At last the Convention resolved to tolerate this no longer; and General Kellermann was despatched against the city in August, 1793. The people made a gallant defence; never did the female sex show greater bravery. The city fell on Oct. 8th; and, furious at having been resisted, Collot d'Herbois, Couthon, and the other emissaries of the Convention tried to stamp out the very existence of Lyons. Wholesale massacres were perpetrated daily; and the friends of liberty were if possible more enraged against those brave women, who so nobly aided in the defence, than they were against the male leaders. One of the most intrepid female soldiers, named Madame Cochet, when she was on her way to the guillotine, addressed her countrymen from the tumbril, and upbraided them with their cruelty, and their cowardice in tamely submitting to the Terrorists. The crowd at first followed in silence; at last a cry of "Mercy," was heard: but the falling of the National Razor cut short the appeal.

Another heroine of Lyons was Marie Adrian, a young girl of seventeen, whose features bore a strange resemblance to Charlotte Corday. She fought desperately by the side of her brother and her lover in one of the batteries. After the city had fallen she was made prisoner.

"What is your name?" demanded the judges, struck by her youth and beauty.

"Marie," she replied. "The name of the mother of that God for whom I am about to die."

"Your age?"

"Seventeen. The age of Charlotte Corday."

"How could you combat against your country?"

"I fought to defend it."

"Citoyenne," said one of the judges, "we admire your courage. What would you do if we granted your life?"

"I would poignard you as the murderers of my country," was her daring reply.

She was, of course, condemned to the guillotine. She ascended the scaffold in silence, and refused the aid of the executioner. Twice she cried with a loud, clear voice "Vive le Roi!" After her death a note was found among her garments; it was the farewell letter of her lover, who had been shot some days previously in the Plaine des Brotteaux.

This letter was written in blood!

The same loyal, unselfish courage was displayed by the Royalist insurgents in La Vendée. The rough, yet kind-hearted Chouans form a striking contrast to the ferocious, bloodthirsty Republicans, far from advantageous to the latter. There was not one Republican leader who could bear comparison with the enthusiastic self-sacrificing young Rochejacquelin, who risked everything for his King.

The most prominent Vendéan leaders, next to Rochejacquelin, were La Rochefoucault de Beaulieu and the Marquis de Lescure. The former was one of the first to raise the standard of Louis XVIII. Scarcely had he called together a few hundred neighbours and their peasant tenantry when he received a visit from Madlle. de la Rochefoucault, a near relative, and at this time only eighteen. She was accoutred en Amazon, with a sword by her side and a brace of pistols in her belt. She presented the troops with embroidered standards, worked by her own hands, and declared her resolution to fight personally for the royal cause.

Mademoiselle de la Rochefoucault displayed the greatest possible daring in the numerous encounters between the contending armies. She was always the first to advance and the last to retreat. But though she was so fierce while the battle raged, directly it was over she showed her kind and humane disposition by the care which she took of the wounded. She made no distinction between friends and foes; the unfortunate, whether Royalists or Republicans, were always sure of her sympathy and assistance.

In the disastrous battle of Chollet, when the superior numbers of the Republicans spread such confusion through the Chouan ranks, Mademoiselle de la Rochefoucault rallied her troops three times successively, and charged the foe. Repulsed a fourth time, she ascended a slight eminence, and addressed seven hundred of her followers in a speech well calculated to rouse their sinking energies. Once more she led them against the foe. This time they returned without her!

But the most famous heroine of this war was Renée Bordereau, commonly called Langevin, known as the "Military Heroine of La Vendée," who afterwards wrote and published her autobiography. She was born in June, 1770, at the village of Soulaine, near Angers, of poor, but honest parents. When the insurrection of 1793 broke out, the Republican troops ravaged and massacred without mercy throughout La Vendée. It chanced that forty-two of Renée's relatives fell victims, successively, to this fury. At last the barbarous murder of her father before her eyes so transported Renée with rage and a thirst for revenge that she devoted herself thenceforth to the royal cause.

She bought a light musket with double sights, and learned privately to load, fire, and aim at a mark. She also practised the military drill; and when she considered herself sufficiently expert, she procured a suit of masculine clothes, and joined a corps commanded by M. Cœur-de-Roi—whose name, by the way, was only a nom de guerre. She enrolled under the name of Hyacinthe, that of her brother, but her comrades soon gave her the soubriquet of Langevin, a name she never lost.

During a war of six years, the heroine was engaged in over two hundred battles and skirmishes. She usually fought on horseback, but sometimes, to be nearer the foe, she combated on foot. She always solicited to be placed in the most dangerous posts, and never quitted the field till compelled by her wounds, or the toils and fatigues of the battle. Although no one at this time suspected her sex, she was conspicuous all through the country for her bravery. All the Royalists strove to emulate her deeds of valour, but none could ever equal her daring. She had entered on the war with a firm determination to conquer or die, and her resolution never flagged. Her only ambition, her sole passion, was to drive the Republicans from France, and restore the legitimate Church and King.

When Napoleon had subdued La Vendée, he was so afraid of the brave Langevin that he excepted her from the general amnesty, and set the price of forty million francs on her head. She was betrayed into the hands of her enemies; and the Emperor threw her into a loathsome dungeon, weighting her limbs with iron chains lest she should escape. She remained in the prison of Angers for three years, and in that of Mount St. Michael for two, and was fed on nothing save the coarsest bread, and rainwater which she collected for herself in a basin. Her piety and fortitude, however, never forsook her during these cruel hardships. She was at last set free on the Restoration of that King for whom she had fought so bravely and endured such privations.

The sex of Renée had become known by an accident before her imprisonment; so it was no surprise, at least to her comrades, when her autobiography appeared, to learn that she was a woman. In 1816, she was presented to Louis XVIII.; but what recompense if any, was awarded, her memoirs do not say. She was still living in 1818.

Madame Dufief, a native of Nantes, was another heroine of this war; and, in reward she received at the Restoration the Ribbon of the Order of St. Louis.

The French Revolution, it must be confessed, aroused throughout the land a feeling of earnest, self-sacrificing patriotism, which no monarchical government, however popular, had ever called forth. A wild, enthusiastic desire spread through France to drive the enemies of the Republic from its sacred soil or perish in the attempt. Young and old were alike infected with the eager longing to die for the Republic. "Married men," says Lamartine, "dragged themselves from the arms of their wives to rush to the altar of their country. Men already advanced in life, old men, even, still green and robust, came to offer the remainder of their life to the safety of the Republic. They were seen tearing off their coats or jackets, before the representatives, and exposing, naked, their breasts, their shoulders, their arms, their joints still supple, to prove that they had strength enough to carry the knapsack and the carbine, and to brave the fatigues of the camp. Fathers, devoting themselves with their children, themselves offered their sons to the country, and demanded to be allowed to march with them. Women, in order to follow their husbands or their lovers, or themselves seized with that delirium of the country, the most generous and the most devoted of all passions, divested themselves of the garments of their sex, put on the uniform of volunteers, and enrolled themselves in the battalions of their departments."

The greater number of these brave women and girls left their bones to bleach on the various battle-fields of the Republic without their sex being ever discovered. Those who became known were but few. Amongst these latter were the two sisters Félicité and Théophile de Fernig, who held the nominal rank of orderly officers on the staff of General Dumouriez, wearing the uniform, and performing all the duties appertaining to their position. Their father, M. de Fernig, was Captain of Dumouriez's Guides; while their brother was lieutenant in the regiment d'Auxerrois. Thus the entire family were fighting in defence of the Republic.

The De Fernigs were natives of French Flanders, whence they were driven in August, 1792, by the invading Austrians, who amongst other atrocities, burnt the house of this family. Having no longer a home, they joined the army of Dumouriez which arrived shortly after in the neighbourhood. The girls, whose sex was known to all, when on the march rode near their father or brother; but during battle they acted as aide-de-camp to one or other of the French generals.

They entered at once on active service, and marched to the woody heights of Argonne in Champagne, which General Dumouriez was vainly endeavouring to hold against the Austrians. On his retreat to St. Ménéhould the De Fernigs distinguished themselves, September 20th, during the famous cannonade of Valmy by the Duke of Brunswick; when the superior skill of Kellermann forced the Allies to retreat.

The Convention, informed of the gallant conduct of the Desmoiselles de Fernig, sent them horses and arms of honour in the name of the Republic. Dumouriez, in the camp of Maulde, made a striking example of these two young girls to inspire his soldiers with courage.

In October, Dumouriez returned to Paris, and formed a plan with the Executive Council for the winter campaign. On his return to the army he issued a proclamation calling on the Belgians to rise against their sovereign; and on the 6th of November, he attacked the Austrian camp at Jemappes. In this battle, which was perhaps the most hotly contested of all those fought during the entire war, Félicité, the eldest girl, acted as aide-de-camp to the Duc de Chartres, afterwards Louis Philippe, King of the French, while her sister performed the same duty for the brave veteran, General Ferrand, who stormed the redoubts on the heights. Both girls were young and exceedingly pretty—Félicité was scarcely sixteen; and "their modesty, their blushes, and their grace," observed Lamartine, "under the uniform of officers of the staff, formed a contrast to the masculine figures of the warriors who surrounded them."

Before the battle, while reviewing his troops, Dumouriez pointed out the heroines to his soldiers "as models of patriotism and auguries of victory." Throughout the day they were conspicuous for their reckless bravery, which rendered them of inestimable price in an army composed of raw soldiers. When the regiments which formed the centre of the French army gave way before the overwhelming masses of Clerfayt's cavalry, the Duc de Chartres and his brother, the Duc de Montpensier, followed by Félicité de Fernig and half-a-dozen aides-de-camp, rode, sword in hand, through the Austrian hussars which separated him from the infantry. The latter were restored to their former courage, partly by the words of the Duc, but more especially by the reproaches of a fragile girl of sixteen, who, a pistol in each hand and her bridle between her teeth, accused them bitterly of cowardice in flying from dangers which she fearlessly braved.

After the battle had raged for several hours the Austrians were driven from the field. The capture of Mons followed shortly after; and the French entered Brussels, November 14th, after a series of skirmishes between their advance-guard and the rear-guard of the Austrians. During one of these contests, Félicité de Fernig, while bearing the orders of Dumouriez to the heads of the columns, was surrounded by a troop of Uhlans, from whom she extricated herself with difficulty. As she was turning her horse's head to rejoin the column, she saw a young officer of Belgian Volunteers, who had just been flung from his horse, by a shot, defending himself desperately against several Uhlans. Riding hastily to the spot, Félicité with her pistols shot two of his assailants, and the rest took to flight.

Dismounting from her horse, she confided the care of the wounded officer to her hussars, and with their assistance conveyed him to the military hospital of Brussels.

The spring of 1793 saw the popularity of Dumouriez wane rapidly. He was suspected firstly of Girondism, and, worse again, of wishing to rescue Louis Capet, the unfortunate ex-King, whose trial was in preparation, or, some said, he meditated placing Philippe Egalité on the throne. In addition to all these accusations, he had the misfortune to lose nearly as many battles as he had previously gained; and, knowing well that his head was very far from secure on his martial shoulders, he entered into negotiations with Austria. But he mistook the patriotism of his soldiers for personal attachment to himself. On the 7th April his army was in a state of open mutiny; but hoping to set matters right, he set out for Condé, followed by the Duc de Chartres, Colonel Thouvenet, Adjutant-General Montjoie, eight hussars of ordnance, and his immediate staff, including the sisters De Fernig. On the road he met three battalions of Versailles Volunteers who were marching without orders to Condé. Dumouriez commanded them to halt; but the Volunteers fired on his escort. Dumouriez fled amidst a rain of bullets, sprang, on foot, across a canal which interrupted his flight, and made his escape over the Dutch marshes.

Théophile de Fernig was not wounded, though her horse was slain. Félicité dismounted, and gave her steed to the Duc de Chartres. The two young girls and nearly all their companions reached the opposite shore of the canal safely; when they dispersed in all directions. The girls, who were acquainted with the country, guided Dumouriez to the ferry-boat, in which he, they, and the Duc de Chartres passed the Scheldt. On landing they returned to the French camp at Maulde; but very soon the fugitives had to take refuge in the camp of Clerfayt, the Austrian general, at Tournay.

In those days one star eclipsed another so fast, that the soldiers were only too ready to forget their former idols. Of course when the troops could easily forget the general who had first led them to victory, they could hardly be expected to trouble themselves about two friendless girls. When Vanderwalen, the young Belgian officer, recovered from his wounds, he could not banish from his mind the young Amazon who had saved his life. But neither his brother officers nor the soldiers could give him any information respecting the De Fernig family. Vanderwalen left the army, and wandered all over Germany and northern Europe seeking his preserver. For a long time his search was vain; but at last, when he had almost given up the search, he found the family buried in the heart of Denmark.

The sisters had resumed "the dress, the graces, and the modesty" of their own sex. The love of Vanderwalen was very soon reciprocated; and they returned, as man and wife, to Belgium. Théophile accompanied her sister to Brussels; where, after spending a few years in the study of music and poetry, she died, unmarried. She has left, it is said, several exquisite poems.

"These two sisters," says Lamartine, "inseparable in life, in death, as upon the field of battle, repose under the same cypress—in a foreign land. Where are their names upon the marble monuments of our triumphal arches? Where are their pictures at Versailles? Where are their statues upon our frontiers bedewed with their blood?"

Mary Schelienck, or Shellenck, was one of the most remarkable women whose names occur in the roll-call of warriors. She was a native of Ghent, but nothing is known of her early youth. In March, 1792, she entered the Second Belgian Battalion, as a male Volunteer. At the battle of Jemappes, in the succeeding November, she distinguished herself by her bravery, and received six wounds. Afterwards she entered the 30th Demi-Brigade (Batavian), and made the campaigns of Germany. She was next removed to the 8th Light Infantry, and displayed great bravery at the battle of Austerlitz. Unfortunately for her, she there received a severe wound on the thigh, and was left for dead on the field, which led to her real sex being discovered. In spite of this, she continued to follow the regiment, and at last presented a petition with her own hand to Napoleon. The Emperor received her with "marked distinction:" he invested her with the cross of the Legion of Honour, giving her the very decoration he had himself worn, and he placed her tenth on the list of lieutenants. In 1807, Napoleon granted her a pension of 673 francs (£20). On her return from Italy, Mary Schelienck, in her military uniform, waited on the Empress Josephine. That imperial lady, either in kindness or as an ironical compliment, presented her with a velvet robe. Mary Schelienck's commission of lieutenant, the decoration of the Legion of Honour, and the velvet robe were afterwards (1841) in the possession of William Shellenck, cloth merchant of Ghent. Mary Shelienck died in January, 1841, at Menin, where she was buried. Her funeral was attended by every member of the Legion of Honour belonging to the garrison, and an immense concourse of people.

Thérèse Figueur, better known as "Le Dragon sans Gêne," was born, January, 1774, at Talmay, a town six leagues from Dijon. She became a dragoon in the 15th and 9th regiments, and, from 1793 to 1812, served in all the campaigns of the Republic and of the Empire. At this time she was known to her comrades by the soubriquet of "Sans Gêne."

One day the Comité du Salut Public issued a decree forbidding any woman to remain in the regiments. The commissioned officers and generals of the army of the Pyrenees, however, begged that an exception might be made in favour of the Citoyenne Thérèse Figueur; and special authorization was granted, permitting her to remain in the service.

At the siege of Toulon, 1793, Thérèse received an English bullet in her left shoulder. She had the misfortune to be placed under arrest during the same siege by General Bonaparte, for being guilty of a delay of twenty-five minutes in the execution of an order. Some years subsequently, when the former Commandant d'Artillerie had become First Consul, he wished to see once more the Dragon sans Gêne, who came willingly enough to St. Cloud under the escort of M. Denon. The First Consul made some complimentary remarks to the "Dragon," and added that "Mademoiselle Figueur est un brave:" then gaily pledged her in "a glass of something stronger than wine."

Thérèse Figueur served in the "Armée d'Italie" in 1792, and in the army of the Eastern Pyrenees during the 2nd and 3rd year, and in the Army of Italy during the years 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Among her exploits were several campaigns in Germany, and she took part in the war in Spain. In July, 1812, she was made prisoner by the Guerillas of the Curé Marino, and sent off to England, where she remained until the Peace in 1814.

She was frequently wounded, and had horses killed under her. At the battle of Savigliano, she was wounded four times.

A modest pension hardly sufficed for her simple wants, yet being very generous, she constantly helped others poorer than herself. In disposition she was remarkable for piety, delicate tact, singleness of heart, and self-forgetfulness.

About 1840, Thérèse Figueur, then veuve Sutter, was admitted into the Hospice des Ménages. In that retreat her last years glided calmly away, enlivened by the frequent visits of her many faithful friends, who delighted in hearing her military reminiscences. In June, 1861, her simple funeral passed from the gates of the Hospice.

During the long wars between England and the French Republic, women continued to enlist in the British Army. One of the best known female soldiers of this period was a woman named Roberts, afterwards styled the "Manchester Heroine" from the place of her death. On the 15th November, 1814, a middle-aged woman applied for relief at the Church-Warden's offices in Manchester; and on being questioned, it appeared that she had in days gone by served her King as a soldier. Her romantic story afterwards appeared, in great detail, in the Manchester Herald.

The father of this heroine, William Roberts, was a bricklayer, and used to employ his little girl, dressed in boy's clothes, as a labourer. When she was about fourteen years old, being tall of her age, Miss Roberts enlisted in the 15th Light Dragoons. In the course of two months she learned the drill sufficiently for all purposes of parade; and the rough-riding master told her she was the best rider in the squad he was teaching. Private William Roberts was promoted in the course of a few years, first to be a corporal, and then a sergeant; and at the expiration of her twenty-one years' service, the colonel tendered her discharge. She demurred accepting it; but being under size, was, with her own consent, transferred to the 37th foot; which she joined at the island of St. Vincent, in the West Indies.

At St. Vincent the heroine was attacked by the yellow fever; and this being the first time in her life that she was ever laid prostrate by an illness, her sex was soon made known. On her recovery she was obliged to resume (or rather put on) female habilaments. But being still enamoured of a soldier's life, she married, in May, 1801, a private in the 37th, named Taylor. She followed her husband through various climates; and in time became the mother of three children. She was imprisoned for two years with her husband in France, and they were only set free at the general peace of July, 1815. Her husband died the same day they landed in England; leaving his widow in great distress.

During the course of her military career, Mrs. Taylor visited the East and West Indies, and fought in Flanders, Spain, Italy, and Egypt. She received many wounds, none of which, however, were serious, though they left their scars all over her body. Her head was graced by a sabre-wound, while her leg showed where a musket-ball had been extracted. Yet despite the dangers and hardships of war, this woman sighed after the life of a soldier to the very last. She said that the only really miserable part of her life was the two years' imprisonment in France; which, she said, did her constitution more harm than even the terrible march, under a blazing African sun, from the Red Sea to Egypt. Like a brave old veteran, she kept up her spirits even in adversity, "fought her battles o'er again," and loved to "shoulder her crutch and show how fields were won." Like most old soldiers, she was very fond of relating anecdotes about her past career—the battles she had fought in, the wounds she had received, and the various noble or distinguished officers she had seen.

Another of these British heroines was Mary Anne Talbot, who served as drummer-boy in the 82nd regiment when it was despatched to the Netherlands in 1793. The career of this young woman was so romantic, so very much out of the ordinary routine of every-day life, it is strange that her story has not become more generally known—especially as a long and detailed memoir was published, which she was supposed to have written herself.

Mary Anne Talbot was born in a house in Lincoln's Inn Fields on the 2nd February, 1778, and was the youngest of sixteen natural children, whom her mother, whose name has not transpired, had by the Earl of Talbot. Until she had reached the age of five, Mary Anne was kept at nurse at a little village about twelve miles from Shrewsbury. Her mother died when she was an infant; and at the death of Lord Talbot, Mary Anne was removed to a boarding-school in Foregate-street, Chester. Here she remained for nine years under the care of her only surviving sister, Mrs. Wilson. On the death of Mrs. Wilson, Mr. Sucker, of Newport, Shropshire, came forward as guardian of Mary Anne Talbot. He was a harsh man, and treated her so cruelly that she trembled at the sound of his voice. She had not been in her new home very long when Essex Bowen, a captain in the 82nd, appeared at the house; and the girl was commanded by Sucker to consider him as her future guardian, under whose protection she was to finish her education on the continent.

Early in the year 1792 they proceeded to London and stopped at the Salopian coffee-house, Charing Cross; where, taking advantage of the poor girl's friendless situation, Captain Bowen acted the part of a villain. Immediately after this the 82nd was ordered to the West Indies; and the captain forced his victim to dress herself as a foot-boy and follow him. By his directions, too, she assumed the name of John Taylor. They sailed on the 20th March, from Falmouth, in the Crown Transport; and during the voyage her tyrant used her like a slave, and forced her to eat and drink with the common sailors.

Early in the following year the regiment was remanded to Europe, to join the army of the Duke of York at Tournay. Bowen again intimidating the forlorn girl by the threat of sending her up the country to be sold for a slave, compelled her to enlist under him as a drummer, though he plainly told her that this would not release her from her duties as his servant.

When they arrived in Flanders, Mary Anne was obliged to endure all the horrors of war. During the frequent skirmishes which took place between the English and French, she was compelled to keep up a continuous roll of the drum to drown the groans and cries of wounded and dying comrades. On the 2nd of June, the Duke of York besieged Valenciennes; within a few days of its surrender, the female drummer received two wounds—one from a musket-ball which glanced between her collar-bone and breast-bone, and struck one of her ribs, the other in the small of her back from the sabre of an Austrian trooper, who mistook her for a Frenchman. Being in dread and fear lest her sex should be discovered, she had the fortitude to conceal her wounds, and cure them herself by the use of some lint, Dutch drops and basilicon.

Captain Bowen had the reward of his villainy and tyranny, by being slain during the attack on Valenciennes, July 25th, 1793. Having no longer the wrath of a tyrant to fear, Mary Anne disguised herself as a sailor boy, deserted from the regiment, and started for the coast. Carefully avoiding all towns or large villages, she reached Luxembourg, which being in the hands of the French, hindered her further progress. She was compelled, through sheer want, to hire herself to the captain of a French lugger. The vessel turned out to be a privateer, and cruised about the Channel for four months. Mary Anne was compelled to do all the rough work. At last the vessel was captured by the British fleet, and the crew were taken prisoners on board the "Queen Charlotte" to be examined by the admiral, Lord Howe. Previous to their capture, Mary Anne was severely beaten because she refused to fight against her countrymen.

Lord Howe questioned Mary Anne as to who and what she was, and how she had got on board a French ship. She stated, in explanation, that she had been foot-boy to an English gentleman travelling on the continent, that on his death she had been obliged to seek employment, and had taken Le Sage the French captain, for an honest trader. The Admiral was satisfied; and the girl was sent on board the "Brunswick" man-of-war, where she was appointed powder-monkey on the quarter-deck. Her cleanly habits, and her quiet respectful demeanour, attracted the notice of Captain Harvey, who raised her to the post of principal cabin boy.

The "Brunswick" having fallen in with a French ship, in June, 1794, a sharp action ensued, in which Captain Harvey was slain, and Mary Anne received a grape-shot in the ankle of her left leg. So severe was the wound that, though she tried three several times to rise, the broken bone protruding through the skin gave her such agony she fell back almost fainting. A few minutes after this a musket-ball pierced her thigh, just above the knee of the same leg. After the engagement she was carried to the cock-pit, and after numberless attempts had been made to extract the grape-shot (inflicting excruciating agony all the while on the sufferer), the surgeons were obliged to leave it where it was, fearful of cutting the tendons of the leg.

When the "Brunswick" arrived at Spithead, Mary Anne Talbot was placed in Haslar Hospital, where she was attended as an out-door patient during four months. She lived meanwhile on the money which Captain Harvey had given her. When she was at last discharged from the Hospital, she went as a midshipman on board the "Vesuvius," which formed part of Sir Sydney Smith's squadron. After cruising some time on the coast of France the "Vesuvius" sailed to Gibraltar and back again without meeting the enemy until near Dunkirk, where she was boarded and captured by two privateers, after keeping up a running fight for seven hours.

Mary Anne and another middy named William Richards were taken on board one of the privateers, and imprisoned for eighteen months in Dunkirk, where they were treated very harshly—being allowed nothing but bread and water, and a bed of straw which was never changed. An exchange of prisoners took place at last; and Mary Anne Talbot was engaged almost immediately after by a Captain Field to go as ship's steward on a voyage to America.

She sailed from Dunkirk on board the "Ariel," August, 1796, and arrived in due time at New York. During her stay there she resided in the family of Captain Field at Rhode Island; and the pretty niece of the captain was so absurd as to fall in love with her uncle's steward. Before Mary Anne's departure she was obliged to pay eighteen dollars for a portrait of herself in the uniform of an American officer to give to her affianced as a memento.

The "Ariel" dropped anchor in the Thames in November, 1796; and some days after their arrival, Mary Anne and the mate went on shore, where they were seized by the press-gang. To obtain her freedom she was obliged to reveal her sex.

Mary Anne applied several times at the Navy-Pay Office for moneys due to her for service on board the "Brunswick" and "Vesuvius." One day she became abusive, and was taken to Bow Street Police Court; whence of course she was very soon discharged. Several gentlemen who were in court made up a subscription, the amount of which was twelve shillings a week, to last until she received her pension from Somerset House.

Mary Anne Talbot wasted her money shamefully at the theatres and at certain public-houses near Covent Garden, where her real sex was not even suspected; all her friends giving her the name of bon compagnon. In February, 1797, owing to her fondness for grog, the grape-shot worked itself out of her ankle, and left her leg in so bad a state that she was taken into St. Bartholomew's Hospital. After her discharge she was attended in different hospitals by several medical men, none of whom were able to effect a permanent cure. She became at last so famous that a beggar was sent to the House of Correction charged with passing himself off as John Taylor, the midshipman. In 1799, she became, for the second time, an inmate of Middlesex Hospital.

For some years her principal support was a pension of twenty pounds a year from the Crown; besides this she received frequent presents from the Duke of York, the Duke of Norfolk, and other members of the nobility. She was advised by Justice Bond, the magistrate of Bow Street, to endeavour to find out something about her early life. She went to Shrewsbury and called on Mr. Sucker, in Newport. Being unable to procure an interview while in "coloured" clothes, she returned to Shrewsbury, dressed herself in an ensign's uniform, hired a horse, and rode back to Mr. Sucker's. She sent in word that an officer, a friend of the late Captain Bowen, had an important message to deliver. This ruse succeeded; she declared who she was, and, drawing her sword, demanded an explanation of Mr. Sucker's conduct towards her. He stared as though an apparition had risen from the grave, and, trembling violently, repeated that he was a ruined man. Three days after this he was found dead in his bed.

Mary Anne Talbot lived for many years after this, maintaining herself in various ways. At one time she thought of going on the stage, and joined the Thespian Society in Tottenham Court Road; where she performed the parts of Irene, Lady Helen, Juliet, Floranthe, and Adeline, and sometimes appeared in low comedy as Mrs. Scout, or Jack Hawser. However, she gave up the stage, which was to her more amusing than profitable.

Once she was summoned before the Commissioners of the Stamp Office for wearing hair-powder without a licence. But she was honourably discharged; whereupon she made the observation that "although she had never worn powder as an article of dress, she had frequently used it in defence of her King and country." The clerks were so tickled with her wit that they immediately made up a subscription.

In June, 1796, the British attacked the New Vigie, in the Island of St. Vincent. The Royal Highlanders were conspicuous for their valour, as Highlanders have ever been. Major-General Stewart, at that time a captain in the regiment, relates how one of the men of his company was followed to the scene of action by his wife. He (Captain Stewart) ordered the man to remain behind and guard the knapsacks, which the soldiers threw down preparatory to charging up the hill. The woman, however, perhaps thinking that the family honour was at stake, rushed up the hill, and made herself conspicuous, cheering and exciting the troops. When the British had captured the third redoubt, Captain Stewart was standing at a short distance, giving some directions relative to the storming of the last entrenchments, when he was tapped on the shoulder by the female Highlander, who seized his arm, and exclaimed:

"Well done, my Highland lads! See how the brigands scamper like so many deer! Come, lads, let us drive them from yonder hill."

And she charged off again, much to the delight of her Gaelic brothers-in-arms. When the storm was over, she helped the surgeons in looking after the wounded.

During the Irish Rebellion of '98, women very often risked their lives both on the battle-field and in the defence of houses. Amongst the latter was Susan Frost, a Suffolk woman, nurse to General Sir Charles James Napier. During the temporary absence of the Napier family in England, this woman remained at Celbridge House, in Ireland, with a few of the younger children. The "Defenders" having ascertained that this mansion contained a great number of arms, surrounded it one night. The only persons in the house, besides Susan and the children, were a few maids and Lauchlin Moore, an old serving-man. The rebels, who numbered several hundreds, anticipated an easy capture; but the house was strongly built, and, besides, was defended by Susan Frost, of whose obstinate courage they were as yet ignorant. Collecting all the children together in one room, she stationed herself with a brace of pistols outside the door. The "Defenders" called on the little garrison to surrender; but Lauchlin Moore, acting under the orders of Susan, shouted out defiant refusals. Every time he passed a window, volleys of shot whizzed around his head.

When the assailants began to batter the door with a beam of wood, Moore's courage failed him, and he wished to give up the arms. But Susan invariably answered "No! No! Never! Never!" At last the arrival of some men-servants, from a neighbouring mansion, put the rebels to flight.

Another heroine of the Irish Rebellion was Peggy Monro, who fought bravely in the battle of Ballinahinch, where the rebels were commanded by her brother.

At the latter end of 1797 the French invaded Switzerland, with the ostensible view of spreading liberty, equality, and fraternity. However, in place of being welcomed by the republican Swiss, they were met on all sides by armed peasants who defended every foot of ground before giving way. The women acted with the same courage as the men. The most conspicuous was Martha Glar, a peasant-woman. When the war broke out she was far from young; being then in her sixty-fourth year, and having both children and grandchildren.

In February, 1798, her husband marched with the rest of the farmers and peasants to check the advance of the French. On the last Sunday in the month, Martha collected all the women and girls of the parish in the church-yard, half an hour before divine service, and addressed them in an impressive oration, inciting them to take up arms in defence of their native land.

Two hundred and sixty women, urged by her patriotism, armed themselves, and marched to meet the invaders. In this little regiment were two of Martha Glar's daughters, and three of her grand-daughters, the youngest of whom was only ten years old. After exciting the admiration of both friends and foes by their extraordinary bravery, this female corps was decimated in the battle of Frauenbrun, March 3rd, 1798. One hundred and eighty of them were killed, and the rest carried, more or less wounded, from the field. Martha Glar, together with her husband, her father, her two sons, both her daughters, her brother, and her three grand-daughters were amongst the slain.

In 1806, when Prussia was arming against the "Colossus of Europe," the Queen, who was young, beautiful, and fascinating, appeared several times at the head of the troops attired in a military uniform, which, it is said, became her exceedingly well; and in this costume she made fiery speeches inciting the people to rise against the "Modern Attila."

Besides this display of martial ardour, the Queen, mounted on a superb charger, accompanied the Prussian army to the field of Jena, Oct. 14th, 1806, and remained in the midst of the fight till her troops were routed. On her head she wore a helmet of burnished steel, overshadowed by a magnificent plume. She wore a tunic of silver brocade, reaching to her feet, which were encased in scarlet boots with gold spurs. Her breast was protected by a cuirass glittering in gold and silver. Accompanied by the élite of the young Berlin nobility, she rode along in front of the most advanced ranks, whence, the day being clear, she was easily seen by the French. As she approached each regiment, the flags, embroidered by her own fair hands, besides the blackened rags—all that remained of the time-honoured banners of Frederick the Great—were lowered respectfully.

When the battle was over and the Prussians in full rout, the Queen remained on the field, attended by three or four equerries, who, for some time, contrived to defend her against the French troops, who had strict orders to capture the Queen at all risks. A squadron of hussars riding up at full speed soon dispersed the little escort of her Majesty. The horse ridden by the Queen fortunately took fright, and galloped off at full speed. Had it not been for his swiftness, the royal heroine would inevitably have been captured.

Pursued by the detachment of hussars, who were several times within a few yards of the royal fugitive, she arrived at last within sight of Weimar, and was congratulating herself upon having escaped so imminent a danger, when, to her dismay, she observed a strong body of French dragoons endeavouring to cut off her retreat. However, before they could come near, she was inside Weimar, the gates of which were immediately closed upon the discomfited troopers.

The Queen found her costume exceedingly inconvenient during her flight; and it was principally owing to this that she was so very near being made prisoner.

Marie-Anne-Elise Bonaparte, sister of the first Napoleon, was a woman of superior intellect, and shared to a considerable extent her brother's military predilections. When she married Bacciochi, Prince of Lucca and Piombino, it was she who conducted the government, while the Prince was kept in a subordinate position. From her fondness for military shows she acquired the title of the "Semiramis of Lucca." Whenever she reviewed the troops, Prince Bacciochi discharged the duties of aide-de-camp.

Next to Joan of Arc, the Maid of Saragossa is the most famous female warrior that ever lived. Pictures and statues without number have been exhibited commemorative of this Spanish girl's heroism; and what renders her resemblance even greater to Jeanne is the fact that the Maid of Saragossa was young, handsome, and interesting.

The siege of Saragossa (or Zaragoza), was one of the most extraordinary recorded in modern history. The town was not even properly fortified, but merely enclosed by a badly-constructed wall twelve feet high and three feet in breadth. This was, moreover, intersected by houses, which, with the neighbouring churches and monasteries, were in a most dilapidated condition. The inhabitants numbered only sixty thousand, and amongst these there was barely two hundred and twenty soldiers. The artillery consisted of ten dilapidated old guns.

When the rest of Spain was at the feet of Napoleon, Marshal Lefebvre was despatched in June 1808, with a strong division of the French army to besiege Saragossa. Never, in our days at least, have the inhabitants of a beleaguered town displayed such courage. Women of all ranks assisted in the defence; they formed themselves into companies of two or three hundred each, and materially aided the men. They were always the most forward in danger, and the great difficulty was to teach them prudence and a proper sense of their own danger.

The French Marshal, astounded at this unexpected resistance, bribed the keeper of a large powder-magazine to blow it up on the night of June 28th. The French immediately pressed forward to the gates, and commenced a vigorous cannonade. The confusion within the walls was fearful. The people, terrified by the explosion, stupefied by the noise of the cannon thundering in their ears, were paralysed with terror. It was at this critical moment, when the French were pouring into the town, already considered it as their own, that Agostina (or Angostina) the Maid of Saragossa performed that heroic action which has made her name famous throughout the world.

According to the popular version of the story current at the time, the deed was unpremeditated, and simply the result of a sudden impulse. She was carrying round wine and water to the parched and fainting soldiers; entering the Battery of El Portillo, she found that all its defenders had been slain. She tore a match from the hand of a dying artilleryman (whom Southey incorrectly supposes to have been her lover) and fired off a twenty-six pounder gun which was loaded. But in Mrs. Hale's "Woman's Record," and some other biographical dictionaries, Agostina is represented as having gone to the battery with the previous determination of performing great deeds.

"At this dreadful moment," says Mrs. Hale, "an unknown maiden issued from the church of Nostra Donna del Pillas, habited in white raiment, a cross suspended from her neck, her dark hair dishevelled and her eyes sparkling with supernatural lustre! She traversed the city with a bold and firm step; she passed to the ramparts, to the very spot where the enemy was pouring in to the assault; she mounted to the breach, seized a lighted match from the hand of a dying engineer, and fired the piece of artillery he had failed to manage; then kissing her cross, she cried with the accent of inspiration—'Death or victory!' and re-loaded her cannon. Such a cry, such a vision, could not fail to call up enthusiasm; it seemed that heaven had brought aid to the just cause; her cry was answered—'Long live Agostina.'"

The people, inspired with new courage, rushed into the battery, and blazed away at the French. Agostina swore not to quit her post while the assault continued. The enthusiasm soon spread through the town. Shouts of "Forward! Forward! We will conquer!" resounded from all sides, and the besiegers were driven back at every point.

Marshal Lefebvre saw it would cost too many soldiers to take the town by storm; so he endeavoured to reduce it by famine, aided by a heavy bombardment. The horrors of war—people dying of hunger, shells bursting in the streets, the destruction of houses—reigned paramount in Saragossa. Agostina risked her life daily to assist the wounded. But she was seen daily working a heavy gun in the battery at the north-western gate.

The French, from their superior numbers and their determined perseverance, soon became masters of nearly half the town. Lefebvre sent to General Palafox, the Spanish Commandant, requesting him, once more, to surrender. Palafox read this message in the public street. Turning to Agostina, who, completely armed, stood near him, he asked:—"What answer shall I send?"

"War to the knife!" said she.

And this answer, echoed by all, was sent back to the Duke of Dantzic.

The latter gave immediate orders for his troops to press the siege by every possible means. For eleven days and eleven nights the town was like the crater of a volcano. The Spaniards disputed the possession of every street, every house, sometimes every room in a house. Agostina was seen at all points, wherever there was most danger to be encountered. Running from post to post, she fought almost incessantly. At last the French, thoroughly exhausted, retired from before Saragossa early on the morning of the 17th August, and the brave townspeople had their reward when they saw the legions of France retiring towards Pampeluna.

When General Palafox was rewarding the surviving warriors, he told Agostina to select whatever reward she pleased; for, said he, anything she asked for would be granted. The only favour she asked was permission to retain the rank of an artillery-soldier, and to have the privilege of taking the surname, and wearing the arms of Saragossa. This was at once granted, with the double-pay of an artilleryman and a pension; while she was decorated with medals and crosses by the Spanish Junta, and given the additional surname of La Artillera.

During the second siege of Saragossa, Agostina distinguished herself again as a warrior. When the French sat down before the gates, she took up her former station at the Portillo battery, beside the same gun which she had served so well.

"See," said she to Palafox, pointing to the gun, "I am again with my old friend."

Her husband was severely wounded, but Agostina took his duties, while he lay bleeding at her side. Besides loading and firing this famous gun, Agostina frequently headed sallying parties; when, knife or sword in hand, her cloak wrapped round her, she cheered and encouraged the soldiers by her example and her words. Although constantly under fire, she escaped without a wound. Once, however, she was flung into a ditch, and nearly suffocated by the bodies of dead and dying which fell upon her.

When the town capitulated in February, 1809, Agostina became a prisoner. She was too much feared for Marshal Lannes to let her escape. Fortunately for herself, she was seized with a contagious fever then raging in the town, and was removed to the hospital; where, as it was supposed she lay dying, so little care was taken in watching her that she contrived to escape in a few days.

When Lord Byron visited Spain in 1809, the maid of Saragossa used to walk every day on the Prado at Seville, attired in the Spanish military uniform—retaining, however, the petticoat and skirt, of her sex. Byron devoted half-a-dozen verses of "Childe Harold" to her praises. Sir John Carr, who was introduced to her about the same time, describes the heroine as "about twenty-three," with a light olive complexion. "Her countenance soft and pleasing, and her manners, which were perfectly feminine, were easy and engaging." When he saw Agostina she wore the national black mantilla; but on the sleeve of one arm she had three embroidered badges of honour, commemorative of three different acts of bravery.

"The day before I was introduced to this extraordinary female," says Sir John, "she had been entertained at dinner by Admiral Purvis on board his flag-ship.... As she received a pension from Government, and also the pay of an artilleryman, the admiral considered her as a military character, and, much to his credit, received her with the honours of that profession. Upon her reaching the deck, the marines were drawn up and manœuvred before her. She appeared quite at home, regarding them with a steady eye, and speaking in terms of admiration of their neatness, and soldier-like appearance. Upon examining the guns, she observed of one of them, as other women would speak of a cap, 'My gun,' alluding to one with which she had effected a considerable havoc among the French at Saragossa, 'was not so nice and clean as this.'"

Agostina lived to the age of sixty-nine, and died at Cuesta in July, 1857; when her remains were interred with all the honours due to her public position as a Spanish patriot.

Although the women of Saragossa had been ordered to leave the town in November, 1808, previous to the commencement of the second siege, most of them remained, and assisted bravely in raising fortifications. During the siege they exceeded even their past valour. In the short space of two months no fewer than six hundred women and children perished by the bayonets and musket-balls of the French; without reckoning the thousands who owed their deaths to the frequent explosions of powder-magazines and the constant bursting of shells in the streets. A girl named Manuella Sanchez was shot through the heart. A noble lady named Benita, who commanded one of the female corps raised to carry round provisions, to bear away the wounded, and to fight in the streets, narrowly escaped death again and again; and at the last she only survived the dangers of war to die of grief on hearing that her daughter had been slain.

All through the Peninsula women displayed the same Amazonian prowess. Those towns which ventured to resist the Imperial Eagles were as much influenced in their stubborn patriotism by the courage of the women as by the exciting speeches of the priests or the promise of assistance from England. And all those places which were besieged by the French were defended by women as well as by men. In 1810 there was, it is said, a woman holding the commission of Captain in a Spanish regiment.

In 1811, Mrs. Dalbiac, wife of a British colonel, "an English lady of gentle disposition and possessing a very delicate frame," accompanied, or perhaps followed, her husband to the Peninsula, and shared in all the hardships of more than one campaign. At the battle of Salamanca, July 22nd, 1812, she rode into the midst of the fight, and was several times under fire.

The King of Prussia, unable to shake off the yoke of Napoleon in 1806, when the star of the "Modern Attila" was at its zenith, took advantage of the Emperor's misfortunes in 1813 to call upon the Germans to rise against the tyranny of France. His call was warmly responded to from all parts of the realm; and, like France in the early days of the Republic, almost all who could bear arms hastened to enrol themselves as volunteers, and march away to fight the Gaul. Perhaps the best known rifle-corps was that commanded by Major Lutzow. Young men of the best families, men of genius (amongst others, Körner the poet, who has celebrated it in verse) joined this battalion. In this corps there was a female soldier, who enrolled under the name of Renz. A monument was erected to the memory of this heroine at Dannenberg, in September, 1865. It is in the form of a pyramid, one foot high. Nothing further is known concerning her history, beyond what is told by the inscription on this memorial.

"Ellonora Prochaska, known as one of the Lutzow Rifle Volunteers, by the name of Augustus Renz, born at Potzdam on the 11th March, 1785, received a fatal wound in the battle of Göhrde on the 15th September, 1813, died at Dannenberg on the 5th October, 1813. She fell exclaiming:—'Herr Lieutenant, I am a woman!'"

In 1869 a young man was received, by the express order of the King of Prussia, as a candidate for an ensign's commission into the second company of the first battalion of the 9th regiment, in Stargard, the same company in which his grandmother had served as a subaltern officer during the war of liberation against the French, and bravely won the Iron Cross and the Russian order of St. George. This lady—Augusta Frederica Krüger—was a native of Friedland, in Mecklenberg. Not content with offering, like many of her countrywomen, her trinkets and her flowing hair on the altar of patriotism, she entered the ranks as a volunteer, under the name of Lübeck, and distinguished herself by her intrepidity on many a hard-fought field. On October 23, 1815, she received her discharge, and her services were mentioned in this document in the most flattering terms. In January, 1816, being present, dressed in the garments of her own sex, at the festival of the Iron Cross, held at Berlin, she attracted the attention of a sub-officer of Lancers, named Karl Köhler, to whom she was married, in the garrison church of Berlin, on March 5, of the same year. The church was densely packed with spectators on the occasion, every one anxious to witness the marriage of two Prussian subaltern officers. The heroic bride appeared in a handsome silk gown, and wore on her breast the orders she had honourably won, which, with her short hair, were the only signs or symbols of her former military career.

Marshal Massena once related how, during an action between the French and Russians at Buezenghen, he observed a young soldier, apparently scarcely more than a child, who belonged to the French Light Artillery, defending himself bravely against several herculean Cossacks and Bavarians. This young artilleryman, whose horse had been slain by the thrust of a Cossack lance, displayed the most determined courage. "I immediately despatched an officer and some men to his assistance, but they arrived too late. Although the action had taken place on the borders of the wood and in front of the bridge, the artilleryman had alone withstood the attack of the small body of Cossacks and Bavarians whom the officers and men I had despatched put to flight. His body was covered with wounds inflicted by shots, lances, and swords. There were at least thirty. And do you know, Madame," asked the Marshal, "what the young man was?"

"A woman!"

"Yes, a woman, and a handsome woman too! Although she was so covered with blood that it was difficult to judge of her beauty. She had followed her lover to the army. The latter was a Captain of Artillery; she never left him, and when he was killed, defended like a lioness the remains of him she loved. She was a native of Paris, her name was Louise Belletz, and she was the daughter of a fringe-maker."

It was in 1812 that the Chicago Massacre took place. For more than a year before, the Indian tribes residing near the remote lakes and the sources of the Mississippi had displayed great hostility towards the pale-faces; though for a long time they did not venture to proceed to extremities. But after the declaration of war between the United States and Great Britain, on the 18th May, 1812, the savages came forward in great numbers as the allies of the British, and acted with their customary barbarity. One of their worst deeds was the Massacre of Chicago, August 15th, 1812.

The Fort of Chicago was commanded by Captain Heald. On the 7th August, he received despatches announcing that the Pottawatomie Indians had declared war against the United States, and commanding him to evacuate the place. He marched out on the 15th, accompanied by all the women and children, and had not proceeded very far before they were surrounded by overwhelming numbers of redskins. The Americans defended themselves with their usual bravery; and though hardly more than one to twenty, they sold their lives dearly.

Mrs. Heald, who was in the thick of the fight, received seven wounds. Her horse, a splendid animal, was prized by the Indians, who valued it far higher than its rider, and tried their best to avoid hurting it. A savage was in the act of tearing off Mrs. Heald's bonnet to scalp her, when one of the St. Joseph's tribe ransomed her for ten bottles of whiskey and a mule.

Mrs. Helm, wife of the officer second in command, fought bravely for her life. She was wounded slightly in the ankle, and had her horse shot under her. Being attacked by a young savage who aimed a blow at her head with his tomahawk, she sprang on one side, and the stroke fell on her shoulder, inflicting a severe wound. She seized him round the neck, and endeavoured to snatch his scalping-knife; but another Indian came up and dragged her away. The new-comer proved to be a friend. Plunging Mrs. Helm into the lake, he held her there, despite her struggles, till the firing was over.

After fighting with desperate valour, until only twenty-seven of them were left, the Americans were compelled to surrender. The wife of one of the soldiers, hearing of the tortures which the savages inflicted on their prisoners, resolved to die sooner than let herself be taken. When her companions had given up their arms, the Indians wished to capture this woman; but rejecting all their promises of kind treatment, she fought so desperately that she was literally cut to pieces.

Captain Helm, twice wounded, was sent with his wife and children to Mackinaw on the eastern coast of Michigan, and delivered as prisoners of war to the British general, who received them kindly, and sent them to Detroit. Lieutenant Helm, also wounded, was taken to St. Louis; where he was liberated through the entreaties of Mr. Forsyth, an Indian trader. Mrs. Helm was taken to Detroit, where she was exchanged, together with Captain and Mrs. Heald, some time after.

III.

Doña Maria de Jesus, Private in the Brazilian Army (War of the Reconcave)—Russian Female Soldiers—Juana de Areito (Civil Wars in Spain, 1834)—Anita Garibaldi—Appolonia Jagiello (Rebellions in Poland, 1846 and '48, and Vienna and Hungary, '48)—Bravery of the Croatian Women—Countess Helena St. ——, a Hungarian Patriot—Garde Mobile—Louisa Battistati (Milanese Revolution, 1848)—Fatima, a Turkish Commander (Russo-Turkish War)—Lady Paget (Attack on the Mamelon, June, 1855)—Miss Wheeler (Cawnpore Massacre)—Queen of Naples—Polish Insurrection—Mdlle. Pustowjtoff, Adjutant to Langievicz—Female Polish Chasseurs—Female Lieut.-Colonel in the Mexican Army—Civil War in America—Female Privates in the Potomac Army—Female Lieutenant and Privates in the Army of the West—Mrs. Clayton, Private in the Federal Army—Emily ——, Private in the Drum Corps of a Michigan Regiment—Female Confederates at Ringgold, Chattanooga—Mrs. Florence Bodwin—Female Mulatto Sergeant—Native Contingent in New Zealand—Herminia Manelli, Corporal of Bersaglieri (Battle of Custozza, 1866)—Lopez's Amazons—Cretan Amazons—Women of Montenegro—Female Brigands—German Order to Reward Courage in Women—Franco-Prussian War—Minna Hänsel's Amazon Corps.