520 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 240. 



Lord Rosehill was the eccentric character we might 

 ■infer from the above, in the assurance that he was 

 •" a ne'er do weel, and ran away with the tincklers 

 (£. e. gypsies) in early life." 



If I may farther travel out of the record, allow 

 me here to recommend to such of your readers as 

 meditate the northern tour this summer, to diverge 

 a little from the beaten track, and visit the neigh- 

 bourhood above alluded to ; your antiquarian 

 friends, especially, will be delighted with that fine 

 -old ruin, the Abbey of Aberbrothock, now that it is 

 brushed up and fit to receive visitors. The worthy 

 Mr. Peter, in charge, has some curious relics ac- 

 quired at the last diggins, and possesses a fragment 

 of a black-letter Chronicle to satisfy the incre- 

 dulous that in identifying the objects exhibited, 

 he has his warrant in Hector Boece. The man of 

 progress, too, will find in Fairport, or Arbroath, a 

 hive of industry ; but, I regret to add, threatened 

 with a check by this closing of the Baltic trade, 

 which is, if I may say so, both woof and warp in 

 "the prosperity of this and other towns on the east 

 coast of Scotland. And lastly, the lovers of ocean, 

 rocks, and caves, will be not less interested with 

 the environs, and I doubt not all would leave it 

 exclaiming with Johnson, that if they had seen no 

 more of old Scotia than Aberbrothock, they would 

 not have regretted their journey. J. O. 



MAJOR ANDRE. 



(Vol. ix., p. 111.) 



On the 13th of January, 1817, Mr. Chappell 

 made a report unfavourable to the petition of 

 John Paulding (one of the citizens who captured 

 Major Andre), who prays for an increase of the 

 pension allowed to him by the government in con- 

 sequence of that service. On the question to re- 

 verse this report, an interesting debate followed. 



We copy the following from the National In- 

 telligencer, January 14, 1817 : 



" What gave interest principally to the debate, was 

 the disclosure by Mr. Tallmadge of Connecticut (an 

 officer at the time, and commanding the advance guard 

 when Major Andre was brought in) of his view of the 

 merit of this transaction, with which history and the 

 records of the country have made every man familiar. 

 The value of the service he did not deny ; but on the 

 authority of the declaration of Major Andre (made 

 while in the custody of Colonel Tallmadge), he gave it 

 as his opinion that, if Major Andre could have given 

 to these men the amount they demanded for his re- 

 lease, he never would have been hung as a spy, nor in 

 captivity on that occasion. Mr. T.'s statement was 

 minutely circumstantial, and given with expressions of 

 his individual confidence in its correctness. Among 

 other circumstances he stated, that when Major Andre's 

 boots were taken ofF by them, it was to search for 

 plunder, and not to detect treason. These persons, 



indeed, he said, were of that class of people who passed 

 between both armies, as often in one camp as the 

 other, and whom, he said, if he had met with them, 

 he should probably as soon have apprehended as 

 Major Andre, as he had always made it a rule to do 

 with these suspicious persons. The conclusion to be 

 drawn from the whole of Mr. Tallmadge's statement, 

 of which this is a brief abstract, was, that these persons 

 had brought in Major Andre only because they should 

 probably get more for his apprehension than for his 

 release." 



The question on reversing the report was decided 

 in the negative : — Ayes, 53 ; Noes, 80 or 90. 



It is proper to say that the question was decided 

 on the ground taken in the report, viz. on the in- 

 justice of legislating on a single case of pension, 

 whilst there were many survivors of the Revo- 

 lution whom the favour of the government had 

 not distinguished. 



From The Gleaner, published at Wilkesbury, 

 Pennsylvania (copied into the National Intelli- 

 gencer of Washington, March 4, 1817) : 



" The disclosure recently made by Colonel Tall- 

 madge in the House of Representatives, relative to the 

 capture of Major Andre, seems to have been received 

 in every instance with the confidence to which it was 

 certainly entitled. That gentleman related what he 

 saw and knew ; and those who are attempting to dis- 

 pute him, relate only what they had been informed of. 

 To those of our readers who may not have seen the 

 report of Colonel Tallmadge's remarks, it may be 

 proper to observe, that those three men who captured 

 Major Andre, applied to Congress for an increase of 

 pension settled on them by the government, and that 

 when this application was under consideration, Colonel 

 Tallmadge ("a member for Connecticut) rose and stated, 

 that having been the officer to whom the care of 

 Andre was entrusted, he had heard Andre declare that 

 those men robbed him, and upon his offer to reward 

 them for taking him to the British lines, he believes 

 they declined only from the impossibility of giving 

 them sufficient security, &c, and that it was not pa- 

 triotism but the hope of gain which induced them to 

 deliver him to the Americans. To this declaration of 

 Colonel Tallmadge, and in support of his opinion, we 

 are happy to have it in our power to offer the follow- 

 ing corroborating testimony. 



" There is now living in this town a gentleman who 

 was an officer in the Massachusets line, and who was 

 particularly conversant in all the circumstances of that 

 transaction. It was this gentleman who, in company 

 with Captain Hughes, composed the special guard of 

 Andre's person, was with him during the last twenty- 

 four hours of his life, and supported him to the place 

 of execution. From him we have received the fol- 

 lowing particulars : it is needless to say we give them 

 our implicit belief, since to those who are acquainted 

 with the person to whom we allude, no other testimony 

 is ever necessary than his simple declaration. 



" To this gentleman Andre himself related that he 

 was passing down a hill, at the foot of which, under a 

 tree, playing cards, were the three men who took him. 



