1822.] 
his lips, particularly, are like those of 
middle life ; his voice is stvong and sweet 
toned, although a little tremulous ; his 
hearing very little impaired, so that a 
voice of usual strength, with distinct ar- 
ticulation, enables him to understand ; 
his eye-sight is sufficient for his work, 
and he distinguishes large print, such 
as the title-page of the Bible, without 
glasses; his health is good, and has 
always been so, except that he has now 
a cough and expectoration. 
He informed us that his father, dri- 
ven out of France by religious persecu- 
tion, fled to Amsterdam ; by his account 
it must have been on account of the 
persecutions of the French protestants, 
or Huguenots, in the latter part of the 
reign of Louis XIV. At Amsterdam, 
his father married his mother, a Dutch 
woman, five years before he was born, 
and before that event returned with 
her into France. Wheu he was five years 
old, his father again fled on account of 
“de religion,”? as he expressed it, (for 
his language, although very intelligible 
English, is marked by French peculi- 
arities). He says he well remembers 
their flight, and that it was in the winter ; 
for he recollects, that as they were de- 
scending a hill which was covered with 
snow, he cried out to his father, “ O 
fader, do go back and get my little car- 
riole,”’ (a little boy’s sliding sledge, or 
sleigh) 
rptn these dates we are enabled to 
fix the time of his birth, provided he is 
correct in the main fact, for he says he 
was present at Queen Anne’s coronation, 
and was then sixteen years old, the 
31st day of May, old style. His father, 
as he asserts, after his return from 
Holland, had again been driven from 
France by persecution, and the second 
time took refuge in Holland, and after- 
wards in England, where he resided 
with his family at the time of the coro- 
nation of Queen Anne, in 1702. ‘This 
makes Francisco to have been born in 
1686; to have been expelled from 
France in 1691, and therefore to have 
completed his hundred and thirty-third 
gl on the 11th June, 1520; of course 
e was then more than three months ad- 
vanced in his hundred and thirty-fourth 
year. It is notorious, that about this 
time multitudes of French protestants 
fled on account of the persecutious of 
Louis XIV. resulting from the revoca- 
tion of the edict of Nantz, which occur- 
red Oct. 12, 1685, and, notwithstanding 
the guards upon the frontiers, and other 
An Old Man of the age of King William. 7 
measures of precaution or rigour, to 
prevent emigration, it is well known, 
that for many years, multitudes conti- 
nued to make their escape, and that thus 
Louis lost six hundred thopsand of his 
best and most useful subjects. Lasked 
Francisco if he saw Queen Anne crown- 
ed; he replied, with great animation, 
and with an elevated voice, “ Ah! dat 
I did, and a fine-looking woman she 
was, too, as any dat you will see now 
a-days.* 
He said he fought in all Queen Anne’s 
wars, and was at many battles, and 
under many commanders, but his me- 
mory fails, and he cannot remember 
their names, except the Duke of Marl- 
borough, who was one of them. 
He has been much cut up by wounds, 
which he shewe1l us, but cannot always 
give a very distinct account of his war 
fare. 
He came out, with his father, from 
England, to New York, probably early 
in the last century, but cannot remem- 
ber the date. 
He said, pathetically, when pressed 
for accounts of his military experience, 
* OQ, I was in all Queen Anne’s wars ; 
I was at Niagara, at Oswegc, on the 
Ohio (in Braddock’s defeat, in 1755, 
where he was wounded). I was carried 
prisoner to Quebec, (in the revolution- 
ary war, when he must have been at 
least ninety years old). I fight in all 
sorts of wars all my life; 1 see dreadful 
trouble; and den to have dem, we 
tought our friends turn tories ; and the 
British too, and fight against ourselves ; 
O, dat was de worst of all.” 
He here seemed much affected, and 
almost too full for utterance. It seems, 
that during the revolutionary war, he 
kept a tavern at Fort Edward; and he 
lamented, in a very animated manner, 
that the tories burnt his house and barn, 
and four hundred bushels of grain; this, 
his wife said, was the same year that 
Miss M‘Crea was murdered. 
He has had two wives, and twenty- 
one children; the youngest child is the 
daughter, in whose house he now lives, 
and she is fifty-two years old ; of course 
he was eighty-two when she was born ; 
they suppose several of the older chil- 
dren are still living, ata very advanced 
age, beyond the Ohio, but they have 
not heard of them in several years. 
* For an unlettered man, he has very few 
gallic peculiarities, and those the common 
ones, such asd for th, &e. 
The 
