NIM ROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 7 



coachmen on their descending from a coach-box to a gig. During 

 his sojourn in London for the benefit of superior surgical assis- 

 tance, Watson twice took an airing in a gig,and was twice ran away 

 with, and nearly killed. I have, somewhere, but cannot now put 

 my hand upon it, a list of coachmen who have been killed out 

 of gigs, the celebrated Dick Vaughan, of the Cambridge Tele- 

 graph, at the head of them. 



At Rochester I took my leave of Watson, very much pleased 

 with all I saw of his performance on the bench, as well as with 

 his general demeanour ; and we parted as we met, both strangers 

 to each other. The object of my leaving his coach here was to 

 pay a visit to a favourite sister whose husband is in command at 

 Chatham, as well as one of the Aides-de-Camp to the King ; and 

 it happened that I arrived on a day on which he had a very large 

 party to dinner, of which there appeared to be about an equal 

 number of coats, red, black, and blue, dispersed amongst the 

 ladies, but all of them strangers to me. To dwell long on this 

 dinner party would be indicative of bad taste on my part, and I 

 should imagine by no means to be wished for by my readers ; 

 but one circumstance occurred which I cannot persuade myself 

 to pass over. 



The officer of the watch came to report a fire in the neighbour- 

 hood, which was at first imagined to be on the property of a gen- 

 tleman who was one of the guests of the evening, but so far the 

 alarm proved false. It was an incendiary fire, as the term is, on 

 an, unfortunately, uninsured farmer and hay jobber, consuming, 

 as we ascertained next morning, nine large ricks of hay and two 

 of corn, and, it was asserted, causing irredeemable ruin to the 

 owner ! Well might the poet sing the thought, I believe, is 

 Seneca's 



"Of Heaven's protection who can be 

 So confident, to utter this ? 

 To-morrow I shall spend in bliss." 



But what protection can human power afford against the 

 cowardly act of the midnight incendiary? The crime was unknown 

 in my young days, and I believe it is not of English growth ; 

 but 1 have always considered it the worst sign of the times, and 

 one that calls for the severest punishment our laws can inflict.* 

 The victim here was an overseer of the poor. 



On the third morning after my arrival at Chatham, I took my 



* By the law of the Twelve Tables, the incendiary was first whipped, 

 and then delivered to the flames. Gibbon says, " In this example alone 

 our reason is tempted to approve the justice of retaliation." 



