Note 4 — A MEMOIR, ETC.

I cannot omit here to pay the tribute of gratitude to a poor unknown Female of Colour, whose pity, more extensive than her power, would have alleviated the horrors of my situation. She came occasionally in the night to the window of my cell, which looked into a court to which she found access by an avenue that was unguarded. She brought me food, and wine or spirits, the remains of which, to prevent enquiry, she was anxious should be destroyed. The humane sympathy expressed by her in these nocturnal offerings to misery, have repeatedly brought to my remembrance the eulogium of Lediard on a sex ever prone to tender offices. In compliment to my humble benefactor I quote the passage, and heartily subscribe to the sentiments:—

“I have,” says he, “always remarked that women, in all countries, are civil, obliging, tender, and humane: that they are ever inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and modest; and that they do not hesitate, like men, to perform a kind or generous action.—Not haughty, nor arrogant, not supercilious, they are full of courtesy, and fond of society—more liable in general to err than man, but in general, also, more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. To a woman, whether civilized or savage, I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship—without receiving a decent and friendly answer—with man it has often been otherwise.

“In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, and frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar,—if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, the women have ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and to add to this virtue, (so worthy of the appellation of benevolence,) these actions have been performed in so free and so kind a manner, that if I was thirsty, I drank the sweetest draught, and if hungry, I ate the coarse meal with a double relish.”