permission, and the means to carry them into execution. One proposal which she made was that she might be entrusted with the delicate commission of negotiating an exchange between Major Shipley and a French officer of equal rank, with some inferior prisoners, which might be demanded on account of the high position occupied by her husband as commanding engineer of the West India station. After many objections on the score of personal danger to the adventurous lady, on account of the unscrupulous character of the enemy she had to treat with, permission was given for her to make the attempt, which was rendered doubly difficult and hazardous (torn the circumstance that ail communications, except by arms, between the English and French had ceased, on account of the utter disregard of the usages of civilized warfare exhibited by the latter.
Behold this devoted woman then setting forth on her perilous enterprize, in a small vessel manned only by the prisoners to be exchanged, as she hoped, for her husband, a captain, and five seamen, and accompanied by but one female attendant, a black woman; without even the protection of a flag of truce, she ventures forth upon the boisterous sea, and boldly steers her course towards an enemy's country, whose ruler she knows from sad experience to be harsh and brutal, and animated with a deadly hatred towards those of her name and nation.
One is altogether amazed at the heroism of this desperate venture, and sees in its success (for successful it was) a manifestation of the finger of Providence. She left Port Royal, as she says in her narrative, "under the protection of Heaven;" other protection had she none, except the prayers and good wishes of all who knew of her expedition, and especially of the many who gathered to witness the departure of her little bark, which through the tempestuous night was tossed about upon the ocean. But we must not dwell upon the particulars; suffice it that she reached Guadalonpe in safety, met good friends there, who brought her into communication with the governor, and he was so much struck with her heroism and devotedness, that he allowed her husband to return with her to Martinique. William the Fourth, then Duke of Clarence, testified his high sense of the merit of this extraordinary act in a letter to Major Shipley, who subsequently attained the rank of Major-General, was knighted, and made governor of Granada, after having performed many valuable and important services to his country, chiefly in the West Indies. He died at the seat of his government, November 30th., 1815; and the French monarch Louis the Eighteenth, out of consideration for the service which he had rendered to the Bourbon family, assigned to Lady Shipley a residence at St. Cloud, and treated her and her daughters with the greatest kindness and attention. This royal bounty and sympathy, however, she did not long live to enjoy, dying August 6th., 1820. Her daughters continued to reside at St. Cloud until the change in the reigning dynasty took place. Lady Shipley was first interred in the English burying ground at Boulogne; but afterwards, in 1831, when it was likely that her remains might be disturbed, in consequence of some contemplated alterations, they were brought to England, and placed in Canterbury Cathedral, the Duke of Clarence generously defraying a considerable portion cf the necessary expense.
Lady Shipley left three daughters, Catharine Jane, married to
