there subjected to a long and rigorous examination by Messrs. McIlvaine and Stille, who had got possession of all the claims against him; that the offence charged consisted in issuing a commission as Vice-Consul of Greece, with General Bratish's own signature! that McIlvaine went before Mr. Alderman Binns to get the warrant for forgery, and employed Colonel John Stille, Jr., his coadjutor, to appear as public prosecutor in the Mayor's Court of Philadelphia; that he, General Bratish, was put upon trial before a bench of aldermen, not a man of the whole except the Recorder being acquainted with the rudiments of law; that, on being arraigned, he refused to plead, and called no witnesses himself, though some were called by his counsel, when the Recorder directed the plea of "Not guilty" to be entered, and the trial to proceed; that he claimed to be a foreign consul provisionally appointed, entered a formal protest, which appeared in the papers of the day, and never deigned to open his mouth, until, to the consternation and amazement of all who understood the case, the jury found him guilty, under the direction of the Recorder, -a direction which amounted to this, namely, that, while General Bratish could not be legally convicted of the offence charged, he might be convicted of another offence not charged! that a motion for a new trial was entered at the suggestion of the Recorder himself, and was finally argued in a burst of indignation by General Bratish, who thrust aside his counsel, and refused to be delivered on technical grounds; that the motion was opposed by Messrs. McIlvaine and Stille, but prevailed; that the verdict was set aside, a new trial granted, and General Bratish was allowed to go at large, on greatly reduced bail, every member of the court concurring, except Mr. Alderman McKean; that no sooner was the trial over, and the proceedings published, than a public meeting was called through the National Gazette, the Public Ledger, the United States Gazette, and the Pennsylvanian, and all persons were in vited to appear, and bring forward their charges if any they had against him; that such a meeting, both large and respectable, was held at the College of Pharmacy, and resolutions were adopted, declaring the character of General Bratish to be "unimpeached and unimpeachable," his authority from Greece to be fully proved, and his identity to have been established by the testimony of "several highly respectable gentlemen present"; that, before he could have another trial, the court was abolished; and that, after waiting two months for the prosecutor to move, for want of something better to do, General Bratish betook himself to Canada; that he was followed there, watched, arrested for a horse-thief, immediately and honorably discharged, re-arrested upon a suspicion of high treason, put beyond the reach of a habeas corpus writ, and confined for seven months, in the citadel of Quebec and elsewhere, as a prisoner of state, &c., &c. Such was a part of his story; and astonishing as it may appear -incredible, I might say—I found it, after a most careful investigation, to be not only substantially true, but scrupulously exact. The evidence came to me through unwilling or prejudiced witnesses, my friend, Henry C. Carey of Philadelphia, among the number, and was corroborated throughout by official documents and published proceedings. And here I may as well add, that Mr. Arnold Buffum was chairman, and J. Griffith, M. D. secretary, of the meeting above referred to, of March 6th, 1838. While this unhappy controversy was raging, and our people were dividing upon the questions involved, a little incident occurred which had a very wholesome effect upon our misgivings. The General happened to be in conversation with a stranger one day, when the subject of Unitarianism, as it existed in the North of Europe, came up. Something was then said about the great Unitarian Convention held at Cork, Ireland, two or three years be fore. General Bratish said he was in attendance, and had let fall some remarks there. A by-stander, who had very little faith in our hero, caught at the ravelling thus dropped. If what the General said were true, surely some evidence might be found by diligent search. And, sure enough! the gentleman found a copy of the Christian Pioneer, in Boston, giving an account of that very Convention. He acknowledged to me that he opened the journal with fear and trembling, but soon came upon what purported to be an abstract of a speech by General Bratish, and what furnished abundant confirmation of his highest pretensions as a soldier, as a writer, as a patriot, and as a philanthropist. I saw the Pioneer myself. It was a monthly journal, published in Glasgow, Scotland, July, 1835. The speech, as reported, was eminently characteristic, and the summary that followed was in the following words: "The society was gratified on this occasion by the presence of the Rev. George Harris of Glasgow, whose visit to Cork the committee gladly availed themselves of, earnestly requesting his attendance; and of Mr. Bratish, a native of Hungary, and a member of the Hungarian Diet, who, in consequence of his intrepid advocacy of the cause of much-injured Poland, both in his place in the legislature, and subsequently with his pen and his sword, has been obliged to fly his country, and take refuge in this kingdom." Among the most damaging allegations was one to this effect, that Mr. Forsyth, our Secretary of State, had contradicted the story of General Bratish about his consular authority and proceedings in every particular. So far was this from being true, that Mr. Forsyth confirmed the story of General Bratish in substance, acknowledging to me that he knew nothing to his prejudice, and that General Bratish had held such communications with him as he had represented. Yet more, while I was patiently and quietly pursuing these investigations, Colonel Bouchette handed me a copy of the Bath (Me.) Telegraph Extra, of July 19, 1839, containing a report of the proceedings at a public meeting held there, in consequence of the newspaper charges and anonymous letters which had followed our adventurer to that city. It was headed "General Bratish Eliovich (Baron Fratelin)," and was signed by Judge Clapp (Ebenezer), and by Henry Masters, Secretary. The resolutions were brief but conclusive; and the committee that drew them up, after a thorough investigation, were chosen from among the most respectable citizens of the place. "Every specific charge brought forward by responsible persons," they say, was most completely refuted, and the truth was found entirely in accordance with the statements and accounts of the transactions given beforehand by General Bratish"; and they declare him "entitled to the confidence and respect of the community at large," saying that "his conduct in this State has been that of a gentleman and man of honor." I found too, that, go where he would, behave as he might, the moment his name appeared in the papers, anonymous letters and paragraphs followed, denouncing him as a "pedler," as a "native Yankee," as a thief who had robbed a fellow-boarder at Bedford Springs and then run away, taking one of the most unfrequented roads "across the country to Cumberland, upon which no public conveyance runs"; and yet I found, upon further inquiry, that he went off by the regular mail coach direct to Philadelphia, drove straight to the Marshall House, where he had always put up, (one of the largest and most respectable establishments in the city,) and entered his name at length on the travellers' book in the usual way, and was received by McIlvaine himself and others he had met with at Bedford Springs, on a footing of the most friendly intimacy, for over two months after the alleged robbery and exposure. I ascertained further, that he came to this country in the summer of 1836 on board the Statesman, Captain Mans some field, from Gothenburg to Salem, with letters from Christopher Hughes, our Chargé d'Affaires at Stockholm, to his son at New York, and with a Swedish passport to North America, duly authenticated, in which he was called "the Honorable John Bratish de Fratelin"; that he had many other letters, bills of credit, and drafts, and a large amount of money in gold, "thousands of dollars" according to the testimony of Captain N. B. Mansfield himself, with whom I communicated by letter; that he was brought on board in the Governor's barge, and was known to have been treated with great distinction by the Swedish nobility, and to have been so well received by Bernadotte himself, the king of Sweden, as to give rise to a report that he was a son of Murat, the late king of Naples, whose queen he certainly resembled, as he did others of the Bonaparte family; that on the passage he put on no airs, claimed no title, but chose to be called plain Mr. Bratish, until his rank was discovered, and he came to be known as General John Bratish Eliovich (the son of Elias), Baron Fratelin; that after a twelvemonth's residence at Boston and Salem, holding intercourse with what is there called the best society, he went to Washington, where he passed the winter of 1837-38 among the fashionables and upper-tens; that, while there, he received the provisional appointment of Consul-General for the United States from the Regency of Greece, dated February 15, 1837, upon which he threw up an engagement he had entered into with General Duff Greene, which secured him a respectable support, and set about seeing the country; that after travelling from New York to New Orleans, he returned to the North, and stopped for a month or two at Bedford Springs, about a day's journey from Philadelphia; that being disappointed in remittances and receipts, and unable to collect moneys he had lent to his compatriots, he could not pay his bill for six weeks' board, amounting to fifty dollars, and went to Philadelphia, leav 663 ing with Mr. Brown, the landlord, a trying in vain to dispose of a valuable part of his baggage and books, after platina medal; that in Philadelphia, Mr. McIlvaine - notwithstanding the alleged robbery-lent him one hundred and sixty-five dollars, and was constituted Vice-Consul of Greece ad interim, that is, "until the pleasure of his Majesty, the king of Greece, should be known." the attacks made upon the unhappy Here then was the foundation of all General; but was there not something behind, something below this foundation ? The extraordinary case of Dr. Follen, who was hunted from pillied into his grave, shows what may lar to post, year after year, and wellnigh be done by conspirators and spies and slanderers, when a respectable man If he is at all headstrong or imprudent, grows obnoxious to a foreign power. nothing can save him. Oddly enough, it happens that one of the very papers which followed Dr. Follen whithersoPhiladelphia Gazette, ever he went, like a sleuth-hound, — the bitterest and most unrelenting of those was among the that assailed General Bratish. While pursuing these investigations, authority, that General Bratish had I learned from what I regarded as high presented an address to Lord Normanby, at the head of the whole conspecial purpose; and I was referred to sular body, having been chosen for that where, under the head of Foreign Conthe Irish Royal Cork Almanac for 1835, suls, I read, "Colonel John Bratish (d'Elias) Eliovich, K. C. C., S. S., L. H., Buenos Ayres, and Switzerland, ConConsul - General of Greece, Mexico, sular Agent of Turkey." reconciled, the facts proved with the -a less, and the whole newspaper press of the country was either against him, or wholly indifferent. Had he been on trial in a court of justice, any lawyer would have defended him, — nay, for that matter, he might have defended himself. But if he entered the field as a writer, alone against a host, volumes would have to be written, and who would publish them, who read them? That I might bring the matter to issue at once, knowing well, and from long experience, that, when people are accused through the newspaper press of our country, they are always believed to be guilty until they have established their innocence, I sent a communication to the Portland Advertiser of October 15, 1839, with my name, charging upon Mr. Henry McIlvaine and Colonel John Stille, Jr. all that I afterwards repeated with more distinctness and solemnity in "The New World," for which I was then writing (and from which I withdrew in consequence of what I then regarded as unfairness toward General Bratish on the part of my coadjutors, Messrs. Park Benjamin and Epes Sargent), and arraigning both McIlvaine and Stille, as conspirators and libellers. One day, while this controversy was raging, the General called upon me, and begged me, for my own satisfaction, to inquire of Baron de Mareschal, the Austrian Minister, respecting certain charges that had just appeared against him. I consented, and immediately despatched the following letter to the care of my friend, the Honorable George Evans, our Representative in Congress, requesting him to see the Baron for me. "To His EXCELLENCY GENERAL BARON DE MARESCHAL, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from his Majesty the Emperor of Austria. "The undersigned is led to apply to your Excellency in behalf of a gentleman here, who has been assailed by a great variety of newspaper slanders, most of which have been triumphantly refuted. The gentleman referred to is known here, by his passports and other credentials, as John Bratish Eliovich, late a general in the service of her most Catholic Majesty, the Queen of Spain, and is now an American citi zen. "He states - and he bids me trust confidently to the character of your Excellency for an early reply — that in 1828 he was at Rio Janeiro; that instead of running away,' as reported, with a large amount of funds belonging to his uncle, Christopher Bratish, he left Rio Janeiro in consequence of being appointed by the Emperor, Dom Pedro, Brazilian Consul to Austria, with the approbation and consent of your Excellency, manifested by a regu lar passport, granted by your Excellency's legation. "The friends of General Bratish in this region are numerous and respectable, and they beg your Excellency's reply to the following questions :· "Is the statement above made by General Bratish true? "And if your Excellency would be so kind as to say whether, in your opinion, there can be any foundation for the story respecting the 'large amount of money' said to have been carried off by General Bratish, when he is reported to have run away from Rio Janeiro, your Excellency would gladly oblige, not only the undersigned, but a number of other persons deeply interested in the character of General Bratish. "Meanwhile, I am with respect your Excellency's most obedient servant, 66 "PORTLAND, ME., April, 1840." "That your Excellency may know who has taken this liberty, the undersigned begs leave to refer you to the Hon. George Evans, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, General Scott, or to any member of Congress from the Northern or Middle States." Through some oversight in the transcribing, the full date of this letter does not appear; but I soon received the following from Mr. Evans : A Mysterious Personage. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, "MY DEAR SIR,-Your favor of “Very faithfully yours, "GEO. EVANS." Very adroit and very diplomatic, to be sure, on the part of the Baron; but surely he might have answered yes or no to the first question, without committing himself. And why not show my letter to Mr. Evans? Taking the ground he did, however, he forced me to the following conclusion, namely, that he could not answer No, and was afraid, for reasons of state, perhaps, to answer Yes. And now, what was to be done? Should I prepare a memoir, setting forth all these charges, with such refutations and such explanations as had occurred, and appeal to the public. There seemed to be no other way left. While I was preparing this memoir, 665 which made a pamphlet of forty-eight large octavo pages, with the documentary evidence in small print, General evening, after I had read over to him Bratish was at my elbow; and one what I had written, I happened to say that I was exceedingly sorry for the loss of his orders and decorations in Canada, -they would have been such a corroboration of his story. "Lost!" said he, "they are not lost." "Where are they?" "In the bank, with some other valuables." "In the bank! When can you get them for me?" "To-morrow, when the bank is open." den and so startling was this declara- confirmation; and yet on this very |