and extending to the lake-streams. Between the Wabash, and a lake river, is only nine miles of land carriage. Here is the richest land in the western country, though at present more distantly situated from market. The waters of the lakes, he thinks, have recently experienced no diminution.
29th.—Two years ago, a young Yankee, of the name of Williams, became the object of a malicious prosecution here, on suspicion of robbing a store. Circumstantial evidence of the worst kind only could be adduced, and he was, as is common in this country, acquitted. The people of the place, however, prejudiced against him, as a Yankee, deputed four persons to inform him, that unless he quitted the town and state immediately, he should receive Lynch's law, that is, a whipping in the woods. He departed, with his wife and child, next day, on foot; but in the woods, four miles from Princeton, they were overtaken by two men, armed with guns, dogs, and a whip, who said they came to whip him, unless he would confess and discover to them the stolen money, so that they might have it. He vainly expostulated with them; but, in consideration of his wife's entreaties and cries, they remitted his sentence to thirteen lashes. One man then bound {305} him to a tree and lashed him with a cow-hide whip, while the other held and gagged him; the alarmed wife, all the time, shrieking murder. He was then untied, and told to depart from the state immediately, or he should receive another whipping on the morrow, as a warning and terror to all future coming Yankees.
This poor fellow was of respectable parents at Berlin, in the state of New York, and possessed a well-informed mind. He quitted the state, and returning, soon after, to prosecute his executioners, died at Evansville, before
