Oliver Ellis, or, The Fusiliers, Classics To Go

Excerpt: ""In regard to prefaces," says the author of "Curiosities of Literature,"—"ladies consider them so much space for a love story lost, though the Italians call them la salsa del libra,—the spice of the book." Be this as it may, I must mention that many of the men whose names occur in these pages, bore the part ascribed to them during the operations of Sir Charles Grey's army in the Antilles. A duel, nearly similar to that which is described as having taken place on board of the Adder frigate, actually occurred on the deck of one of H.M.'s ships-of-war when lying in a South-American port, in 1821. The situation of the wreck in the Isle of Tortoises was suggested to me by the discovery of a mysterious vessel in a cavern of the island of Baccalieu, when I was at Fort Townsend in Newfoundland, where it excited much speculation. As a few Mexican dollars were found on the rocks near, she was supposed to be Spanish; and such rumours were circulated of the vast treasure she contained, that H.M.S. Comus was despatched from Halifax to investigate the matter; but the hull contained a few dead bodies alone. That the marvellous might not be wanting, there was told a story of a gigantic anchor being thrown by the sea on the desert shore near her. There it lay for a time, till a party came to remove it; but it had vanished, like the treasure,—by no mortal agency, of course!"