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Article MASONIC ANECDOTES. ← Page 3 of 6 →
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Masonic Anecdotes.
for his own use—and arrayed his men on Capt . D ' s . side . The fortune of war was thus changed : the tribe were quickly dispersed , king ' s son and all , and Capt . D . enabled to reach his vessel without farther loss or damage . I need only add , that Capt . D . has related this adventure in my presence , twice within two months , without the slightest variation as to the main points of the story . The last occasion was on Sunday lastat
, my own house , no other person being present ; when I put down the particulars from his own dictation , urging him , as a Mason , to relate the plain facts , without any embellishment . The few reflections of my own which are incorporated with the narrative , do not , in the slightest degree , affect the facts as stated to me , ancl may easily be distinguished . Capt . D . is a very young man , a native of the town from ivhich I write , and his family and connexions are well known . He has all the modesty ,
spirit and courage of which the true British sailor is proverbially possessed . For myself , I avow my perfect confidence in the truth of all that is herein contained .
I have the honour to be , Sir and Brother , Yours fraternally ancl faithfully , THE MASTER OF NO . 472 . P . S . The reason the name is not given at length , is , that Capt . D- is too retiring to like to see his name in print . It may , however , be known on application to the writer of this .
THE LATE MAJOR-GENERAL SIR ROBERT ROLLO GILLESPIE , K . C . B . * The subject of this anecdote was born at Comber , county Down , in 1766 . He became a member of the Fraternity of Freemasons in his native town in the year 1783 ; his name yet remains in the Loclge , and his flag and banners in which he was initiated are preserved . Shortly after he was gazetted to a cornetcy in the Sixth Carbineers . In the early part of his service to his Sovereign and countryhe
hihldistin-, gy guished himself in the AVest Indies , viz ., at Tiburon ; Port-au-Prince ; Bizotton ; Fort-de-l'Hopital ; St . Lucia ; and at St . Domingo ; on the latter island , then in the possession of the French , his life was threatened , and he was on the point of being put to death by order of the governor , General Santhonax , under the following circumstances : —He was selected by his commander-in-chief to be the bearer of a dispatch with a summons to surrender the island , and having been sent under a flag of truce , so
great was Gillespie ' s anxiety to reach the shore from the English squadron from whence he was dispatched , his boat got stranded and upset , ancl his flag and papers having been lost in the sea , he swam ashore with his sword in his mouth ; upon Which occasion he was several times fired at and miraculously escaped . On being brought a prisoner before the governor he was charged with being a spy , and instantly threatened to be hanged , when Gillespie espied on the governor ' s or his attendant ' s buttons the insi gnia or device of Freemasonry ; Gillespie gave the sign ,
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Masonic Anecdotes.
for his own use—and arrayed his men on Capt . D ' s . side . The fortune of war was thus changed : the tribe were quickly dispersed , king ' s son and all , and Capt . D . enabled to reach his vessel without farther loss or damage . I need only add , that Capt . D . has related this adventure in my presence , twice within two months , without the slightest variation as to the main points of the story . The last occasion was on Sunday lastat
, my own house , no other person being present ; when I put down the particulars from his own dictation , urging him , as a Mason , to relate the plain facts , without any embellishment . The few reflections of my own which are incorporated with the narrative , do not , in the slightest degree , affect the facts as stated to me , ancl may easily be distinguished . Capt . D . is a very young man , a native of the town from ivhich I write , and his family and connexions are well known . He has all the modesty ,
spirit and courage of which the true British sailor is proverbially possessed . For myself , I avow my perfect confidence in the truth of all that is herein contained .
I have the honour to be , Sir and Brother , Yours fraternally ancl faithfully , THE MASTER OF NO . 472 . P . S . The reason the name is not given at length , is , that Capt . D- is too retiring to like to see his name in print . It may , however , be known on application to the writer of this .
THE LATE MAJOR-GENERAL SIR ROBERT ROLLO GILLESPIE , K . C . B . * The subject of this anecdote was born at Comber , county Down , in 1766 . He became a member of the Fraternity of Freemasons in his native town in the year 1783 ; his name yet remains in the Loclge , and his flag and banners in which he was initiated are preserved . Shortly after he was gazetted to a cornetcy in the Sixth Carbineers . In the early part of his service to his Sovereign and countryhe
hihldistin-, gy guished himself in the AVest Indies , viz ., at Tiburon ; Port-au-Prince ; Bizotton ; Fort-de-l'Hopital ; St . Lucia ; and at St . Domingo ; on the latter island , then in the possession of the French , his life was threatened , and he was on the point of being put to death by order of the governor , General Santhonax , under the following circumstances : —He was selected by his commander-in-chief to be the bearer of a dispatch with a summons to surrender the island , and having been sent under a flag of truce , so
great was Gillespie ' s anxiety to reach the shore from the English squadron from whence he was dispatched , his boat got stranded and upset , ancl his flag and papers having been lost in the sea , he swam ashore with his sword in his mouth ; upon Which occasion he was several times fired at and miraculously escaped . On being brought a prisoner before the governor he was charged with being a spy , and instantly threatened to be hanged , when Gillespie espied on the governor ' s or his attendant ' s buttons the insi gnia or device of Freemasonry ; Gillespie gave the sign ,