night, this short memorial: "Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three." It was a necessary precaution, as only the day after, when he was upon his return homeward, he very narrowly escaped assassination from the natives. He arrived at the fart on the 23d of August, 1793, and thus takes leave of his readers: "Here my voyages of discovery terminate. Their toils and their dangers, their solicitudes and sufferings, have not been exaggerated in my description. On the contrary, in many instances language has failed me in the attempt to describe them. I received, however, the reward of my labours, for they were crowned with success."
After he had returned to Fort Chipewyan, Mackenzie appears to have devoted himself, for a time at least, to that profitable trade in furs which his enterprises had so greatly tended to enlarge and benefit. He also prepared for the press his narrative, which was published in London in 1801, with the following title: "Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Lawrence, through the Continent of North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, in the years 1789 and 1793. With a Preliminary Account of the Rise, Progress, and Present State of the Fur Trade of that Country. Illustrated with Maps, 4to." The value of his exertions were so justly appreciated, that soon after the publication of this work he received the honour of knighthood. From this period we so completely lose sight of Sir Alexander, that we know neither his after history, nor the period of his death; but from a biographical volume of living authors, published in 1810, we ascertain that he was still alive at that date.
MACKINNON, Colonel Daniel.—This brave soldier, who acquired high military reputation in the Peninsular war and at Waterloo, was born in 1791, and was second son of William Mackinnon, chieftain of the ancient clan of that name in the Western Highlands of Scotland. This chieftainship, however, had dwindled into a mere lairdship, in consequence of the abolition of the patriarchal government in the Highlands, and Daniel, whose energies a century earlier might have been wasted in some petty feud or spreagh, was reserved to be one of the honoured heroes in a great European warfare. At the early age of fourteen he entered the army as ensign in the Coldstream Guards, and quickly won the esteem of his brother officers by his activity, cheerfulness, and kind disposition, which was further increased when he had an opportunity of showing his valour in the field. His first service, however, was nothing more than a little harmless marching and countermarching; for his regiment, which was ordered to Bremen in 1805, to co-operate with the Prussians and their allies, never came in sight of the enemy. After its return, the Coldstream in 1807 was sent with the armament against Copenhagen, where the land-service was not in requisition. Two years more elapsed of mere parade and warlike demonstration, which, however, was brought to an end when Mackinnon embarked with his regiment for the Peninsula in 1809, after he had attained the rank of lieutenant in the Guards.
The military life of an officer so young as Mackinnon, and holding his subordinate rank, can be nothing else than a record of personal daring and hair-breadth escapes; he obeys the commands and fulfils the wishes of his superiors, through every difficulty and at whatever risk, and thus establishes his claim to be a commander in turn. Such was the case with the subject of this brief notice. He was appointed aide-de-camp to General Stopford, who commanded the Guards, and had thus an opportunity of distinguishing himself through the
