The Sun.
London, England, 1829-01-27 00:00:00

THE AMERICAN MILLWOOD.

LFrom the Winchester ( Va.) Republican.]
SWEARINGEN AND HIS PARAMOUR.
We have verbally heard, through various
channels, in a manner which goes to render the
fact very probable, that George Van Swearingen,
who is charged with having murdered his wife in
Ailegliany county, Md. in September last, was
recently taken near the Red River, in Ken-
tucky, together with Rachel Cunningham, his
suspected partner in the crime. It is said they
were apprehended by a tavern keeper (who is
(also a post-master), at whose house they had
passed the night. In an hour after their de-
parture, the mail arriving with Governor Kent's
proclamation, describing Swearingen and his
paramour, suspicion was directed towards them,
and the post-master, collecting a few neighbours,
went in pumuit, and overtook them in two or
three hours.

From another source, we have heard the fol-
lowing history of Rachel Cunningham, to whom
Lillo's IVlillwood, in the tragedy of George
Barnwell, cannot hold a candle. She was
brought up at Bedford, Pa. where she was pro-
bably early initiated into the' corruptions of that
(during the watering season) fashionable and
licentious place. Of her early history, however,
we have heard nothing, except that her person
was perfectly lovely, and that her countenance
was a mirror in which each winning grace strove
for pre-eminence. Possessing perhaps as great
a share of personal beauty as was ever lavished ma
a woman in the most wanton freaks of Nature's
workmanship—rivalling, perhai?s, the fabled
nymphs of Cyprus; she visited branklin County,
Pa., where the first act of the drawa may be said
to have opened. She there en hared the affec-
tions of a Mr. one of the most wealthy
and hitherto respectable merchants of that
county, and effected a separation between him-
self and wife. Stung at length with remorse, he
summoned sufficient courage to break the spell
which bound him, and, by a successful stratagem,
effected through the aid of o 4 of his clerks, he
succeeded in exti icating himself.
The scene now shifted to Pittsburg, where the
heroine of the drama soon captivated a wealthy
blacksmith, the proprietor also of an extensive
livery-stable, whose infidelity threw his wife into
a frenzy, and caused her in a moment of re-
venge and desperation to set fire to her husband's
possessions, by which his extensive stables and
forty horses were consumed. This effected the
wife's desires, and the modern Millwood was
again cast upon the world.

The scene next shifts to Harrisburgh, the
capital of Pennsylvania, where she soon formed
an amour with Judge 17—, a name foremost
in the list of debauchees and profligates in that
staid and exemplary state. The conseluence of
which was another matrimonial separation. Her
reason for leaving the Judge we do not remem-
ber, nor is it material.

The fourth act finds her in Ilageritown, Md.,
where she speedily entrapped in her toils the
Sheriff of the county, George Van Swearingen,
who has frequently been heard to say, that he
never knew or felt the raptures of love until he
looked upon this syren, and that he never could
gaze upon her without his whole frame being
wrought up to the highest state of bewildering
excitement. To her he sacrificed every thing--
fortune, honour, fame ; for her he became a felon,
and for her he will probably die a felon's death.
The fifth and last act is yet to be perforMed.
The materials are at hand—the dungeon scene—
the gallows—the executioner—the assembled
multitude—the dying speech, and the slow but
certain triumph of justice.