The Sun. — 1829-01-27 (London, England)

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 Kentucky, 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 departure, 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 following 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 probably 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 affections of a Mr. one of the most wealthy and hitherto respectable merchants of that county, and effected a separation between himself 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 revenge 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 remember, 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.