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20 On another occasion he had a still more narrow escape of what threatened to terminate in a tedious imprisonment. A friendly nobleman whom he met in Languedoc had given him some much-valued information on the cultivation of mulberries, and mentioned a very small piece of which the produce appeared marvellous. Determined, after his own fashion of testing everything where possible, to see this piece of land, Young turned from his road to find it, and having paced it across and across, and observed its condition, he carefully noted the facts in his pocket-book. All this had, unknown to him, been closely observed by spies set to watch his actions. In the midst of the night, after he had been some time asleep at his inn, the commander of a file of twenty men of the rural militia entered his chamber with muskets, swords, sabres, and pikes, and, rudely awakening him, demanded his passport. This document, however, did not satisfy them. They told him that he was undoubtedly a conspirator with the queen and the king's brother, who had property in the neighbourhood, and that they had employed him to measure their fields and double their taxes. Fortunately Young's papers being in English, helped to save him. These and a bundle of letters of recommendation to various persons on his route, mostly describing him as an English farmer seeking for information in agriculture, finally satisfied them, and the intruders grumblingly withdrew. When we consider the political excitement and the excesses of those times, it appears marvellous that Young escaped from more serious evils; and, finally, after three distinct journeys, found his way safely back to his happy farmhouse home at Bradfield,