SIR WILLIAM CHAMBERS. A SCOTTISH merchant, who supplied Charles the Twelfth of Sweden with money and warlike stores, having suffered in fortune from receiving payment in the adulterated coin which the necessities of the king obliged him to issue, went over to Stockholm to seek redress for his losses. The death of Charles and the distress of his kingdom rendered this a business of time and difficulty. After remaining abroad for many years, the Scotsman returned to Britain, and took up his residence at Ripon. The legend of the family says that his ancestors, who, if we may believe it, had in older times been barons of Tartas in France, always spelt their names Chalmers; why he thought fit to change it, no one has said, but it is certain that when he settled in England, in 1728, he wrote it Chambers. His son, William, born in Stockholm, the subject of this narrative, was then a child two years old. Neither the maiden name of his wife nor her country have ever been mentioned. It would appear that the family connection still continued with Sweden, notwithstanding the change of residence, for we find young Chambers, as soon as he had received a fair education at Ripon School, appointed, at the age of sixteen, supercargo in a ship belonging to the Swedish East India Com |