From The Times, 11 Sep 1806 posted with permission of the transcriber, Petra Michinson. Geo. THE RECRUITING OFFICER. --------------------- A gallant foreigner, from the Irish West-Indies, or Pays-Bas of Connaught, who has been some time beating up for recruits in the vicinity of Carlisle, recently attempted to carry, by coup-de-main, the citadel of a young Lady's heart, who possessed a fortune in her own right of 20,000L. Scarcely had the gallant commander entered the town, when he proceeded to reconnoitre - not the market-place, for simple country swains to convert into grim grenadiers, but, AIMWELL-like, the congregation at church, for beauty to complete his happiness: as to fortune, he wanted none at all at-all: he had an ample fortune in the West-Indies; but that was neither here nor there. No time was to be lost. He set himself down before the place; commenced his approaches in form, by a warm cannonade of red-hot love-letters; invested the fair one's citadel on all sides; watched every motion; completed his third parallel by the third day; and was upon the glacis of the place with his Adjutant and Valet, Mr. O'FLANNAGAN, forming his measures to carry the fort by escalade. He formed a tender ambuscade for the fair Governess several successive nights, in expectation of her making an incautious sortie to visit her friends, when he had a post-chaise and four in waiting, under the escort of his man O'FLANNAGAN, determined to carry her off to Gretna Green. But the alarm excited in the apprehensions of the young Lady and her friends, suggested the necessity of an application to the Magistrates; and the gallant Captain, not able to find a responsible guarantee in the place for his future neutrality, and the total abandonment of his presumptuous designs, was obliged to raise the siege and decamp on a forced march; more especially as he was apprehensive of other beating orders in town not very auspicious to his comfort.