SPECIAL ARTICLE

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17419, 1 April 1922, Page 9

SPECIAL ARTICLE

AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ENGLJSHMfIN IN GALWAYAND HIS IRISH AGENT.

BY W. DOTGLASS ANDREWS.

yecessitji »t thith«r"Let him keep also >" write 3 Francis Bacon in that memorabl* essay in which he inculcates on "tho -?««•""» idl "f a f' s Ln travel, and reminds them that "triumphs, masques, feasts, weddings, "funerals, capital executions and such "shoffß. . «re not to be neglected." Let him keep also a diary. As a matter of fact ho did, and it is lying before me now, a little obiong volume bound in «*'f much the worse for hard wear and ;.n accidental immersion in floodwaters, and all its leaves yellowing with old 'ige. And if he forgot to write his name in it, or even deafly to speeity fvlTvact nature of tue business lie was alt, what of it, and who are we that ohniiiri faudge and be dissatisfied *ln h7e*ve so much ? Why we even * W the «act detail of the stock of rl nr "Linnen" as he preferred to write it, he .carried with him w two centuries ago when he To? from London on the Wttth of June, in the year ],26, on Kav to Congue, which modem geoXra rob of its terminal vowels but f m he did, on the northern shores Kaf remote Lough Comb beyond lich lies, **' .everybody knows, Conne--2? hike Caesar's Gaul Connemara prided into three parts, and from northern part, known as Joyce s Country, came that redoubtable man H diCoghi head of the dan m the jm of the diarist who cut down «itme timber upon leasehold, refused to pay arrears of rent, and on one rasion. it is on record, chased on agent trho went to arrest him with a "posse* 1 a matter of four miles. In those days, it appears, law ran m Connemara. But this, though tempting, M a digression, and our immediate business is with tho "Linnen. .And here js tho list as he wrote it down:— Shirts , ... jj Ruff ells pair ® ■ Cravatts long ... • 12 Necks and Turnovers each 4 Handkerchiefs Snuff ... 12 Ditto white. 6 Ditto Taffeta fools 3 Nightcaps—dimithy ... 4 _ .Tnwells . 6 - > Holland sleeves pairs ... 4 : Shred stockms pairs ... 4 • He jdso entered "wastcoats dimithy—- £ r |" bat crossed this item out, subsequenfc- ' j&is we learn from a memorandum _ of expenses, buying two of these attractive , garments for the sum of 9s 4d in Ireland, where he also fought 6 more gMrta, paying £4 for them, and a night (jown," a "frize coate,'/our "new cravats" costing,£l '2s, two i rair of shoes for 10s, a hatTfor 10s_6d, lix pair of. thred stockings,\ six night ihirts, and "a campapie wigg ' running , to £2 15s. As his diary proper, which consists of seventy-three closely, and on the whole legibly written sheets abruptly ends on Jurfe 16th, 1727, we sailer thai either M n\Bi}"of jonsiderablfr standing, or . that cightoentury laundresses, if indeed Jhripnd ran to laundresses, had little to from.their latter-day successors. turnovers" have an Savour, and doubtless : to those versed in such hat are "taffeta fools?" .r Tasburgh, for inluggesta that Tasburgh [uire four , pair of Holad he, perhaps, after iac," the same mania liia brother, of whom f the mora intimate ary, "Andrew saying n, Mao replied he's •other, who is so nice, speck of dirt upon the take out a cambrick d rub the dirt off.'" iticipate, and "Mac," terer," the villain of wait his turn. For ome to the diary pro- ) several entries worth 3 before continuity of Among these are a f a letter of instruoLockyear, Esq. AcDuthsea Com.; several is, mostly of > people not appear again; and riguing memorandum, Pursell, heir to Mr T. 'letter from Dennis !" That, unfortunately, Dennis Hicky or the at matter, the lady low several entries for waling with money reivyers "by my Brother U P to the respecti 4s 2d; a sad little of the last 60 sent i": and, surprisingly l after a husinesa note k page, "The posy of i, 'Let me rule, affeching posy occurring > Bg spelling owing to lbt of how many f's b require. This is the ary gives ns that Mi was -perhaps set on d pleasing things than lusiness that took him [ what that business l luck and reasonable 1n dw course, for we N tched the first of the i pages of the diary ght undertaking, the idon to Dublin m the S, lightly as it is dealt wing entry: "Set out Jr" Congue 20 June, at Chester 23 ditto. till Sonday, 26th te that day, and the ie 27th went on board in the Lively, and was veiling to Fryday, ] ling, getting over, tho against us." Mr Taspys, and though as we sequel he had a pretty ime to describing peo- , he Bimply wasted J when he was on his im when he tells the mow in midsummer he ross Ireland, by Leslip , and thence to Clan r Bridge (I quote from ry with mileages given 1' then a long etcetera" un and Slime he cr.mo it out for Galloway afternoon and arrived on the first of August ng- incommodious jour--8 there to be had but a via, 10 tfhill. per week tßinbers." A dull dog ffgh and ope -with fcsponsibility to those le.aftcr him, and no the hundred and on® w amusing or distractwoutd have kept Mr • r . of excitement, and mistered occasion of iy generations, fehero wns some excuse wedding-ring incident rta « in love, and lovo

apart, he had mora than enough to occupy his thoughts and harass him. lor, as our motto so plainly hints, ho had no great liking for Ireland as Ireland, and he was over not for fun and frolic but under the constraint of necessity- There were questions of rents, and questions of tithes, and questions of title, there were law suite in process and impending, there was "Mac," and worse than "Mac," there was "Mac's" missus, tlie redoubtable termagaunt known as "Mnd'tm," who "often bragged to her servants, and even to the hackney postboy"—to quote the diarist's own indignant words— <: lhow cooly (s:c) and sl'.t'ngly (sic) she carried herself to me," and who flits through the pages of the diary mostly in a passion, and with no lack of the very frankest l;ingu.:ige—rnd with all tho so things to distract him who could find time to jot down trivialities of travel ? Into all the dark and difficult business questions it is impassible to go with any thoroughness, partlv because to do sn would imply a full statement of the Penal Code, and the various cvilSj ranging from apostasies and bitter family feuds to the degrading business of professional informers, which it produced, and of many other things besides needless to specify at full length here and partly because of the regrettable, if eloquent, silences of the diary itself. For unhappily the diary is a most casual compilation, and we should need the services of a mcdern Witch of Endor to summon its writer from tilie grave if we desired fully to explore, as tho phrase of the moment gees, all tho various avenues it opons up in fugitive and tantalising glimpses. But the broad outline is faintly discernible. Tasburgh pere, it would seem, had purchased tue estates of Cong from a Sir John Eustace, presumably during the troubles •which ensued upon the Revolution, when so many Irish estates changed hands. This, Sir John was, one may surmise, a son of the well-known Sir Maurice Eustace, Chancellor of Ireland when the first Restoration Parliament met at Dublin, and the newly elected speaker, Sir Audly Mervyn, so at least Mountmorres avers, "made a speech of a very uncommon length, filled with Latin quotations and texts of Scripture"! The family was old and well-known, and in 1726 some of its representatives were moving heaven and earth and —the law courts, to upset the alleged sale which they asserted was a mere mortgage, and reoover the estate. And at this point comes in unexpectedly enough that Mr Tickell, whom Pope did not altogether love, and whose poetical gifts elicit from our diarist the tribute of a laboured quip. "Met with Mr Stanton," runs the entry under date July 19th, "he told us that we had another potent adversary against us, viz., Mr Tickle t Secrotary to Lord Carteret, wfio was just,married to Mrs Eustace. My answer was, that since we were not (to) pleade in verse, or contend for a laiirell, I did not in the least fear the success of so just a cause."

But the estates were not the only matter in dispute. The tithes leviable on, or somehow connected with, them amounted in value to £3OO a year. These, too the Tasburghs, a most acquisitive family, had got into their hands, for, characteristically enough, lay appropriation of tithes was a common incident in Ireland. But in this particular case the biter had bee>n bit, for in the diarist's own bitter words: — "Several of the Parsons our adversaries being Justices of peace by threats and bullying they got the Tennants in to bonds to pay them the tythes and having got possession they _ got a motion make subreptiously (sicl) unknown to our Clerk in Chancery and prayed to have an injunction to quiet them in the possession as having peaceably enjoyed them for 3 years. They all swore, tightly to this tho a noted Lye." Later on we read: "At present the Sheriffs are the Bishop's creatures", which may or may not h&ve been the case. But what undoubtedly was the case was that "Mac.'' also known as "Macmarra," one of the Macnamarras of Clare, and agent or partner of the Tasburgh's and lessee of their estates for a terms of 31 years, had thoroughly neglected their interest, failed to keep an eye on th© machinations of the Eustaces, connived at the ecclesiastical aggression in the matter of th© tithes; and though he was a notorious rackrenter devoid of the least touch of pity or remorse and screwed the last penny out of jthe unhappy tenantrv, had pleaded poverty and failed to make his own payments with any approach to regularity. This, indeed, must have been the very thing that had brought Mr Tasburgh over. Hear his entry Tinder 13. July, 1726, the Sate of his first meeting with the said "Mao," when in his anger he i jots .down his note as if it were part' of a letter to his elder (?) brotner. "After our first greeting which was not very warm on my side, I told him since he had starved me in England I was come to trye whether I could live in Ireland. He as a Bweetner told me he had brought me some money. My Aswer (sic) was that I was more sollicitous about t you than 'myself. That he had reduced you to the last extremity and foroed you to run a tick and borrow money to livo. That I myself had procured you 50£ just before I set out else you must have forfitted the credit you have had hitherto in the world. That shuro he thought the Estate his own that he treated us in this vile manner." It was foolish of "Mac" to let so much time slip before he ran up to Dublin, for his delay had enabled Mr Tasburgh to gather irom lawyers and other outapoken gentry much to his discredit. On the very third page we find a note that "Mack was soundly beaten by one Brown, A Little Fellow in Galoway." Poor "Mac," beatings seem to have been almost everyday incidents in his life, and he always, so at least Mr Tasburgh avers, haa tnem inflicted by "little" men. Little Mr Martin" beats him. later, and so does "'little'' Mr Blake r .and m each case when they offer him satisfaction with "sword or pistol," after the hearty fashion of the 18th Century, ' Mac refuses to fight unless they will go to his own county of Clare, which for reasons that may readily be guessed, they | to do, and the incident ends. without smoke or blood Indeed, he, was a poor creature. He kee P 3 *1 lodging aU the y«r ] round at the | three babbits in High street. Tis but a moderate one. ... His cnar acter is that he is violent and will go to law for a straw" —can this be a vague reminiscence of Hamlet?— He w | now at law with one of his best friends here bv Name Mr Terry, and has several other suites of law upon his own Branglea, but earned on with our monev His present suite with Mr Terry is a very unjust one, this poor man having paid the money oui of his mvn pocket. And in another place it, is recorded temperately: ' Hib charac- j t : s Rn we ll known in the County of j Clare that some Persons of .Note and probity Beemed to P ett y, & c \, feff that fed any.dealings with him," while as for Oalway, "all the gentlemen of this part of the country seem friends to tff Tasburghs, but seeme to have an aversion to Mac and his wife. They were a well-matched pair <md after Mr Tasburgh's arrival at Long, ■hid rlinrv becomes" a sort of antiphonal M th»- r Sotl. Sumter: Klfllco havirg heard that snoke ill of his countrymen sent him a P challenge,, but found he had no stomach to it. . ' "S&lTufrM Lyfch'a S' t bi" «ikl l™ Jfifo'Sa WW obliged to 60 bWoot to elt "Mndam has tgid several that she • 4-si livo in tOWBj 80Q BAG hmied'she should never see her children her substance go to W I

Mac"—her second-matrimonial venture —"than to her own children.

<r A poor man having A horse that Mqe liked, Mac sent another to buy it as for himself. After the horse was oought for 3£, Mac, meeting the seller, asked him whether he take liim to be Paymaster, which the poor man accepted but never got his money. "Madam has eloaths by him worth 200£ and Mac has 8 or ten suites. "When Mac sees a likely voung beast among his Tennants he teDs them he must have it and they dare not but send it home.

"She cannot give a good word to her old chaplin Father John because he would not side with her and confirm some of her lies."

Out of the splutter of indignation emerge some relative facts. Mac and his wile, in spite of the poor mouth they make, and their inveterate objection to paying legal debts, are folk sufficiently well-to-do. There is a delightful entry further on to the effect that "Upon Madam's goinc off with Mac she left n great bag with Nurse in which she pretended were 40£ in brass money, and crave most strict charge of it. Soon after marriage Mac came for this bag which (he) sealed up; but Nurse watching the opening of it saw it was stuffed with gold and silver." Moreover, they are a hard-hearted, grasping pair, unpleasant in all their relations, but particularly so in their relations with Peggy and Nanny, Madam's grown-up daughters by a former husband, who, from obscure allusions, appears to have been a Tasburgh, and whose property, intended for his daughters, tho precious pair had managed to convey to their own use. Poor Peg and Nanny, they must have had a horrible time,"what "with the abuse they received from their blackguardly stepfather — "AVhores, bitches, ('.evils, jades, turn them all out of doors at once, are tho salutations he often gives the poor girls'' —and their unnatural mother, who refuses one of them "a little soape to gel her linen washed abroad," flies into a passion "when "poor Peggy takes a lining of a gown which she had formerly given her . . . and I heard her say

that was it not out of respect to me she would come up and beate her as long as she could stand over her," and borrows, "by degrees," the "seven pound hard money" given her by her fester father, and tho' she "swore by the dead hand of her late husband that she would repay her the first money she got, never paid her to this day." And out of all this welter what emerged? That this fragmentary and disappointing diary does not reveal. Tasburgh returns to Dublin to urge his lawyers on, and there is much issuing of writs, and much hot talk. But what camo of it all does not appear—for the diary grows more and more casual as it draws to a close. And an odd close it is:

"sth June, 1727.—This day my Brother arrived in Dublin being Monday, and began to lodge and board with Mrs Grace and to employ his his (sic) Barber the day after and I the day after that. "16—My brother's and O'Malley's answer filed against Mac."