KIDNAPPED PEER

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 29 November 1927, Page 7

KIDNAPPED PEER

SOLD AS A SLAVE Amazing adventures of lord AisTHAM. VICTIM OF HIS UNCLE-EARL’S CUPIDITY. Not long ago somebody raised the question as to whether the possession of a peerage was a handicap or otherwise. Some peers seemed to think that it was, that life without a title would be more free, with much wider scope, and possibly with greater opportunities for adventure.

The possession of a title, however, has in many cases been no bar to a life of adventure. Lord Fairfax, for erample, comes of an American family whose ancestors have been domiciled in Virginia, U.S.A., for nearly three centuries. One of them was chief mourner at Washington’s funeral, and for several generations the title was dropped, its holders prefering to be plain citizens of the United States. The present peer decided to go back to Britain and resume his inherited rank. His father was a doctor, and he himself is by profession a banker. AN R.L.S HERO. Another case of an expatriated peer is the late Earl of Ducie, who for 60 years was a farmer in Queensland. He went back to die in his beautiful home in Gloucester, where the present earl, who is Australian-born, hopes to acclimatise Australian cattle as well as Australian birds anl flowers. Mose people who have read R. L. Stevenson’s story “Kidnapped.” may have thought that the incident where David Balfour was kidnapped and placed on a brig to be shipped to America to be sold into slavery was a highly imaginative piece of writing. It can be exactly paralleled by the case of Lord Althum. David Balfour was lucky. His ship was wrecked on the west coast of Scotland, and he was spared the long agony of slavery that became the 10l of Lord Altham. All Lord Altham’s sufferings are traceable to the fact that he had a foolish father, a drunkard, and a moral imbecile, who had no sense of shame in his cruel neglect of bis heir. The story sounds entirely and utterly incredible. The facts of it are attested in the evidence given on oath in a trial in the Irish Courts. Lord Althain. the father of the kidnapped peer, was a relative of the Earl of Anglesea, and had married a natural daughter of the Duke of Buckinghm, in the early years of the eighteenth century. For a' time they lived happily together in Ireland, having a home in County Wexford. The husband, unhappily, gave way Io drink and jealousy.

AT THE PRICE OF HIS EAR. He was told that his wife had a lover, a person of humble station called Toni Palliser. It was probably entirely unture. But enemies of Palliser got him into Lady Altham’s room while she was asleep, and then his lordship was ushered in. There was a very animated scene. His lordship drew a sword, and was about to run Tom Palliser through the body. The servants gathered round and said that no murder must he done. So the intoxicated nobleman agreed to a compromise. His honour would be quite satisfied if Tom Palliser would consent to have his ear cut off. Here is the extract from the sworn evidence given in the Irish courts:— But the servants interposed, and begged my lord not to take away his life, and only to cut off his nose, or one of his ears; and accordingly the huntsman was ordered to cut off his ear. which he did in rhe room next the yellow room. Then the servants kicked him downstairs and turned him out of the gate.” REAL DOTHEBOYS HALL, The heir to this rather exciting family was then a mere child. His father and mother parted, and he was sent to school. Then the father came under the influence of a Miss Gregory, who decided that she could get a good deal of money from this eccentric and halfwitted nobleman. Money could be raised on the reversions, if the heir could be got out of the way. That was quite easy. He was sent to a private school, a sort of Dotlieboys Hall. It is quite possible that Dickens knew this story and made use of it, very much as Stevenson did in the case of David Balfour. He was made to draw water, and clean knives, and given similar menial tasks to do until—at that time 10 years of age—he ran away. He knew who he was, and told a poor woman who befriended him that he was the heir to Lord Altham. She was persuaded to send for his uncle, who proved to be exactly like the villian of fiction, much like him of |he nursery story of the babes in the wood. The wicked uncle had him kidnapped aboard a sailing ship bound for Virginia, with secret instructons that he should be there sold into slavery. His father died while he was at sea, and when he arrived, an undobted and authentic British peer, he was put up to auction and sold, like a mere base and ignorant negro. TOILING LIKE A SLAVE. The man who bought him, a Pennyslvanian planter called Drummond, set him to work felling timber, and the young peer, to whose story nobody would listen, toiled like—what he had become—a mere slave. Ultimately he ran away, and on the road met some people who promised to get him a passage to England. They were themselves arrested for theft and elopement, and the young peer-slave had a good deal of difficulty to clear himself of complicity. Young Lord Altham found himself in the position of an escaping slave. His master found him, and had his period of slavery increased by five years. OPHELIA OF THE WILDS. He was sold to another planter. By this time he was grown up and rather handsome lad. A young Indian v; email of the Iroquoi- tribe, who was also a slave, fell in lo*\ with him. He diJ not encourage uer, with the consequence that she committed suicide by drowning. The story of Ophelia repeated itself in the astonishing story of this British peer slave. That was distressing enough, but there was even a more dramatic (equel,

The Indian maid had two brothers, and they decided that the young British peer who had declined to encourage the love-lorn Indian maid must die. CHANGING LUCK. For weeks they haunted the woods, watching for their victim, and ultimately made a rush at him. He escaped with a wound in his hip, a knifethrust, his screams having brought help just in time. Again he was sold, and again his attractions almost proved his undoing. His master’s wife fell in love with him; and the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife must be added to the things called up by this amazing and true story. Alarmed by the dangers that his position involved him in, he decided to run away, risking the possibility of a further sentence to slavery. This time he was lucky. He met aboard ship Admiral Vernon, of the King’s Navy, who listened to his story and brought him home. His ill-luck dogged him to the last. Arrived home he had the misfortune by an accidental shot to kill a man somewhere in one if the suburbs of London. He was arrested, put on his trial for murder, but—another tribute to his engaging manners and appearance—he was acquitted. He crossed to Ireland and claimed his title and estates in the Dublin courts. He won his case. For that he had to thank his father, who had apparently decided to celebrate the birth of his son and heir by making the whole County of Wexford drunk, quite an ambitions undertaking. However, it left an impression on so many witnesses that there was very little difficulty in proving the birth.