gone Prendergasts; here he heard his mother recount with pride the many gallant deeds in which his father and his grandfather had been the humble partners of the great lords of Newcastle, whose territories then extended from Cahir to Cappoquin, and from Fethard to Clogheen; mingled with the lands of other powerful Barons, but stoutly defended by the good swords of their owners. In her son's estimation, they were the first family in his native land, the great house of Ormonde, the Lords Palatine of his county, alone excepted; for they were almost looked upon as a sovereign race in bold Tipperary. He determined to attach himself to one of a name which thus possessed such strong hereditary claims upon his loyalty, and he soon prevailed upon Sir Thomas to take him into his service.

And never was master more faithfully served. Cranwell lived in an age when the distance between master and servant was kept with less strictness than with us in the nineteenth century; and he belonged to a country where even now a stranger is struck with the almost family interest manifested by dependants in the success or misfortunes of their superiors in "the great house." And he fulfilled his various duties with such zealous honesty, that it was with a heart truly heavy that Sir Thomas, after he had lived many years in his service, received the information that his favorite attendant had been suddenly and dangerously attacked by illness. Every care that money could procure, every attention that affection could prompt, was lavished upon the worthy patient; but all was in vain: Death had marked him as his own, and a few brief days' struggle saw him yield up his honest spirit to the relentless monarch. "How calmly resigned Cranwell is!" exclaimed Sir Thomas, as he paced up and down the dying man's room; " and yet his call has been very sudden.' You and I have risked a more sudden one before now, Sir Thomas," answered the faithful domestic, "when we have rushed together past the cannon's mouth, and yet it is not every soldier who is prepared for death."

66

Three years passed by---three busy years---distinguished not so much by the war of words and parties at home, as by that of monarchs and armies abroad. The campaigns in Spain, marked alternately by victory and reverse; those in Flanders, where the fight of Ramillies in itself was worth a hundred minor checks, had been brought to a glorious climax by the great battle of Oudenarde, where Cadogan's brigade, to which Prendergast was attached, bore a prominent part in the fight, carrying the post of Heynem after a very brilliant contest. The rest of the campaign, turning mostly upon the slow success of siege operations, Sir Thomas took advantage of some changes of the forces actively employed, to apply for leave to join for a short time his fair consort at her house in London: a permission which her brother, so entreated, and for such a motive, could not refuse. September was already shedding its autumnal lights about the foliage which even then covered the banks of Father Thames, when the returning soldier found himself gliding along from Greenwich to London, as fast as the smartest watermen on the river could make their well trimmed vessel fly.

And now he disembarked at the crowded stairs-and now rushed along the hurried streets-and now was clasped in the loving arms of his expecting wife. An evening of anxious and exciting enquiries, of pleasant anecdotes of the past, and gay hopes of the future, followed. Sir Thomas had to recount the dangers and glories of the unended campaign; Lady Prendergast, the progress of the dear little ones, who enlivened the hours wearied by her lord's absence, with charms and graces of body and mind.

At length dark night compelled the long separated pair to stop, for a few hours, their fond communings about past and future, and to yield to sleep their wearied limbs, Hardly had they retired to rest when the drowsy god plunged them both in the deepest slumber. The lady dreamt of her husband and children, of peace abroad and pleasures at home, of London luxuries, and Irish improvements. She thought her loved spouse should never leave her more, but stay where he could train the mind and curb the spirit of his handsome and only son, then in his sixth year, the age of all others when a child is most charming to its parents.

But Sir Thomas-of what dreamt he? A figure appeared before him which for many years he had not seen. He looked and doubted, and looked again; but could doubt no more. The figure wore the old livery of the Prendergasts; it was James Cranwell. The gallant Baronet, who had never trembled at the battle's loudest roar, felt an unaccountable dread at seeing again this old and faithful servant: and he could hardly muster the words necessary to bid him that welcome which his heart refused him, and to enquire wherefore he came. "It is well to be prepared for death, Sir Thomas Prendergast," was the answer. "You will die upon this day year." The warning delivered, the figure vanished; and when Sir Thomas, shuddering, raised himself in his bed, and looking round, saw the room empty, daylight yet far from the horizon, and the smouldering embers still reddening the grate, he felt it was but a dream—a singular, but still undoubted dream. Nevertheless the circumstance struck him so vividly, that he made a memorandum in his tablets the following morning, stating the warning he had received a memorandum found among his papers after his death; and in which he professed to "have no faith in such superstitions."

A few months rolled on, and peace was apparently certain to be concluded. Louis XIV. made every concession that could reasonably be asked from a monarch in his position; but the selfishness of those who commanded the allied forces led them to claim such conditions as they knew would drive the iron into the aged monarch's soul, and force him to another struggle. And they succeeded: the humiliated, but still haughty and powerful monarch broke off the negotiations, and both parties prepared anew to water the plains of Flanders with their blood. Prendergast was ordered again to join the division of the allied forces under Cadogan, but this time he was himself given the command of a large detachment with the rank of Brigadier General.

Tournay was taken after a long and gallant defence, and Mons was threatened. The French marched to relieve it, and Marlborough, proceeding to support some of the detached portions of the allied army, suddenly and unexpectedly found himself opposed to the vast body of men whom Louis had still been able to bring into the field. 12,000 men were there before him, unprepared for battle, but formidable from their courage, their numbers, and their great commanders. It was on the ninth of September, and whilst Prendergast was placing his brigade in its proper position, his sceptical mind could not help feeling satisfaction at the imminent battle. From the state of both armies, the contest would doubtless be decided that day; it would probably terminate the campaign; the danger would be over with the fight: and he had that moment remembered that it was on the tenth of the same month in the previous year that he had arrived in London, and consequently on the morning of the eleventh he had received his singular warning. What, therefore, were the feelings which even he could

not smother when it was announced to the army that Marlborough would make no attack that day! Some distrust in his own forces made him postpoue the engagement until he received expected reinforcements: and as this delay gave time to the French to cover their position with redoubts, the result was to render Malplaquet the most dearly bought victory ever fought by a British general, the number of killed having doubled that which fell at Waterloo.

The tenth passed with none but partial contests; and all was preparation for the awful trial of strength and courage which was to be decided upon the following day. That the battle would be bloody all knew: and Prendergast at last felt there might be truth in the mysterious warning. Whilst others slept he prepared himself, as best he could, for meeting him who is Lord also of the battle: and when the morning light first appeared, struggling through the surrounding fog, he mounted his favorite charger with the feelings of one who has bid adieu to all that is dear to him. Wife, children, and father all appeared before his mind; the latter, then nearly in his hundredth year. On all he earnestly prayed a blessing; and then and from henceforth thought only of his Queen and his duty. The fight was long and fierce, the blood of both armies fell in torrents, and many of those on either side most illustrious for command, personal bravery, and noble descent, swelled the immense list of victims to the sanguinary furies of the day. Among the list of the gallant dead drawn up in the British camp that night was found the name of Brigadier General Sir Thomas Prendergast !

Our story is ended. But we will add a brief notice of the Brigadier's children. Sir Thomas, his only son, was a distinguished member of both the Irish and English Parliaments; and Postmaster General in Ireland. He died whilst a patent was drawing out raising him to the Viscounty of Clonmell; leaving no issue by his wife, Anne, only daughter and heiress of Sir Hugh Williams, of Marle, Bart. Of the daughters, Juliana married Chaworth, sixth Earl of Meath; Anne married Samuel Hobson, Esq. and her eventual heiress married Jeffrey Prendergast, Esq., and Elizabeth married, first, Sir John Dixon Hamon, Bart., and secondly Chas. Smyth, Esq., M.P., son of the then Bishop of Limerick. She eventually inherited the Galway estates. But though this branch of the family is extinct in the male line, the elder branch still flourishes; and Colonel Charles O'N. Prendergast of the Scots Fusilier Guards, an officer who proved at Salamanca and Vittoria that he was a worthy scion of this time honored tree, is the possessor of Newcastle, built by his direct ancestor six hundred and sixty years ago.

SINGULAR TRIALS CONNECTED WITH THE UPPER CLASSES OF SOCIETY.

No. VIII. THE ABDUCTION OF MISTRESS PLEASANT RAWLINS.

ON Wednesday the 18th Nov., 1702, the first year of Queen Anne's reign, the grand jury of Westminster found a bill of indictment against Haagen Swendsen, and others, for the abduction of a young lady of property, one Mistress Pleasant Rawlins; so called, though unmarried, according to the custom of that day; the style Mistress being applied to her name, as a person of condition.

The prisoners were tried at the bar of the Court of Queen's Bench, on the 25th November, 1702. The judges who presided were, the Chief Justice Sir John Holt, and the three puisne judges, Sir John Powell, Sir Littleton Powis, and Sir Henry Gould.

The indictment charged that

"On the 6th of November, 1702, one Pleasant Rawlins, gentlewoman and unmarried, grand-daughter and heir of William Rawlins, sen., then deceased, and daughter and heir of William Rawlins, jun., before then also deceased, was above the age of sixteen, and under the age of eighteen, and then had substance and estate in moveables and in lands and tenements, viz., in money, goods and chattels, to the value of £2,000, and in land and tenements to the value of £20 per annum, to her heirs and the heirs of her body.

"And that the several persons Haagen Swendsen, Sarah Baynton, Hartwell, Spurr, and Thos. Holt, the said 6th day of November, with force and arms, the said Pleasant Rawlins, as aforesaid, being unmarried and heir, and having substance and estate at the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, in this county, for the lucre of such estate and substance of the said Pleasant Rawlins, did unlawfully, feloniously, violently, and against the will of the said Pleasant Rawlins, take, carry, and lead away, with intent to cause and procure the said Pleasant Rawlins, against her will, in matrimony to the said Haagen Swendsen to be joined, and to him to be wedded and married; and that the said Haagen Swendsen, being a man of a dishonest conversation, and of none or very little estate or substance, then, and there, by the help and procurement of the other defendants, did feloniously marry the said Pleasant Rawlins, and was joined to her in matrimony, to the great displeasure of God, against the laws of the Queen, to the disgrace and disparagement of the said Pleasant Rawlins, and to the great grief and disconsolation of all her friends, to the evil example of all others, against the form of the statute, and against the Queen's peace, her crown and dignity. And that the said Thomas Holt, after the said Pleasant Rawlins had been so unlawfully, violently, and feloniously taken, carried, and led away, and to the said Haagen Swendsen married and wedded as aforesaid; well knowing the said Pleasant Rawlins to hav

been so taken and led away against her will, and to the said Haagen Swendsen to be wedded and married, afterwards, viz., the said sixth day of November, in the said first year of the reign of this Queen, at the parish aforesaid, the same Pleasant Rawlins, and also the said Haagen Swensden, did wilfully, knowingly, and feloniously receive, abet, comfort, conceal and assist against the form of the said statute, and against the Queen's peace, her crown and dignity."

The prisoners having pleaded Not Guilty, Haagen Swendsen being a foreigner, was tried first. The jury empanelled for his trial consisted of half foreigners and half natives, and therefore the other prisoners were put aside for a separate trial; but as the facts against all were much mixed up, the jury for the second investigation was directed to stand near, and attend to Swendsen's case.

The Solicitor General (Sir Simon Harcourt, afterwards Lord Chancellor and Baron Harcourt) thus addressed the jury for the Crown—

Sol. Gen.-May it please your lordship, and gentlemen of the jury, I am of counsel for the Queen: it was formerly reckoned a less crime to steal a fortune of £10,000 than to steal 12d. of her money or goods; but in the third year of the reign of King Henry VII., to cure this defect in the law, an act of parliament was made, whereby the taking away a woman, having goods or lands, or being an heir apparent, contrary to her will, and afterwards marrying her is made felony, and upon this law the present indictment is grounded.

Pleasant Rawlins was the daughter of Mr. William Rawlins; he, having left her a considerable estate, appointed George Bright and William Busby to be her guardians. Mr. Bright being dead, the other guardian, Mr. Busby, for the better education of Mrs. Rawlins, placed her under the care of his sister Sabina Busby. Mrs. Busby and Mrs. Rawlins have lodged about three years last at the house of the widow Nightingale. Haagen Swendsen, with Mrs. Baynton, lodged at Mrs. Blake's, in Holborn, and there they first projected and contrived how they might make a prey of this young gentlewoman. The first step they took towards executing this design was to get lodgings at Mrs. Nightingale's house for Mrs. Baynton; for which purpose she was to pass for a country gentlewoman of a plentiful fortune. One Mrs. St. John was sent to Mrs. Nightingale to take lodgings for Mrs. Baynton, commending her to be a very good woman; and that having the misfortune of a lawsuit, and being obliged for that reason to attend in town, it was her greatest care to lodge in so reputable a house as Mrs. Nightingale's was. Under this pretence, lodgings were there taken for her. At her first coming, she was forced to put on a disguise; she seemed to live a virtuous life, that she might ingratiate herself into the favour of the family, as often as she had an opportunity of conversing with any of them. She pretended that she had a brother of a good estate, one of the best men in the world; and she hoped he would shortly come to town, that she might see him. In a little time after came this Swendsen (being nothing related to her), and appeared as her brother, and frequently visited her under pretence of that relation. But Mrs. Baynton was too well known in town to continue long undiscovered; notice was soon given to Mrs. Busby of the vicious life Mrs. Baynton had led, and that she was not fit to be in the same house with her. Mrs. Baynton having discovered this, and finding she had no time to bring about her designs by frauds and wiles, and that no other ways