The Land of Bondage. John Bloundelle-Burton

le-Burton

      The Land of Bondage / A Romance

PREFACE

      The groundwork of the following narrative, accompanied by a vast number of papers and documents bearing on the main facts, was related to me by the late Mr. Clement Barclay of Philadelphia, the last descendant of an old Virginian family. On reading over these papers and documents, I was struck by the resemblance which the story bore to the history of another unfortunate young Englishman whose case created much sensation in the English Law Courts at about the same period, i. e., that of the reign of King George II. Recognising, however, that the adventures of Lord St. Amande were not only more romantic than those of that other personage, while his character was of a far more noble and interesting nature, I resolved to utilise them for the purpose of romance in the following pages, which are now submitted to the public. Except that in some few cases, and those the principal, the names have been altered, the characters bear the same names as in the documents, private papers, journals and news-letters handed to me by Mr. Barclay.

J. B. – B.

      October, 1904.

      PART I

      THE NARRATIVE OF GERALD, VISCOUNT ST. AMANDE

      CHAPTER I

      MY LORD'S FUNERAL

      And this was the end of it. To be buried at the public expense!

      To be buried at the public expense, although a Viscount in the Peerage of Ireland and the heir to a Marquisate in the Peerage of England.

      The pity of it, the pity that it should come to this!

      A few years before, viz., in the fourth year of the reign of our late Queen Anne, and the year of Our Lord, 1706, no one who had then known Gerald, Lord Viscount St. Amande, would have ventured to foretell so evil an ending for him, since he and life were well at evens with each other. Ever to have his purse fairly well filled with crowns if not guineas had been his lot in those days, as it had also been to have good credit at the fashioners, to be able to treat his friends to a fine turtle or a turbot at the coffee-houses he used, to take a hand at ombra or at whisk, to play at pass-dice or at billiards, and to be always carefully bedeck't in the best of satins and velvets and laces, and to eat and drink of the best. For to eat and drink well was ever his delight, as it was to frequent port clubs and Locketts or Rummers, to empty his glass as soon as it was filled, to toss down beaker after beaker, while, meantime, he would sing jovial chaunts and songs of none too delicate a nature, fling a handful of loose silver to the servers and waitresses, and ogle each of the latter who was comely or buxom.

      Yet now he was being buried at the public expense!

      How had it come about? I must set it down so that you shall understand. During this period of wassailing and carousing, of ridottos at St. James's and dances at lower parts of the town, for he affected even the haunts at Rotherhithe in his search for pleasure, as he did those in the common parts of Dublin when he was in that, his native, city-and during the time when he varied his pursuits by sometimes frequenting the playhouses where he would regard fondly the ladies at one moment and amuse himself by kicking a shop-boy or poor clerk, or scrivener, at another, and by sometimes retiring into the country for shooting, or hunting, or fighting a main, his heart had become entendered towards a young and beautiful girl, one Louise Sheffield.

      He had met her in the best class of company which he frequented, for, although bearing no rank herself, she was of the best blood and race, being indeed a niece to the Duke of Walton. Later on you shall see this girl, grown into a woman, full of sorrows and vexations and despite, and judge of her for yourself by that which I narrate. Suffice it, therefore, if I write down the fact that she repaid his love with hers in return and that, although she knew this handsome gallant, Gerald, Lord St. Amande to be no better than a wastrel, a tosspot and a gamer, she was willing to become his wife and to endow him with a small but comfortable fortune that she possessed. Alas! that she should ever have done so, for from that marriage arose all the calamities, the sufferings and the heartaches that are to be chronicled in this narrative.

      From the commencement all went awry. George, Marquis of Amesbury, to whom this giddy, unthinking Lord St. Amande was kinsman and heir, did hate with a most fervent hatred John, Duke of Walton, they having quarrelled at the succession of the Queen, when the Marquis espoused the cause of her Majesty, while the Duke was all for proclaiming the Pretender; and thus the whole of Lord St. Amande's family was against the match. The ladies, especially his mother and sister, threw their most bitter rancour into the scales against the bride, they endeavoured to poison his mind against her by insinuating evil conduct on her part previous to her marriage, and they persuaded the Marquis to threaten my lord with a total withdrawal of his favour, as well as a handsome allowance that he made annually to his heir, if he did not part from her.

      At first he would not listen to one word against her-he had not owned his bride long enough to tire of her; also some of her fortune was not yet wasted. Yet gradually, as he continued in his evil courses, becoming still fonder of his glass and rioting, and as her fortune declined at the same time that he felt bitterly the pinch occasioned by the withdrawal of the Marquis's allowance, he did begin to hearken to the reports spread broadcast against his young wife.

      She had borne him a child, dead, during his absence in Ireland, and it was after this period that he began to give credence to the hints against her; and thus it was that while he was still in that country he sent to his mother a power of attorney, authorising her to sue to the Lords for a divorce, as his representative. This petition, however, their Lordships refused, dismissing the plea with costs against him, saying that there was no truth in his allegations, and stigmatising them as scandalous.

      And then he learnt that he had indeed wronged her most bitterly and, turning upon his mother and sister, went over to England where, upon his knees, he besought his wife for her pardon, weeping many tears of contrition as he did so, while she, loving him ever in spite of all, forgave him as a woman will forgive. Then they passed back to Ireland where, she being again about to become a mother, he cherished her with great care and tenderness, and watched over her until she had presented him with a son.

      Yet, such was this man's sometime evil temper and brutality of nature that, on the Duke of Walton refusing to add more money to the gift he had already made her-the original fortune being now quite dissipated-he banished her from his house and she, flying to England, was forced to take refuge with the Duke and, worse still, to leave her child behind.

      Now, therefore, you shall see how it befell that, at last, he owed even his coffin and his grave to charity.

      When she was gone from him, he, loving the child in his strange way, proclaimed it as his heir, put it to nurse in the neighbourhood, and in variably spoke of it as the future Lord St. Amande and Marquis of Amesbury. But, unfortunately for this poor offspring of his now dead love, he became enamoured of a horrid woman, a German queen, who had come over to England at the time of the succession of King George-for over twenty years had now passed since his marriage with the Duke of Walton's niece-a woman who had set up in Dublin as a court fashioner, lace merchant and milliner. But she had no thought for him, being in truth much smitten with his younger brother, Robert, and she persuaded him that to relieve himself of the dire poverty into which he had fallen, it would be best that he should give out that his son was dead and secrete him, so that he and Robert, who would then be regarded by all men as the heir, could proceed to dispose of the estate. And my lord's intellects being now bemused with much drink and other disordered methods of life, besides that he was in bitter poverty, agreed to do this and gave out that the son was dead and that he and his brother were about to break the entail.

      And even this villainy, which might have seemed likely to ward off his penury for at least some years, did nothing of the sort, but, indeed, only brought him nearer to the pauper's grave to which he was hurrying. So greedy was he for money-as also was his brother, who, knowing that while the boy lived he could never succeed to the estates, was naturally very willing to dispose of them at any price-that large properties were in very truth sold for not more than, and indeed rarely exceeded, half a year's purchase! How long was it to be imagined that the half of such sums would last this poor spendthrift who no sooner felt his purse heavy with the guineas in it than he made haste to lighten it by odious debaucheries and