The delivery of "a live lord" into the jaws of death proved so profitable a job to Francis Higgins, that we find him soon after in hot scent after another. John Earl of Wycombe, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne, was committed more or less to the fashionable treasons of the time; he sympathised with the men and the movement of '98, and as the late John Patten, a near connection of Emmet's, assured us, his lordship was fully cognizant of the plot of 1803. Had Higgins been alive during the latter year, Lord Wycombe might not have escaped the penalty of his patriotism. His movements in Dublin and elsewhere were watched most narrowly by the Sham Squire. In despair, however, of being able to gain access to Lord Wycombe's confidence or society, we find Higgins saying: "Lord Wycombe, son to the Marquis of Lansdowne, is still in Dublin. He has gone to Wales and back again to Dublin several times. His lordship has given many parties in the city, it is said, but they have been of a close, select kind".*

Higgins and his confederates, like "setters", pointed, and the scarlet sportsmen of the line immediately fired. Lord Holland, in his memoirs of the Whig Party, mentions that his friend, Lord Wycombe, was fired at by common soldiers on the highways near Dublin, and narrowly escaped with his life.†

*Freeman's Journal, August 6th, 1798. His lordship's movements are further indicated by the same Journal on August 9th, 1800.

† See page 118, ante.

CHAPTER VIII.

Effort of conscience to vindicate its authority.-Last will and testament of the Sham Squire.—Kilbarrack Church-yard.A touching epitaph.--Resurrectionists.-The dead watcher.— The Sham Squire's tomb insulted and broken.-His bequests. CHARITY, it is written, covereth a multitude of sins. Let us hasten, therefore, to record a really meritorious act on the part of Mr. Higgins. Anxious to throw the utmost amount of light on a career so extraordinary as that of Francis Higgins, we examined in the Prerogative Court, his "Last Will and Testament". From this document we learn that the Sham Squire's conscience was not by any means hopelessly callous. On the contrary, while yet comparatively young, it seems to have given him a good deal of uneasiness; and it may not unreasonably be inferred, that, unscrupulous as we have seen Mr. Higgins, his early life was chequered by sundry peccadillos, now irrevocably veiled. Whatever these may have been, they contributed to disturb the serenity of his manhood, and conscience seems to have made an energetic effort to assert its authority. Unable any longer to bear the reproachings of his ill-gotten wealth, Mr. Higgins, on September 19th, 1791, then aged forty-five, mustered up courage and bequeathed a considerable portion of it to charitable purposes. It is amusing to trace the feelings of awe which in the last century filled our ancestors previous to attempting a voyage across St. George's Channel! Mr. Higgins's will begins by saying that as he meditates a voyage to England, he thinks it prudent to prepare his will, and in humble supplication at the feet of the Almighty, and by way of making atone

ment for his manifold transgressions, he is desirous of leaving large sums of money to charitable purposes. But before he proceeds to specify them, the vanity of the Sham Squire shows itself in a command to his executors to commemorate his memory in a proper manner, on a slab "well secured with lime, brickwork, and stone", in Kilbarrack Churchyard. To defray the cost of this monument, Mr. Higgins left £30, and a further sum for his funeral. He adds, that in case he should die in England, his remains are to be removed to Ireland and "publicly interred". To a lady who had been of considerable use to Mr. Higgins, and had clung to him with great fidelity, but who suffered seriously from this circumstance, he bequeathed not only £1,000 as compensation, but all such property as might remain after paying the other bequests; and to his housekeeper, Mrs. Margaret Box, he left £100. But, perhaps, the most remarkable item in the will is £1,000 which he bequeathed to be laid out on landed security, in order that the annual interest might be applied to the relief and discharge of debtors confined in the city marshalsea on Christmas eve in each year.* This generous bequest has served, we trust, to blot out some of the Sham Squire's achievements, not alone at the hazard table, but by means of sundry pettifogging quibbles and doubles. Having been the means in early life of considerably increasing the number of inmates at the Lying-in-Hospital, Mr. Higgins now creditably bestowed £100 upon that institution. To an asylum

*See Addenda for some correspondence on the alleged nonexecution of this bequest. The Four Courts Marshalsea of Dublin, previous to its removal westward, stood in Werburgh Street.

for ruined merchants, known as Simpson's Hospital, he bequeathed £50, and ordered that a particular ward in it should be dedicated to his memory. To the Blue Coat Hospital, where his friend Jack Giffard* and other kindred spirits passed their youth, Mr. Higgins left the sum of £20. The Catholic and Protestant Poor Schools were remembered with impartiality by Higgins, who had been himself both a Catholic and a Protestant at different times. He bequeathed £10 to each of the Protestant schools, as well as a like donation to the Catholic Charity Schools of" Rosemary Lane, Adam and Eve, Bridge Street, and Lazor Hill". To Mr. (afterwards Colonel O'Kelly, of Piccadilly, London, the owner of the celebrated race-horse "Eclipse") £300 was left, " and if I did not know that he was very affluent", adds Higgins, "I would leave him the entire of my property". Father Arthur O'Leary, one of Curran's "Monks of the Screw", was also advantageously remembered by Mr. Higgins. To that accomplished ecclesiastic he bequeathed the sum of £100: but O'Leary never lived to enjoy it, and passed into eternity almost simultaneously with the Sham Squire, in January, 1802. To George J. Browne, assistant editor, £50 was bequeathed, in order to purchase mourning for Mr. Higgins, as also certain securities held by Higgins for money lent to Browne. Several other bequests in the

* For a notice of Giffard see the 32nd note to General Cockburn's "Step Ladder", Addenda, J.

† Mr. Grattan in the Life of his father (ii. 198), mentions that O'Leary was very intimate with Colonel O'Kelly, and lived with him. O'Leary had a pension from the Crown for writing down the White Boys. Mr. Grattan adds, on the authority of Colonel O'Kelly, that Mr. Pitt offered O'Leary considerable remuneration if he would write in support of the Union, but the Friar refused.

same shape and under similar circumstances are made. Some young people who shall be nameless here, are advantageously mentioned,* probably on natural grounds. William, James, and Christopher Teeling,† are named executors; but it appears from the records of the Probate Court that they declined to act. In those days there was no stamp duty; and the sum for which Higgins' residuary legatee administered does not appear. The will was witnessed by George Faulkner.

In September, 1791, Mr. Higgins declares that he has £7,000 in Finlay's bank; "but my property", he adds, "will, I believe, much exceed this sum when all is estimated". Mr. Higgins having lived for eleven years subsequent to the date of his will, during which time he laboured with fiercer zeal, and reaped even richer remuneration than before, it may be inferred that his property in 1802 was not far short of £20,000.

Little further remains to be told regarding the Sham Squire. In 1799 we catch a parting glimpse of him in a work descriptive of the actors in the Union struggle. "From his law practice, his gaming-table contributions, and news-paper", says this work, "the Sham now enjoys an income that supports a fine house in a fashionable quarter of a

* In the third volume of the Cornwallis Correspondence, one of the name is found obtaining a pension of £300 a-year at the same time that Francis Higgins's services received similar recognition. A Christian name borne by the junior recipient is stated in the same work to have been "Grenville", he was probably born during the viceroyalty of George Grenville, Marquis of Buckingham, of whom Higgins was a parasite and a slave. See p. 79, ante, etc.

Is this the party whose name appears in the Secret Service Money Act, viz.:-" Nov. 5, 1803, chaise for C. Teeling from the Naul, £1 6s. Od".