And that Judge Robinson in his charge to the jury observed, that Higgins could not be heavily punished for attempting false pretences, and flying under false colours in the family of Mr. Archer, inasmuch as if they believed the prisoner at the bar to be the important personage which he represented himself, their own conduct presented a deception and suppressio veri in not acquainting the prisoner's pretended guardian and uncle with the matrimonial intentions which unknown to his family he entertained. "Gentlemen", added the judge, "that deception has existed on both sides we have ample evidence. 'T is true this sham squire is guilty of great duplicity, but so also are the Archers".*

In thus fastening upon Higgins that admirable nickname, which clung to him throughout his subsequent highly inflated career, Judge Robinson unintentionally inflicted a punishment by far more severe than a long term of imprisonment in Newgate or the Black Dog.

Higgins exhibited great self-possession in the dock; and he is said to have had the incredible effrontery to appeal to the jury as men, and ask them

the last to take flight?" Saul then bemoans the hard necessity of quitting for ever friends, relatives, and an ancient patrimony, at a time of life when nature had far advanced in its decline, and his constitution by constant mental exercise was much impaired, to retire to some dreary clime, there to play the schoolboy again, to learn the language, laws, and institutions of the country, to make new friends-in short, to begin the world anew. "But, he adds, "when religion dictates, and prudence points out the only way to preserve posterity from temptation and perdition, I feel this consideration predominating over all others. I am resolved, as soon as possible, to sell out, and to expatriate". Saul retired to France, and died there in 1768-(Gilbert's Dublin; Memoirs of Charles O'Conor).

* Tradition communicated by Mr. Gill, publisher, Dublin.

if there was one amongst them who would not do as much to possess so fine a girl.*

*

Judge Robinson had scant reputation as a lawyer, and was eminently unpopular. When proceeding to the Armagh assizes, in 1763, he found a gallows erected, and so constructed across the road that it was necessary to pass under it. To the "Heart-of-OakBoys" Judge Robinson was indebted for this compliment. He was called to the Bar in 1737, and died in Dominick Street, in 1786. Mr. O'Regan, in his Memoir of Curran, describes Judge Robinson as small and peevish. A member of the Bar named Hoare sternly resisted the moroseness of the judge; at last, Robinson charged him with a design to bring the king's commission into contempt. "No, my Lord", replied Hoare; "I have read that when a peasant, during the troubles of Charles I. found the crown in a bush, he showed it all marks of reverence; but I will go further, for though I should find the king's commission even upon a bramble, still I shall respect it". Mr. Charles Phillips tells us that Judge Robinson had risen to his rank by the publication of some political pamphlets, only remarkable for their senseless, slavish, and envenomed scurrility. This fellow, when poor Curran was struggling with adversity, and straining every nerve in one of his infant professional exertions, made a most unfeeling effort to extinguish him. Curran had declared, in combating some opinion of his adversary, that he had consulted all his law books, and could not find a single case in which the principle contended for was established. "I suspect, sir", said the heartless blockhead, "that your law library is rather

* Dublin Evening Post, No. 1765.

Hardy's Life of Charlemont, v. i., p. 189.

contracted!" So brutal a remark applied from the bench to any young man of ordinary pretensions would infallibly have crushed him; but when any pressure was attempted upon Curran, he never failed to rise with redoubled elasticity. He eyed the judge for a moment in the most contemptuous silence:" It is very true, my lord, that I am poor, and the circumstance has certainly rather curtailed my library; my books are not numerous, but they are select, and I hope have been perused with proper dispositions. I have prepared myself for this high profession rather by the study of a few good books than by the composition of a great many bad ones.

I am not ashamed of my poverty, but I should of my wealth, could I stoop to acquire it by servility and corruption. If I rise not to rank, I shall at least be honest; and should I ever cease to be so, many an example shows me that an ill-acquired elevation, by making me the more conspicuous, would only make me the more universally and the more notoriously contemptible".

Poor Miss Archer did not long survive her humiliation and misfortune. She died of a broken heart, and her parents had not long laid her remains in the grave, when their own mournfully followed.

Mr. Higgins's companions throughout the period of his detention in Newgate were not of the most select description, nor were the manners prevalent in the place calculated to reform his reckless character. Wesley having visited the prison, found such impiety prevailing, that he always looked back upon it with loathing. "In 1767", observes Mr. Gilbert, "Newgate was found to be in a very bad condition, the walls being ruinous, and a constant communication existing between the male

and female prisoners, owing to there being but one pair of stairs in the building".* The gaoler carried on an extensive trade by selling liquors to the inmates at an exorbitant price; and prisoners refusing to comply with his demands were abused, violently beaten, stripped naked, and dragged to a small subterranean dungeon, with no light save what was admitted through a sewer which ran close by it, carrying off all the ordure of the prison, and rendering the atmosphere almost insupportable. In this noisome oubliette, perversely called "the nunnery", from being the place where abandoned females were usually lodged, twenty persons were frequently crowded together and plundered. Criminals under sentence of transportation were permitted to mix among the debtors. By bribes and collusion between the gaoler and the constables, legal sentences, in many instances, were not carried out. These practices at length attracted the attention of Parliament. Among other facts which transpired in the resolution of the Irish House of Commons, we find that the gaoler had "unlawfully kept in prison and loaded with irons persons not duly committed by any magistrate, till they had complied with the most exorbitant demands".

Even when in durance Mr. Higgins's cunning did not forsake him. Though far from being a Macheath in personal attractions, he contrived to steal the affections of the Lucy Lockit of the prison, and the happy couple were soon after married. The gaoler was an influential person in his way, and promoted the worldly interest of his son-in-law.

*History of Dublin, p. 265-6, v. i. ↑ Dublin Evening Post, No. 1796.

For his "misdemeanours" in the family of Mr. Archer, Higgins was committed to Newgate on January 9th, 1767; but the punishment failed to make much impression on him. In the Freeman's Journal for February 28the paper of which Higgins subsequently became the influential proprietor-we find the following:

"At the commission of oyer and terminer, Mark Thomas, a revenue officer, and Francis Higgins, the celebrated adventurer, were convicted of an assault against Mr. Peck. Higgins was fined £5, to be imprisoned one year, and to give £1,000 security for his good behaviour for seven years".

The details embodied in an interesting letter, addressed on July 23, 1789, by "An old gray-headed Attorney", to John Magee, editor of the Dublin Evening Post, who, through its medium, continued with indomitable perseverance to execrate Higgins when he became an efficient tool of the government, and was absolutely placed on the bench by them, being chronologically in place here, we subjoin the letter:

"In one of your late papers mention was made that

the Sham had taken off the roll the record of his conviction in the case of Miss Archer, but if you wish to produce another record of his conviction, you will find one still remaining, in a case wherein the late John Peck was plaintiff, and the Sham and the late Mark Thomas, a revenue officer, were defendants. Sham being liberated from Newgate on Miss Archer's affair, sought out the celebrated Mark Thomas, who at that time kept a shop in Capel Street for the purpose of registering numbers in the then English lottery at 1d. per number. Thomas found Sham a man fitting for his purpose, and employed him as clerk during the