STATE SALT CELLARS.
It must be remembered that hundreds of people die annually of starvation in London, while these jewels, valued at seven millions of dollars, are growing rusty, and every shilling which bought these jewels was wrung from the blood, labor, and misery of the ancestors of the radical voters who compose the English Trade Unions, and follow the standard of John Bright. A just and honest Parliament would order the sale of these Crown jewels, and the sum realized might find many happy homes in the New World for those who now starve in the rookeries and lanes of London.
There is only one attempt to steal the English Crown Jewels, mentioned in history, and that was a most audacious one, and planned with a skill worthy of the man who made the attempt.
The robbery was committed by Col. Thomas Blood, in 1673.
He was a native of Ireland, born in 1628.
A DESPERATE ADVENTURE.
In his twentieth year he married the daughter of a gentleman of Lancashire; then returned to his native country, and having served there as a Lieutenant in the Parliamentary forces, received a grant of land instead of pay, and was, by Henry Cromwell, son to Oliver, made a Justice of the Peace. On the Restoration of Charles II, the Act of Settlement, which deprived Blood of his possessions, made him at once discontented and desperate. He first signalized himself by his conduct during an insurrection set on foot to surprise Dublin Castle and seize the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. This insurrection he joined and became its leader; but it was discovered on the very eve of execution, and was rendered futile.
Blood, who was neither afraid of man or devil, escaped the gallows, the fate of some of his associates, and concealing himself among the native Irish patriots in the mountains, and ultimately he escaped to Holland, where he was favorably received by Admiral de Ruyter, the Dutch Nelson.
Always ready for battle and spoil, we next find him engaged with the Covenanters in their rebellion in Scotland in 1666, when being once more on the side of the losing party, he saved his life only by stratagem.
Thenceforward Col. Blood appears only in the light of a mere adventurer, bold and capable enough to do anything his passions might instigate, and prepared to seize fortune where-ever he might find her, without the slightest scruple as to the means employed. The death of his friends in the Irish insurrection, seems to have left in Blood's mind a great thirst for personal vengeance on the Duke of Ormond, whom accordingly he seized on the night of December 6th, 1676, tied him on horseback to one of his associates, and but for the timely aid of the Duke's servant, would have hanged the astonished and paralyzed noble on Tyburn Tree, where he attempted to convey him. The plan failed, but so admirably had it been contrived that Blood remained totally unsuspected as its author, although a reward of one thousand pounds was offered by King Charles for the discovery of the attempted assassins.