[92] Cf. the list in Stubbs’ History, p. 222.
[93] This was the lineal descendant of the Wm. Hawkins who in 1672 had got a 99 years’ lease of this land, then waste, for the purpose of reclaiming it and building a quay. The Bishop had interest enough with the Board in 1771 to stay the resumption, and even to obtain a new lease of a valuable property from the College estate, which his descendants still enjoy. In 1799 this lease had yet 33 years to run—hence a 60 years’ lease.
[94] Provost Baldwin had asserted this right of veto, and had nominated against the majority, not without protest, but without being challenged at a Visitation.
[95] “The effects [of the Provost’s duel] are already visible; scarce a week passes without a duel between some of the students; some of them have been slain, others maimed; the College Park is publicly made the place for learning the exercise of the pistol; shooting at marks by the gownsmen is everyday practice; the very chambers of the College frequently resound with explosions of pistols. The Provost has introduced a fencing-master into the College, and assigned him the Convocation or Senate House [over the gate] of the College as a school, to teach the gownsmen the use of the sword, though this is strictly forbidden by the Statutes.”—Lachrymæ, p. 109. Is the first part of this true? Surely the names of students killed or maimed in duels would have been paraded before us in the pamphlets of the time. The Provost’s duel with Mr. Wm. Doyle, arising from anonymous attacks attributed to the latter, is described at length in the Dublin papers of 17th and 19th January, 1775.
[96] I quote from Dr. Stubbs, extract, op. cit. p. 264. It appears from Duigenan’s Lachrymæ, p. 145, that in Hutchinson’s time £200 a-year was voted by the Board of Erasmus Smith for Prizes in Composition only.
[97] He was so popular in Dublin as to receive the honorary freedom of the city.
