“Your ever affectionate and sincere friend,
“Jonah Barrington.”
[65]. I was myself once refused even admittance into Westminster Abbey, wherein his ashes rest!—the sexton affirming that the proper hour was past!
HIGH LIFE IN NEWGATE.
Lord Aldborough quizzes the Lord Chancellor—Voted a libeller by the House of Peers—His spirited conduct—Sentenced to imprisonment in Newgate by the Court of King’s Bench—Memoirs of Mr. Knaresborough—His extraordinary trial—Sentenced to death, but transported—Escapes from Botany Bay, returns to England, and is committed to Newgate, where he seduces Lady Aldborough’s attendant—Prizes in the lottery—Miss Barton dies in misery.
Lord Aldborough was an arrogant and ostentatious man; but these failings were nearly redeemed by his firmness and gallantry in his memorable collision with Lord Chancellor Clare.
Lord Aldborough, who had built a most tasteful and handsome house immediately at the northern extremity of Dublin, had an equity suit with Mr. Beresford, a nephew of Lord Clare, as to certain lots of ground close to his lordship’s new and magnificent mansion, which, among other conveniences, had a chapel on one wing and a theatre on the other, stretching away from the centre in a chaste style of ornamental architecture.
The cause was in Chancery, and was not protracted very long. Lord Aldborough was defeated, with full costs: his pride, his purse, and his mansion, must all suffer; and meddling with either of these was sufficient to rouse his lordship’s spleen. He appealed, therefore, to the House of Peers, where, in due season, the cause came on for hearing, and where the chancellor himself presided. The lay lords did not much care to interfere in the matter; and, without loss of time, Lord Clare of the House of Peers confirmed the decree of Lord Clare of the Court of Chancery, with full costs against the appellant.