And here is a specimen of his powers as a writer of Latin verse, on a very different subject:

[Pro Rege Soteria.]

'Funera funeribus commiscens, bustaq; bustis
Ira avidæ, nato Principe, pestis abit.
Filius an regis potuit dum vagijt infans
A tôta rabidam gente fugare luem?
Nec valet, Antidotas sibi Rex, depellere varos
Cujus Apollinea est tarn benè nota manus?
Tantane Carolidæ potuêre crepundia? plebem
De tumulo redimet qui modò natus erat?
Et res usque; nova est? morbum miramur abortum,
Depulsum sceptro, Carole magne, tuo?'

In 1662, Sir Peter, who had been made Governor of Pendennis on the Restoration, married the handsome, virtuous, and accomplished Frances Twysden, daughter of Sir Roger, the well-known judge of that name;[62] and the union appears to have been a happy one in every respect, save as to the offspring. Peter, the eldest, died young; George, the second son, was killed in a tavern brawl at Penryn (at the house of a Mr. Chalons, says Tonkin), by 'a stab in the back' from a barrister named Walter Vincent. Another account states that the skull, which was found in 1861, showed that the hole made by the rapier was clearly visible in the forehead. Frances, the elder daughter, married a Cornish gentleman named Richard Erissey,[63] who 'cast her off' three years after their marriage. Ann, the youngest, who died without issue, married Martin Lister, a Staffordshire gentleman and soldier of fortune, who assumed the name of Killigrew, and managed the estates for many years. Clearly the main stem of the great race of Killigrew was rapidly decaying!

On the death, or murder, of his son George, old Sir Peter, who had gone to live at Arwenack in 1670, disappointed at having no male issue, and sick of the innumerable squabbles in which he found himself involved with the Falmouth folk, retired, first to London, and then, in 1697, to Ludlow, where he passed his time in scientific pursuits of a speculative character, the results of which appear to have died with him. His portrait, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, now in the possession of Mrs. Boddam Castle, of Grove House, Clifton (a descendant of the Killigrews), fully harmonizes with what we know of his character. One practical thing, however, he did: viz., to build the public quay at Falmouth; and to that old town, endeared to him by so many pleasant memories of the past, were his remains conveyed to be interred in the parish church, among those of his more immediate ancestors. The monuments are not, at present, to be seen; perhaps they are hidden under the raised floor of the chancel: but there were laid, in 1704, the remains of Sir Peter Killigrew,—the last male in the main[64] line.

George, his son, though, as we have seen, he died young, was not unmarried. He gained for his wife an offshoot of another old Cornish family, Ann, daughter of Sir John St. Aubyn, Bart., by whom he had issue one daughter (Ann), married to a Major John Dunbar. To the heiress of the ill-starred Erissey match—Sir Peter's youngest grand-daughter, Mary—the bulk of the remaining Killigrew property seems to have descended; and through her the present representative of the family (the Earl of Kimberley) holds it. She married, in 1711, a Colonel John West.[65]

There are few things more amusing in its way than the account which Mr. R. N. Worth has preserved for us in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, of the arrangements which Martin Killigrew (Lister) requested should be made for Colonel West's reception at Arwenack. They are as follows:

'Mr. Abrm. Hall,

* * * * *

'It is but by guess I have to tell you that you are not to expect to see ye Coln. till about ye end of ye first week in May, who bringing with him ye young gentleman[66] in question, must add considerably to ye flurry you will be put in from his being a person of great consideration as I hear, tho' I know not so much as his name and as Little any particular of his circumstances. But suppose you must be advised by the Coln. as to your providing accommodation for their Retinue: Two bed chambers for ye gentlemen you will put in ye best order you can; a room for ye servants to Eat in: The best Cook your Town affords; some choise good Hambs and a provision of fatt chickens: Wine you must leave Mr. James to provide; and if any fine green Tea[67] be to be had, you must secure some of it, as what ye Coln. is most Nice in, and drinkes much off. Two of ye largest Tea potts you can borrow, He using them both at a time. Nice and knowing beyond ye comon in providing a Table, so that your Mother will only have to receive his orders every morning on that head. The stable put in ye best order you can, provided with Hay and Corne.