f a transaction in which they had no
concern, and which had happened at the distance of twelve years before
the date of this usurpation. Moreover, as their first information was no
other than common fame, the public clamour occasioned by the separation
might inspire such as were strangers to the family affairs with a
mistaken notion of the child's having been born about or after the time
of that event. The hurry and bustle occasioned by the arrival of the
lord-lieutenant about this period, the reports industriously propagated
of the claimant's death, the obscurity and concealment in which the boy
was obliged to live, in order to elude the wicked attempts of his uncle,
might also contribute to his peaceable enjoyment of an empty title. And
lastly, Lord Chancellor W--, whose immediate province it was to issue
writs for parliament, was an utter stranger in Ireland, unacquainted
with the descents of families, and consequently did not examine farther
than the certificate enrolled in the books of the king-at-arms. Over and
above these circumstances, which naturally account for the success of
the imposture, it may be observed, that the hapless youth had not one
relation alive, on the side of his father, whose interest it was not to
forward or connive at his destruction; that his grandfather, the duke
of B--, was dead; and that his mother was then in England, in a forlorn,
destitute, dying condition, secreted from the world, and even from her
own relations, by her woman Mary H--, who had a particular interest to
secrete her, and altogether dependent upon a miserable and precarious
allowance from the duchess of B--, to whose caprice she was moreover a
most wretched slave.

"Notwithstanding these concurring circumstances in favour of the
usurper, he did not think himself secure while the orphan had any chance
of finding a friend who would undertake his cause; and therefore laid
a plan for his being kidnapped, and sent to America as a slave. His
coadjutor in this inhuman scheme was a person who carried on the trade
of transporting servants to our plantations, and was deeply interested
on this occasion, having, for a mere trifle, purchased of the late
Lord A--, the reversion of a considerable part of the A-- estate, which
shameful bargain was confirmed by the brother, but could never take
place, unless the boy could be effectually removed.

"Everything being settled with this auxiliary, several ruffians were
employed in search of