, on Tuesday, 14th
October, at 4 p.m. Sir Tristram endeavoured to console her, and
begged her to restrain her grief, when she assured him that she felt
relieved and easier now that she knew the actual fact. She added, 'I
can now give you a most satisfactory piece of intelligence, viz., that
I am with child, and that it will be a boy'. A son was born in the
following July. Sir Tristram survived its birth little more than six
years. After his death Lady Beresford continued to reside with her
young family at his place in the county of Derry, and seldom went from
home. She hardly mingled with any neighbours or friends, excepting
with Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, of Coleraine. He was the principal
personage in that town, and was, by his mother, a near relative of Sir
Tristram. His wife was the daughter of Robert Gorges, LL.D. (a
gentleman of good old English family, and possessed of a considerable
estate in the county Meath), by Jane Loftus, daughter of Sir Adam
Loftus, of Rathfarnham, and sister of Lord Lisburn. They had an only
son, Richard Gorges, who was in the army, and became a general officer
very early in life. With the Jacksons Lady Beresford maintained a
constant communication and lived on the most intimate terms, while she
seemed determined to eschew all other society and to remain in her
chosen retirement.

"At the conclusion of three years thus passed, one luckless day "Young
Gorges" most vehemently professed his passion for her, and solicited
her hand, urging his suit in a most passionate appeal, which was
evidently not displeasing to the fair widow, and which, unfortunately
for her, was successful. They were married in 1704. One son and two
daughters were born to them, when his abandoned and dissolute conduct
forced her to seek and to obtain a separation. After this had
continued for four years, General Gorges pretended extreme penitence
for his past misdeeds, and with the most solemn promises of amendment
induced his wife to live with him again, and she became the mother of
a second son. The day month after her confinement happened to be her
birthday, and having recovered and feeling herself equal to some
exertion, she sent for her son, Sir Marcus Beresford, then twenty
years old, and her married daughter, Lady Riverston. She also invited
Dr. King, the Archbishop of Dublin (who was an intimate friend), and
an old clergyman who had christened her, and who had always kept up a
most kindly intercourse w