aty of St. Germains, dated the 29th of March 1632; was
reconquered by Cromwell; was again surrendered in the reign of Charles
II.; and in 1713 once more became a British colony--no consideration
being paid at the last transfer to the real or imaginary claims of Sir
William Alexander.

The worthy baronet, however, notwithstanding his misfortunes and his
impecuniosity, continued a great friend of the first Charles, who, by
royal letters patent, elevated him, on the 14th of June 1633, to a
peerage under the title of the Earl of Stirling. The earldom became
dormant in 1739.

After a lapse of more than twenty years a claimant for these honours
appeared in the person of William Alexander; but his appeal to the
House of Peers was rejected on the 10th of March 1762, and the
Stirling Peerage was commonly supposed to have shared the common
earthly fate, and to have died a natural death. But a new aspirant
unexpectedly appeared. This gentleman, named Humphreys, laid claim not
only to the earldom of Stirling, but also to the whole territory of
Canada, in addition to the Scottish estates appertaining thereto; and,
in order to substantiate his pretensions, put forward an assumed
pedigree. In this document he declared himself to be the lineal
descendant and nearest lawful heir of Sir William Alexander, who he
said was his great-great-great-grandfather. From this remote fountain
he pretended to have come, following the acknowledged stream until he
reached Benjamin, the last heir-male of the body of the first earl,
and, diverting the current to heirs-female in the person of Hannah,
Earl William's youngest daughter, who was married at Birmingham, and
whom he represented as his own ancestress.

In 1824, having obtained formal license to assume the surname of
Alexander, he procured himself to be served "lawful and nearest
heir-male in general of the body of the said Hannah Alexander," before
the bailies of Canongate, 1826. Then he assumed the title of Earl of
Stirling and Dovan, and, in 1830, formally registered himself as
"lawful and nearest heir in general to the deceased William, the first
Earl of Stirling."

According to the patent of 1633, which was confined to heirs-male,
Humphreys had no claim either to the title or estates; but he based
his pretensions upon a document which, he said, had been granted by
Charles I., in 1639, to the Earl of Stirling, and which conferred upon
him, without limitation as to issue, the whole estates