00 and
had him released.

Such a benefactor was not to be lost sight of. The duke was appointed
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in 1784, and had scarcely landed in Dublin
when Hatfield followed him to that city. On his arrival he engaged a
splendid suite of apartments in a first-rate hotel, fared sumptuously,
and represented himself as nearly allied to the viceroy; but said that
he could not appear at the castle until his horses, carriages, and
servants arrived from England. The Yorkshire park, the Rutlandshire
estate, and the thirty industrious labourers were all impressed into
his service once more, and the landlord allowed him to have what he
liked. When the suspicions of Boniface were aroused by the non-arrival
of the equipages and attendants he presented his bill. Hatfield
assured him that his money was perfectly safe, and that luckily his
agent, who collected the rents of his estate in the north of England,
was then in Ireland, and would give him all needful information. The
landlord called upon this gentleman, whose name had been given to him,
and presented his account, but of course without success; and Hatfield
was thrown in the Marshalsea jail by the indignant landlord. By this
time he was thoroughly familiar with the mysteries of prison life as
it then existed, and had scarcely seated himself in his new lodging
when he visited the jailer's wife and informed her of the relationship
in which he stood to the lord-lieutenant. The woman believed him, gave
him the best accommodation she could, and allowed him to sit at her
table for three weeks. During this time he sent another petition to
the new viceroy, who, fearing lest his own reputation should suffer,
released him, and was only too glad to ship him off to Holyhead.

He next showed himself at Scarborough in 1792, and succeeded in
introducing himself to some of the local gentry, to whom he hinted
that at the next general election he would be made one of the
representatives of the town through the influence of the Duke of
Rutland. His inability to pay his hotel bill, however, led to his
exposure, and he was obliged to flee to London, where he was again
arrested for debt. This time the wheel of Fortune turned but slowly in
his favour. He lingered in jail for eight years and a-half, when a
Miss Nation, of Devonshire, to whom he had become known, paid his
debts, took him from prison, and married him.

Abandoning his Rutlandshire pretensions, he now devoted himself to