forfeited, have dictated some of the most important services which have
been rendered to the state, and have secured the existence of an
hereditary government.

Of what the Earl of Derwentwater might have become, in character, in
intellect, his early fate has prevented our judging. In person he was
noble and elegant; his portraits do not give the impression of that
beauty of feature which has been ascribed to him. In character he was
irreproachable. He was, in one sense, one of those noblemen of whom it
were well for this country to have more: he lived among those from whom
he drew his fortunes--their benefactor and their friend.

The widowed Countess of Derwentwater died at Brussels in August,
1723.[225] The descendants of the Earl are now extinct, a son and
daughter who survived him having both died. His Lordship's brother
married a Scottish peeress, and is the ancestor of the present Earl of
Newburgh, the rightful representative of the Earl of Derwentwater.

"The domains of the Derwentwater family in Cumberland are," says Lord
Mahon, "among the very few forfeitures of the Jacobites which have never
been restored by the clemency of the House of Hanover." In 1788, a clear
rent of two thousand five hundred pounds was, however, granted out of
these estates to the Newburgh family. "They were first," says the same
authority, "settled on Greenwich Hospital, but have since been sold to
Mr. Marshall, of Leeds."

The deeds of the Derwentwater estates were preserved in the following
manner: "On the night when Preston surrendered, Lord Derwentwater found
means," as Mr. Hogg relates, "to send messengers to Capheaton, to
prevent the family there from appearing in arms. By his orders, the
family papers were removed to Capheaton, and they were laid between two
walls and a chimney. A slater employed about the house discovered
several chests with the Derwentwater arms engraved on the lids. Being a
rigid Presbyterian, he informed old Sir Ambrose Middleton, of Belsay,
who being Deputy-Lieutenant for the Duke of Somerset, searched Capheaton
for arms, and under that pretence broke open the walls, and found the
deeds, from the concealment of which Greenwich Hospital had been put to
some difficulties."

Such was the fate of the last memorial of the unfortunate Earl of
Derwentwater. It is impossible to help regretting that a name once so
honoured should have become extinct; and there appears to be an
unaccountable injustice in that ob