troduction to the _Waverley Novels_. Surely _Yellow
Waistcoat_ was his prototype.]

"The usurper now commenced a series of attempts to obtain possession
of his nephew's person, for the purpose of transporting him beyond
seas, or otherwise ridding himself of so formidable a rival. For some
time, however, these endeavors were frustrated, principally through
the gallantry of a brave and kind-hearted butcher, named Purcel, who,
having compassion upon the boy's destitute state, took him into his
house and hospitably maintained him for a considerable time; and on
one occasion, when he was assailed by a numerous party of his uncle's
emissaries, Purcel placed the boy between his legs, and stoutly
defending him with his cudgel, resisted their utmost efforts, and
succeeded in rescuing his young charge.

"After having escaped from many attempts of the same kind, Annesley
was at length kidnapped in the streets of Dublin, dragged by his uncle
and a party of hired ruffians to a boat, and carried on board a vessel
in the river, which immediately sailed with our hero for America,
where, on his arrival, he was apprenticed as a plantation slave, and
in this condition he remained for the succeeding thirteen years.

"During his absence his uncle, on the demise of the Earl of Anglesey,
quietly succeeded to that title and immense wealth.

"While forcibly detained in the plantations, Annesley suffered many
severe hardships and privations, particularly in his frequent
unsuccessful attempts to escape. Among other incidents which befell
him, he incurred the deadly hatred of one master, in consequence of a
suspected intrigue with his wife--a {p.306} charge from which he was
afterwards honorably acquitted. The daughter of a second master became
affectionately attached to him; but it does not appear that this
regard was reciprocal. And finally, in effecting his escape, he fell
into the hands of some hostile negroes, who stabbed him severely in
various places; from the effects of which cruelty he did not recover
for several months.

"At the end of thirteen years, Annesley, who had now attained the age
of twenty-five, succeeded in reaching Jamaica in a merchant vessel,
and he immediately volunteered himself as a private sailor on board a
man-of-war. Here he was at once identified by several officers; and
Admiral Vernon, who was then in command of the British West India
fleet, wrote home an account of the case to the Duke of Newcast