Introduction to Buck Whaley

Buck Whaley’s Memoirs

Including His Journey to Jerusalem

Written by himself in 1797 and now first published from the recently discovered manuscript.

Edited, with Introduction and Notes,

Sir Edward Sullivan, Bart.

London

Alexander Moring Ltd

The De La More Press

32 George Street, Hanover Square W

MCMVI**

PREFACE

The manuscript Memoirs of Thomas Whaley, now first published, are known to have, been in existence ever since 1800, the year in which the writer died. They are mentioned in an obituary notice of him which appeared in *The Gentleman’s Magazine *at the time, but they are supposed to have passed out of the hands of the family some forty or fifty years ago [Dict. Nat. Biog., *sub *Whaley (Thomas).], since which time the place of their disposal has been a mystery, and even their existence a matter of considerable doubt. The unknown owners had been appealed to from time to time, by persons interested in the social history of Ireland during the latter portion of the eighteenth century, to make their contents public [See Fitzpatrick, *Ireland before the Union, p. 79, n., *and *Notes and Queries, *3rd Series, ii. 314], but such suggestions do not seem to have reached the ears of those for whom they were intended.

buckbook.jpg (14847 bytes)Some little time ago, by a lucky accident, I happened to purchase in a London auction room what I recognised to be an interesting example of Irish binding, in the characteristic style of decoration common in Dublin at the close of the 18th Century, consisting of two handsome 4to volumes of manuscript bound in red morocco, inlaid and tooled in gold, and lettered on the back “Travels by T. W”

After investigation of the contents-in which I was materially assisted by Mr. Henry F. Berry, I.S.O., of the Public Record Office, Dublin (to whom I am indebted for much other valuable aid and information) - I discovered that these volumes were the original manuscript Memoirs of Thomas Whaley so long missing, and which, as I have learned from enquiries since made, seem to have been for many years passing from hand to hand amongst English book-collectors, their preservation in all probability being attributable rather to their gold-tooled covers than to the more or less anonymous story which they contained.

The work was obviously compiled with a view to publication during the lifetime of the writer, who refers to his intention to publish it by subscription; but the statement which has been made in many quarters, that the author had left directions to his executors to print the Memoirs, is not supported by anything to be found in his will, which may be seen at the Public Record Office in Dublin.

The work is in all likelihood in the handwriting of an amanuensis, being written throughout in copper-plate of an extremely clear and readable type; and the whole is in an excellent state of preservation. The contents are, however, in a sense written anonymously, the lettered title on the backs of the bound volumes being merely “Travels by T. W.,” while on the written title-page within the author describes himself by initials only, and in the body of the work the identity of the principal persons mentioned is sought to be concealed in a like way.

There is one remarkable instance) however, where the writer lays the mask aside, and where his name and that of his fellow-traveller, Hugh Moore, appear in full.

This is in the copy of the Certificate given to him by the Superior of the Convent at Nazareth which bears witness to his having visited that city in March, 1789. Whaley’s sudden death at an early age may have interfered with the publication of the Memoirs, but the idea of making them public does not seem to have been abandoned even after his death, for there are many indications in the manuscripts themselves which strongly support the theory that the first volume at least was prepared for the printer. In it are found occasional erasures, while other words have been superadded in a different hand, obviously with a view to toning down some personal revelations which were calculated to hurt the surviving members of the family. I shall have occasion later on to refer to these alterations in greater detail, as the necessity for making them will be better understood after a perusal of the main incidents of Whaley’s life and travels.

Thomas Whaley, in Ireland commonly known as Buck, or Jerusalem Whaley, was born in Dublin on the 15th December, 1766. [His own statement that he was born in 1768 is obviously an error. It does not fit in with other statements which he makes elsewhere, nor with the inscription on his tombstone.] He was the eldest surviving son of Richard Chapell Whaley, of Whaley Abbey, Co. Wicklow, and of Dublin, M.P. for co. Wicklow, 1747-60, a man of considerable property and of ancient descent, whose ancestors had settled in Ireland in the time of Oliver Cromwell, to whom, indeed., two of them were closely related. [The pedigree of the Whaley family, so far as I have been able to extract, it from the many conflicting statements found in the authorities quoted at the end of this note, seems to have been as shown in the family tree at the end of this chapter. See also extended note.] This Richard Chapell Whaley was twice married; first, in 1727, to Catherine, daughter of Robert Armitage, who died without issue; and secondly, in 1759, when at an advanced age, to Anne, daughter of the Rev. Bernard Ward, then a lady of eighteen. The offspring of the second marriage were:

(1) Richard Chapell, who died young.

(2) Thomas, the writer of the Memoirs.

(3) John, who married, 1st, Lady Anne Meade, daughter of John, Earl of Clanwilliam; and 2nd, Mary Anne, daughter of John Richardsom. John Whaley died 1847. His son by his second wife, John Richard William, married Louisa, daughter of Dr. Townsend, late Bishop of Meath.

(4) William, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the army, died 1843.

(5) Susanna, who married Sir James Stewart, Bart., of Fort Stewart.

(6) Anne, who in 1786 married Right Hon. John Fitzgibbon, afterwards Earl of Clare and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. She died 13 Jan., 1844.

(7) Sophia, who married Hon. Robert Ward, son of Lord Bangor.

beauxwalk.jpg (19660 bytes)Richard Chapell Whaley’s Dublin residence was at first No. 77 (now No. 87), St. Stephen’s Green, South; and while he was in occupation of this house; Sir John Meade, first Lord Clanwilliam, came into the neighbourhood, and built himself a new mansion (now No. 85)*, *which seems to have stirred the envy of Whaley. The latter thereupon purchased the piece of ground lying between them, boasting (according to tradition) that he would build something to make his noble neighbour’s house look no better than a pigstye in comparison. The house he commenced to build, but did not live to finish, was the mansion illustrated, and which also appears in the right-hand distance in the view of the Beaux Walk (pictured, left). Being unfinished at the time of his death, it was by will bequeathed to his “dear wife Anne,” directions being left to his executors to complete the building. It was occupied by one member or another of the family up to the year 1853 when, some little time after the death of John Whaley, it became the property of Cardinal Cullen, and is now the Catholic University of Ireland. The artistic decorations of its interior still retain much of their original magnificence.

It is said that Richard Chapell Whaley acquired during his lifetime the *sobriquet *of Burn-Chapell Whaley from the number of Roman Catholic churches he had helped to destroy by fire - an assertion which is to some extent confirmed by a periodical publication which appeared 20 years after his death. [*Town and Country Magazine, *1789, p. 9. “The father of our hero [“The Jerusalem Pilgrim”] was honoured with a commission of the peace, and in consequence of the proclamation became a furious persecutor of the Popish ecclesiastics. In one of his priest-hunting excursions it happened that, by firing a fowling-piece, he lodged the wadding in the thatch of a Romish chapel, which [led to his being] notoriously known by the name of Burn-Chapel till the day of his death.”]. A more harmless instance of his peculiarities is afforded by a very singular cheque which he once drew on La Touche’s Bank in favour of his wife-probably the only example of such a document ever written in rhyme.

“Mr. La Touche,

Open your pouch,

And give unto my darling

Five hundred pounds sterling:

For which this will be your bailey,

Signed, Richard Chapell Whaley.”

buckhouse.jpg (19900 bytes)Richard Chapell Whaley died about the 16th January, 1769 [*Sleater’s Gazeteer *of 16th to 18th Jan., 1769: “in Stephen’s Green (pictured, right), at an advanced age, Richard Chapell Whaley, Esq.”], leaving his young widow and seven children surviving. About two years after, the widow married a Mr. John Richardson of Dublin. [The marriage license is dated 7th Dec., 1770.]

Young Thomas Whaley upon his father’s death became entitled, as he mentions in the Memoirs, to estates worth £7,000 a year, together with a sum of £60.000 in cash, the other members of the family being at the same time amply provided for. He remained at school until he was 16, when, with a view to completing his education, his mother sent him to France, with an allowance of £900 a year, under the charge of a tutor, a gentleman of education who had been in the army, but who had been obliged to sell his commission to pay his debts, and who proved but “an indifferent mentor,” to a lad such as Whaley was; possessed of what was then a vast fortune, extravagant in his ideas, impracticable in all matters of business, intolerant of any kind of moral restraint, and a gambler and libertine to boot.

After a short but riotous experience of life in France, fully described in the following pages, young Whaley returned to Dublin, where he seems to have plunged with a natural relish into the vortex of bravado and extravagance which distinguished the world of high life in the Irish capital at the time. To appreciate the utterly reckless nature of his conduct at this period and after, it should be remembered that the character of Ireland was then an anomaly in the moral world. Any approach to the habits of the industrious classes by an application to trade or business, or even a profession, was considered a degradation to a gentleman, and the upper orders of society affected a most rigid exclusiveness [*Ireland Sixty Years Ago, *John F. Walsh; Master of the Rolls in Ireland. Dublin, 1847.]. Lawlessness of every kind was rampant in the metropolis. The few miserable watchmen, to whom the keeping of good order amongst the citizens was entrusted, were utterly inefficient for any purpose of protection, and looked on in terror at the many conflicts which were perpetually being waged by day and night in the streets.

Notable amongst the gentry of the time was a class called “Bucks,” whose whole enjoyment and the business of whose life seemed to consist in eccentricity and violence. Many of their names have come down to us, as Buck English [This English was one of the most extraordinary characters of his day. Amongst other achievements he fought two duels, in both of which he killed his antagonist. On one occasion he killed a waiter at an inn in England, and had him charged in the bill at £50.

Huish (Robt.) Memoirs of *George the Fourth, *Lond., 1831, i. p.405. See Barrington s *Personal Sketches, *ii. 8. For a description of Bucks, Macaronis, Jessamies, etc., see Ashton, *Old Times, *p.53, seq.], Buck Sheehy and various others.

Some of the Bucks associated together under the name of the Hell-Fire Club, and from their headquarters at Kilakee on the hills outside Dublin in nightly revels defied both God and man [The Dublin Hell-fire Club does not seem to have been open to the admission of lady members, a privilege which was allowed occasionally in similar institutions in England. - See Mrs. Delany’s *Autobiography and Correspondence, *vi. 162.].

“Lucas’s,” the celebrated coffee-house, was then a favourite resort of the idle and wealthy, and was particularly patronised by Bucks whose intolerable insolence was shown to all persons of lower rank than themselves.

Another gathering-place for the aristocracy and Members of Parliament was Daly’s Club in College Green, where extravagant scenes of gambling and dissipation were constantly being enacted. In this, the most famous establishment of its kind in Ireland, it is said that the shutters were occasionally closed at noon that gambling might go on by candle-light; and it was no uncommon occurrence to see one of the players, suspected of cheating, being flung from an upper window into the street. The club-house was rebuilt in 1791, and on so luxurious a scale as to excite the surprise and admiration of travellers who visited Ireland. [“The god of cards and dice has a temple, called Daly’s, dedicated to his honour in Dublin, much more magnificent than any temple to be found in that city dedicated to the God of the Universe.” - Extract from a writer in 1794 quoted in Gilbert’s *History of Dublin, *iii .,39.].

The first Irish State Lottery was drawn in I782 [At the Opera-house, Capel Street, on 24th June.], an occurrence which naturally added fuel to the fire of speculation which was already burning pretty brightly at this period amongst high and low while, as an additional incentive to immorality and degradation, the hideous spectacles afforded by public executions provided constant amusement for a mob whose love of drink and devilment was only surpassed by their social superiors.

Such was the metropolis of Ireland at the time when Burns was writing,

“As sure’s the deil’s in hell,

Or Dublin City;”

and to such surroundings young Whaley returned after a preliminary course of extravagance and dissipation in a foreign country where vicious habits of every kind were, if anything, more common than at home. It was probably about this time that he won his spurs as a Buck.

He does not himself mention the names of his Irish boon companions in the orgies that went on nightly in his Dublin house [Buck Whaley was never the owner of the mansion in St. Stephen’s Green, which remained the property of his mother until her death, when it passed to her then eldest surviving son, John Whaley.] - but from other sources it is known that he was on terms of close intimacy with Francis Higgins, the notorious Sham Squire, and with Lord Clonmell, and that the three were frequently to be seen disporting themselves on the Beaux Walk in Stephen’s Green during the hours in which persons of fashion in Dublin were accustomed to take the air.

buckboy.jpg (19536 bytes)By all accounts, Buck Whaley must have presented a striking figure on such occasions. Amongst others, his brother-in-law, Lord Cloncurry, writing in 1849, describes him as having been “a perfect specimen of the Irish gentleman of the olden time.” He had not, however, yet reached this high level of good looks when the portrait was painted which I am enabled to reproduce through the kindness of Mr. John Whaley of Annsboro, co. Kildare. This was apparently taken when he was still a boy (left)

[What purports to be a portrait of Whaley at a later date, by the name of “The Jerusalem Pilgrim,” will be found at p.9 of the *Town and Country Magazine *for 1789, and beside it a representation of a London *Fille de Chambre, *whose history is given in the accompanying article. She may possibly be the female acquaintance mentioned in Chapter 2 of the Memoirs.]

On the 10th of February, 1785, when he was only 18 years old, he was elected a member of the Irish House of Commons, taking his seat for Newcastle in the county of Dublin, which place he represented until 1790. At a later date, in 1797, he was elected for Enniscorthy; and continued M.P. until his death in 1800. It is a curious feature of his Memoirs that he has extremely little to say in reference to his parliamentary life; but it is possible that he paid but small attention to his duties as a legislator so long as there was anything else to offer attractions of a more diverting kind; and as a matter of fact he was absent from Ireland for a considerable portion of the time during which he had a seat in the Irish House.

It was at this period of his career that the well-known journey to Jerusalem was undertaken. It originated in a jest, and ended in a large and serious wager. Being at dinner one day at the Duke of Leinster’s with some people of fashion, Whaley was asked by one of the company to what part of the world he meant to direct his course next. “To Jerusalem,” he answered without hesitation. It was suggested by some present that there was no such place then existing; others questioned the possibility of his getting there even if it were still in existence; whereupon Whaley “offered to bet any sum that he would go to Jerusalem and return to Dublin within two years from his departure. Within the next few days he had £15,000 depending on the result [It has frequently been stated that it was a condition of the bet that the journey should be performed on foot, except where it was absolutely necessary to make a sea passage. There is no mention of any such stipulation by Whaley himself, or by Capt. Moore, his fellow-traveller; and, as a fact, the greater portion of the trip was accomplished on ship-board. The fiction as to playing ball against the walls of Jerusalem seems also to have been the outcome of exaggeration, although Whaley’s brother-in-law, Lord Cloncurry, repeats the story in the traditional form. - See *Personal Recollections. *In Hook’s *Gurney Married, *vol. i., p. 146, ed. 1838, occurs the sentence: “I should as soon think of walking to Jerusalem, as Parson Whalley did in my father’s time.” T. Crofton Croker, in his *Memoirs of Joseph Holt, General of the Irish Rebels in *1798, appends a long note in reference to Buck Whaley’s performances, which I include in the Appendix.].

He set out for Deal on the 20th September, 1788, where he was joined by a friend, Captain Wilson; and from that port on the 7th October he commenced his memorable journey on board the London.

At Gibraltar he met another friend and countryman, Captain Hugh Moore, who was then about to return to England on leave. Whaley however prevailed upon him to alter his plans, and he consented to join the expedition [Hugh Moore, Whaley’s travelling-companion on the journey to Jerusalem and back, of Eglantine House and Mount Panther, co. Down, Captain in the 5th Dragoon Guards, was a descendant of a very old Scotch family, the Muires of Rowallane in Ayrshire, his first ancestor in Ireland being a colonel in the army of William III., who obtained a grant of land in Ulster. He was the eldest son of Mr. John Moore of Clough, and Deborah, daughter of Mr. Robert Isaac of Holywood. He raised, and was Colonel of; the Eglantine Yeomanry during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, at which time he served as A.D,C. to General Needham. He married a daughter of Mr. Robert Armitage of Kensington, and died 29th July, 1848, aged 86. - See Knox’s *History of County Down *and Burke’s *Landed Gentry *(Moore of Rowallane).]

Captain Wilson was prevented from con-tinuing the journey beyond Smyrna owing to a rheumatic attack. Whaley and Moore left Smyrna for St. Jean d’Acre on the 3rd of February, 1789, on board the *Heureuse Marie, *and reached Jerusalem on the 28th of the same month. They arrived again in Dublin in June or July, 1789, and their return was celebrated by the lighting of bonfires through the city by the excited populace [Dublin Evening Post, July 23, 1789.]. Whaley then “produced such incontestable proof of having accomplished his arduous undertaking” that his friends were obliged reluctantly to pay him a sum of £15,000. This left him £7,000 to the good after defraying the expenses of the expedition; “the only instance,” to use his own words, “in all my life before in which any of my projects turned out to my advantage. He remained in Dublin upwards of two years, engaged largely in gambling, only to find in the end that there was a considerable balance against him.

Speaking of these years, he says, “It was at this period I happily formed an acquaintance with a lady of exquisite taste and sensibility, from whom I have never since separated. She has been a consolation to me in all my troubles, her persuasive mildness has been a constant check on the impetuosity of my temper, and at this moment constitutes, in my retirement, the principal source of all my felicity.” She was a Miss Courtney; [*Knutsford: its Traditions and History, *by Rev. Henry Green (Manchester, 1887), author of Shakspere and the Emblem Writers.] and she lived with Whaley up to the time of her death, which took place when he was resident in the Isle of Man.

Having gone the round of such amusements as Ireland could afford, he opened house in London, “bought horses and carriages, subscribed to all the fashionable clubs, and was in a short time a complete man of the *ton *at the West End of the town.”

A restless curiosity next led him to Paris, where the Revolution was then in progress. His experiences in the French capital at that dangerous time are highly interesting, and are detailed with his usual openness. From thence he returned to Dublin, but only for the purpose of selling an estate, which brought him £25,000. “Having paid some debts and made a few necessary purchases,” he went back to Paris with £14,000 in his pocket, and again plunged into the old life.

A journey to Switzerland followed, in the course of which he made the acquaintance of William Beckford, the author of *Vathek, *who was then living in luxurious seclusion at Lausanne, and also Edward Gibbon, the historian of *The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. *He gives some interesting particulars concerning both. Later on, after having spent some time in Italy, he returned to Paris, where he remained until after the trial and death of Louis XVI. Here, in the interests of safety, he was obliged to part company with his lady companion. War was about to be declared between England and France, and her position was one of much danger and apprehension. After many difficulties she made her escape to England for the purpose of procuring money for her protector, who was now reduced to some-thing approaching impecuniosity. He himself remained in Paris, to be involved shortly afterwards in a hostile meeting with Count Arthur Dillon, whom he had openly accused of having swindled him at play. Later on he escaped from the French capital, and after some perilous adventures reached Brussels in safety.

Making his way from thence to Calais, he awaited the return of his “dear companion” from England. After a period of anxious delay the packet-boat at length appeared off the coast, and he was enabled with help of his glass to see Miss Courtney on board. The municipality however refused to admit the vessel into the harbour, and he had the mortification of seeing the ship put about, without being able to send his friend even a letter, for the conveyance of which he had offered a large reward. Further difficulties met him on his way to Ostend, which he reached eventually in disguise.

Here, after a delay of some 10 days, he had the satisfaction to see the British flag flying on a ship in the harbour, and recognizing some old friends among the officers, he was supplied with sufficient money to take him to Dover. After a series of baffling disappointments and romantic episodes he at length overtook his “Euridyce,” with whom he returned to London, only to find himself a little while later the inmate of a debtors’ prison. From this unpleasant position, after an ineffectual attempt at gaol-breaking, he was released by his brother-in-law, the Irish Lord Chancellor, who happened to be in town at the time. “Determined,” as he says, “not to stay another hour in London,” Whaley then set out for Dublin. Here he disposed of all his remaining estates for the discharge of his personal debts, and with the surplus, which amounted to about £5,000, true to the spirit of gambling to which he had always been a ready slave, he resolved to try his fortune at play, and either retrieve himself or complete his ruin. “The latter,” he says, “was my fate, for in one winter I lost £10,000, which obliged me to sell all my own jewels, and those I had given to my companion in better days so that in the course of a few years I dissipated a fortune of near £400,000, and contracted debts to the amount of £30,000 more, without ever purchasing or acquiring contentment or one hour’s true happiness.”

He retired shortly afterwards to the Isle of Man in a hopeless condition of insolvency, where he tells us he divided his time between the education of his children, the improvement of a small farm, and the writing of his Memoirs. He ends his story of a wasted and riotous life in a spirit of contrition and remorse, expressing a hope that what he had written might prove of some service to other young men exposed to temptations like his own.

For the continuous folly and eccentricities of Whaley’s ill-spent life it is difficult to account in any rational way but, with his accustomed hardihood, he does not shrink from the attempt himself.

“I was born with strong passions, a lively imagination, and a spirit that could brook no restraint. I possessed a restlessness and activity of mind that directed me to the most extravagant pursuits; and the ardour of my disposition never abated till satiety had weakened the power of enjoyment till my health was impaired and my fortune destroyed … No small share of my follies are to be laid to a neglected education.”

His apologia, written as it was in the sackcloth and ashes of broken fortune and ruined social standing-had his life but ended with the writing of it - might have appealed with some measure of success to sympathetic readers. Unfortunately for him, the traditions which have come down to us connected with his later years go far towards showing that the spirit of humiliation which he adopts in the introductory and concluding portions of his Memoirs, and the sincerity of his anxiety for the morals of other young men likely to follow in his steps, were merely the outcome of a kind of a death-bed repentance, which was thoroughly genuine so long as “the fell sergeant” was in sight, but the stagey and artificial nature of which became aggressively apparent when the prospect of immediate danger had been removed.

The Isle of Man [In the MS. reading (p.7, *post), *“I am, at present, quietly settled in Ireland.” The word “Ireland” has been written over an erasure of something of greater length. Mr. Greenfield’s MS., referred to later on, has the same erasure and addition, but in his MS. the words ” Isle of Man” are still plainly visible.], the spot he selected for his retirement, was then a favourite place of sanctuary for those who, having outrun the constable, still possessed that genteel repugnance to the presence of bailiffs which is characteristic of the persons to whom such officers are most assiduous in their attentions.

Here, in the neighbourhood of Douglas, he settled down after 10 years of dissolute living, blessed,” as he tells us, “with the reciprocal friendship of a tender and beloved companion … . whose mild manners and amiable disposition form a striking contrast with the frivolousness, the vanity and tinsel which I formerly so much admired in my female acquaintances.” The first period of his life in the island was, no doubt, taken up with the writing of the Memoirs, which seem to have been ready for the press in 1797. It is strange, however, that Whaley is altogether silent regarding his life in the neighbourhood of Douglas at this period; for local tradition does not represent him as devoted solely to literature and the concerns of his new home. On the contrary, his ways would seem not to have changed in any material respect from their accustomed course, and he is described as filling at the Assemblies in Douglas the office of Master of the Ceremonies in much the same way as Beau Nash played that part at Bath. [*Knutsford. its Traditions and History. *Henry Green. 1887.

Bankrupt as his condition was when he retired from the world, it is certain that an extraordinary change in his fortunes took place before he was long a resident in the Isle of Man, for he commenced to build a mansion there of so costly and luxurious a character that it at once became known amongst the Manx people by the name of “Whaley’s Folly.” This was Fort Anne. It is described in a scarce pamphlet by Thomas Callister, 1815:

fann.jpg (28320 bytes)“Fort Ann. - This is an exceedingly handsome seat, having been built at great expense by Thomas Whalley (sic), Esq., deceased, an Irish gentleman of fortune, some years since. It is in an elevated situation on the road leading to Douglas Head, just opposite the Light House, and commands a most delightful prospect of Castle Mona, of Colonel Stuart’s seat, of The Hills, [The name of a house] the quay, the town and the bay, as well as of Howstrake, and a great part of the country all around. On the west side is a long spacious and elegant hall, through which you pass in entering, which is chiefly composed of stucco work; and on the east there is a low building adjoining (left open at top with window openings in the side walk), of nearly the same size as the hall, which is so contrived as to have the appearance to a stranger, from the pier, of this edifice having been the remains of some ancient ruins, and that the several other parts thereof had been lately modernised: the stables and coach-house are remarkably elegant and the out-offices adjoining are neat and commodious: there are also two fine gardens adjoining, one of them pretty large, and the other contains a green-house, etc. There are at present two families that occupy it, each in distinct and separate apartments, one of which is Major Ormsby’s, and the other the Honourable Mrs. Whalley, who is the proprietor. Under the building are extensive vaults, and the interior altogether as well as the exterior are both much admired; and although it falls greatly short of Castle Mona in extent and elegance, yet the views thereof from several spots, especially from the pier, the strand, and the bay, have an uncommon pleasing effect.”

It is unknown exactly when he commenced to build this house, but a contemporary record describes it as still unfinished in 1798:

“The Duke of Athol’s seat is in the vicinity of Douglas, and Mr. Whalley’s beautiful house and grounds, which are still in a progressive state of improvement, embellish Douglas very much; it is a part of the Nunnery estate.” [Feltham (J.). *A Tour through the Island of Mann. *Bath, 1798, p. 231.]

Earlier in the same work, under the heading “A View of the Principal Estates, etc., with their Proprietors, 1798,” Fort Ann is mentioned as that of Mr. Whalley.

During the building of this house, Whaley lost a favourite and trusty servant named Jack. The intercourse between Douglas and Liverpool was, in those days, very uncertain, and accompanied by danger, and the servant had been sent to the latter place for the purpose of procuring a sum of money. This he obtained but on returning in an open vessel he was shipwrecked and drowned. The money was found on his person when the body was washed ashore [Knutsford: its Traditions and History.].

The house, which has been enlarged in recent years by the completion of extensive wings on either side, was converted into an hotel about the middle of the last century. It is now known as the Fort Anne Hotel, and many traces of the original luxurious fittings are still visible in the solid mahogany window-shutters with silvered plate-glass let in, the Chippendale panels below the windows, and the mahogany doors inlaid with Chippendale work. Especially noticeable is a finely carved Carrara marble mantelpiece, one of the two medallions on which is said to be a likeness of Buck Whaley himself. Two portraits formerly hung in the dining-room of the hotel, one of Whaley, and the other of his lady companion - he in the character of a sportsman, and she in the style of Mrs. Siddons. These pictures were sold by auction some twenty years ago, since when they have disappeared, and eluded the many efforts which have been made by others as well as by myself to trace them. [The portrait of Whaley was probably the one referred to in *Mona’s Herald and Fargher’s Isle of Man Advertiser, *11th May, 1896: “A full-length portrait of the Regent, and a companion picture of Whalley, his huntsman and favourite hounds, painted by Northcote, were presented to the town of Douglas by Sir William Hillary, and were hung in the Odd fellows’ Hall, in Athol Street. Their removal occurred by ‘accident.’ Power, the actor, rented the hall, and his men who remained to take down the scenery and ship it, took down these pictures also; when someone told them they ‘were not Power’s’ . . Marshall, the owner of Fort Anne … claimed them, and removed them back to Fort Anne, which he had no more right to do than …”]

The change which took place in Whaley’s financial position during his residence in the Isle of Man enabled him, amongst other things, to get into the Irish Parliament for a second time. He was elected for Enniscorthy towards the end of 1797. Here, as perhaps in other directions, his brother-in-law, Lord Clare, would naturally have lent him a helping hand; but it is plain from the costly nature of the building of Fort Anne that money must have come to him, and in large amounts too, before he embarked on the erection of such a residence. If local tradition count for anything, the house would appear to have been built out of the proceeds of successful gambling.

Up till now the name of Whaley does not seem to have been recorded amongst those that played a part in the *Chronique Scandaleuse *which has grown up around the life and doings of George the Fourth when Prince of Wales. The following Memoirs, however, show that he was entitled to a place there and if gossip long current in the Isle of Man can be relied on, the part he played, in at least the financial scenes of the royal drama, must be regarded as of more importance than that of a mere walking gentleman.

A writer who has collected a considerable amount of information relating to Whaley’s later life [Rev. Henry Green, M.A. *Knutsford, op. cit. *See Extract from *Holt’s Memoirs, *Appendix, ad fin.] tells us of meetings at the gaming-table between him and the Prince of Wales, in which fortune at last seemed to take the side of the one who had been so long the victim of others in similar encounters, and in which the commoner not only relieved his princely opponent of vast sums of cash, but in the end succeeded by a *grand coup *in annexing a Favorita of His Royal Highness, whom her ungallant protector had in a moment of desperation staked as his only marketable asset.

At a somewhat later date, when the question of the Union was engaging the chief attention of parliamentarians, we learn that another addition was made to Whaley’s finances, though no doubt of smaller amount than his profits from play. Castlereagh, writing to the Duke of Portland, under date the 7th February, 1800, states that Whaley was absolutely bought by the Opposition stockpurse, and received £2,000 down, and was to receive as much more. The statement is confirmed by Cornwallis: “Twelve of our Supporters deserted to the enemy on the last division, one was bought during the debate (Jerusalem Whaley, the Chancellor’s brother-in-law)” [*Cornwallis Correspondence, *vol. iii. p.183; Letter to Bp. of Lichfield and Coventry. A more detailed account of these transactions is given in *Grattan’s Memoirs, *vol. v. pp.71, *72:- *“Mr. Thomas Whaley had in 1799 voted for the Union; he paid £4,000 for his election for the town of Enniscorthy. He was not in affluent circumstances, but well inclined to oppose the Union, and Mr, Goold accordingly agreed that these expenses would be paid if he would vote against the Government. He did so, and when the division took place on the question in 1800, Mr. Cooke, the acting man for Lord Castlereagh … went to him and offered him (to use his expression) *a carte blanche; *but Mr. Whaley would not break the promise he had made to the Opposition. The funds, however, were soon exhausted, and a member who would have opposed the Union was lost in consequence, and voted for it,” &c.] while Barrington states that Whaley afterwards took a bribe from the Government party to vote in favour of the Union.

The house at Fort Anne, according to a tradition current at Knutsford - where Buck Whaley died - was built upon Irish soil. Whaley, it appears, whether to win a bet, or for the purpose of fulfilling some strange vow, had undertaken to live upon Irish ground without residing in Ireland, and in order to perform the undertaking had, previous to laying the foundations, shipped over to Douglas a quantity of earth from his native land sufficient to underlie the whole mansion to the depth of six feet. Another story limits the amount of Irish soil to “a spot” in the grounds.

He does not seem to have been long settled in the new house when Miss Courtney, his lady companion, died, leaving him with two sons and a daughter. She appears to have passed as his wife during their stay in the Isle of Man, but it is abundantly clear from his own will-referred to later on-that she was never legally entitled to this status, in spite of the very strong attachment which her protector had always shown for her. The date of her death is not known.

In January 1800 Whaley married [Gentlemen’s Magazine, 1800, p. 1114.] the Hon. Mary Catherine, daughter of Nicholas Lawless, first Lord Cloncurry, and sister to Valentine, second Lord Cloncurry, then an untried prisoner in the Tower of London; but his married life came to an end before the year was out, his death taking place on the 2nd November, 1800. At the time of its occurrence he seems to have been on his way from Liverpool to London, for he was brought in an almost expiring condition to the “George Inn ” at Knutsford, in Cheshire, then a well known halting place on the mail-coach road, where he died soon after being admitted.

The newspapers of the day ascribed his death to a rheumatic fever contracted in Ireland; but tradition has preserved a more tragic account of his demise, and would have us believe that he was stabbed in a fit of jealousy by one of two sisters to whom he was paying marked attentions at a time when each of them was in ignorance of his concealed attachment to the other. Sarah, or Sally, Jenkinson is stated by one writer [Edward Evans in *The Irish Builder, *Dec., 1894.] to have been the name of the lady from whom he received his death wound: another authority [*Isle of Man Examiner, *June 21st, 1902.] records the fact that this was the very light-o’-love who had passed into his possession from the royal seraglio.

He was buried in Knutsford churchyard, where on a plain stone covering his grave is inscribed

“Underneath is interred the body of Thomas Whaley, Esquire, of the City of Dublin, who died November 2nd, 1800. Aged 34 years.”

“A strange circumstance,” says a historian of the locality [Green’s *Knutsford, *p.139.], “took place just before his funeral. The body had been placed in a leaden coffin and brought into the old assembly room, and the workmen had just made up the coffin, when Mr. Robinson, an Irishman, who also was a dancing-master of that day, stepping upon the coffin, danced a hornpipe over the body.”

The Hon. Mrs. Whaley continued to reside at Fort Anne after the death of her husband, in charge of the three children, whom she brought up as her own. One of them, Sophia Isabella, afterwards married a Mr. Tayler of Sussex. The eldest son, Thomas Whaley, became proprietor of the mansion after Mrs. Whaley’s death, and tried to finish the wing next the sea. On his death, the second son, Richard, endeavoured to complete the addition, but died before the work was done; after which Mrs. Tayler sold the place.

Whaley’s will, made at Liverpool, is dated the 24th October, 1800, and probate was granted to his widow the Hon. Mary Whaley on the 23rd January, 1801. The testator appointed his wife, the Earl of Clare, Val. Goold and Hugh Moore, executors, trustees and testamentary guardians of his “natural” children, leaving £2,000 to each of the three; £1,000 to Val. Goold, £500 to Hugh Moore, £500 to Thos. Goold, and the residue to his wife absolutely.

The reckless and eccentric doings of Buck Whaley were, as might be expected, the talk of Dublin for years after he had quitted the stage on which many of them had been enacted; and the details of his performances seem in many instances to have been exaggerated by writers of gossip connected with the subject. I have already referred to some obvious fictions relating to his journey to Jerusalem. Another story about him relates to a leap which he made from a drawing-room window into the street.

The scene of this mad act has been laid in places varying from the mansion in Stephen’s Green to Daly’s Club, and other houses. In his own account of it, however, the scene is laid at the York Hotel, Dover.

Curiously enough, his own brother-in-law describes this exploit as taking place in Dublin, and adds that Whaley rendered himself a cripple for life in the doing of it; while the hero of the performance tells us that he escaped with whole bones. The inaccuracy may be accounted for by the fact that Whaley was dead 47 years when Lord Cloncurry’s *Personal Recollections *were published. *

The Freeman’s Journal *of the 8th November, 1800, at that time owned by Francis Higgins, the so-called Sham Squire, is about the only newspaper that contains any extended reference to Whaley’s death.

“Died, Thos. Whaley, Esq.; Member of Parliament for the borough of Enniscorthy, of whom it need not be said that he moved in the most elevated circles. When of age he found himself in possession of great hereditary property and consequene; and nature and education gifted him with a mind suited in liberality and benevolence to the heir of such a fortune. His conversation was universally acknowledged to abound in refined sentiments, elegant address, and a convivial disposition - the pleasing current of whose good and polite nature perhaps hurried him to leave the anchor of steady prudence, a clinging to which is after all in the routine praise, and it is confessedly an unenvied praise, of the high as well as low! ‘Tis well known that Mr. Whaley was blessed with a good understanding, but the whirl and blaze in which he lived diminished its effect and force in an eccentricity of pursuits; the wide influence of his name and the credit of his estate were without reserve communicated to those ephemeral fashionables who live like butterflies in the sunshine and derive subsistence as the satellites and seducers of the great, and who sometimes gradually exhaust in their numbers the copious springs that supply their wants! To the unceasing calls of such Mr. Whaley was never deaf-his heart was susceptible of the most feeling and friendly impressions; and from his constant exposure to those artful ones, ‘tis unnecessary to notice how incalculably he suffered in their manifold lures. In a word, the life of Mr. Whaley had the improvident feature of greatness, but his fault was the generous failing of an exalted mind. Mr. Whaley, about 12 months ago, married the Hon. Miss Lawless, daughter of the late and sister to the present Lord Cloncurry.”

The scatter-brained adventures of so remarkable a character as Buck Whaley could hardly escape the notice of the Dublin ballad-monger of the time, and amongst the ephemeral literature coming from such a source the following piece of doggerel, relating to his journey to Jerusalem, has survived:- [The version given here is from the Haliday Collection of Pamphlets relating to Ireland (Royal Irish Academy), Miscellaneous Verses, 1789, Vol. 550. The Ballad is printed with some slight variations, and without verses viii. and xi., in the *Dublin University Magazine, *Dec. 1861, p. 722-3. The name is spelt “Whalley” throughout. See *Notes and Queries, *3rd Series, ii. 149, where the author is said to be “a bard who contributed to a collection of political squibs entitled ‘Both Sides of the Gutter’ (1790 or thereabouts).” Some other rhyming effusions relating to the Whaley family will be found in the Appendix.] **

WHALLEY’S EMBARKATION.**

*Tune-” Rutland Gigg.” *

One morning walking George’s-quay,

A monstrous crowd stopp’d up the way,

Who came to see a sight so rare,

A sight that made all Dublin stare.

Balloons, a vol.* review

Ne’er gathered such a crew,

As there did take their stand,

This sight for to command.

Tol lol lol lol tol lol.

II.

Buck Whalley lacking much in cash,

And being used to cut a dash,

He wagered full ten thousand pound

He’d visit soon the Holy Ground.

In Loftus’s fine ship

He said he’d take a trip,

And Costello so famed,

The captain then was named.

III.

From Park Street down ** through College Green,

The grand procession now was seen;

The Boxing Chairmen first mov’d on

To clear away the blackguard throng;

Then Whalley debonair

Marched forward with his Bear,

And Lawlor *** too was there

Which made Lord Naas **** to stare.

*I.e., *volunteer. ** Now Leinster Street. See *Dublin Street Names, *by Rev. C. T. M’Cready, D.D. *** Possibly J. Lawlor, called to the Irish Bar in 1773, and a resident in St. Stephen’s Green. **** See Lodge, Peerage of Ireland (Archdall), iii., 422)

IV.

Says Lawlor, “Whalley! my dear friend,

My* *sage advice to you I’ll lend,

As you this bet will win no doubt,

I’ll shew you how to lay it out;

And Moore *, that dirty whelp,

I’m sure will lend a help;

With box and dice, my buck,

We’ll all have charming luck.”

Next Heydon in her vis-a-vis

With paint and n’bbons, smile and glee;

As aide-de-camp, close by her side,

Long Bob ** the Turkey-cock did ride;

And Guilford’s Lord *** came next,

Who seemed extremely vext,

To see the Lady’s nob

So very close to Bob.

Original note (a) “Earl of D.,” *i.e. *the Earl of Drogheda. The uncomplimentary epithet is possibly not unconnected with the fact that Lord Drogheda (who was in the Army, and afterwards Field Marshal) had been sent in 1762 to disturbed districts in the province of Munster in command of a military force, by whom many of the insurgents were stated to have been killed *(Grattan’s Memoirs, *2nd series, i., p. xi., seq.).

** Original note (1) ” Uniacke.” In all probability Col. Robert Uniacke, M.P. Youghal, Surveyor-General of Ordnance (1800). He was High Sheriff, Co. Waterford, in 1782, and then opposed to a union with England. Became a strong Unionist later. “He was at times stationed at the back-door entrance into the House of Commons, to let Members in or out, *as circumstances required - an *office to which his bodily strength and vigour were particularly adapted ” (Barrington’s *Historic Anecdotes, i., *342). He is stated to have been “connected with Lord Clare” *(Grattan’s Alemoirs *vol; v. See *ib., *iii., 453, and Burke’s *Landed Gentry, *ed. 1847, p. 1456).

*** Lord Gill ford, eldest son of Earl of Clanwilliam, the former next-door neighbour of Thos. C. Whaley.

VI.

Then came French valets two and two,

By garlick you’d have smelt the crew;

And large as any Shetland hog,

Came Watch, the black Newfoundland dog.

A Swiss bore in the train

A baboon with a chain;

The strip’d post-chaise came by,

With Zara and with Fly *.

VII.

In phaeton and six, high rear’d,

Dudley Loftus ** next appeared:

A monkey perched was by his side,

Which looked, for all the world, his bride.

Poor Singleton in black

Upon a dirty hack,

With heavy heart mov’d on

To see his friend begone.

VIII.

Against the council Whalley went

Of brother-in-law Fitz Petulant ***,

And Mr. Fitz felt sorrow more,

Than when he went to fight with Orr.

John Whalley his next heir,

With streaming eyes was there,

For *fear *his brother Tom

Should ne’er return home.

Tol lol lol lol tol lol.

IX.

And now behold upon the strand,

This cargo for the Holy Land,

Bears, lap-dogs, monkeys, French men, - ,

Bear-leaders, and dependants poor.

Black Mark loung’d **** in the crew,

He’d nothing else to do:

Peg Plunket ***** on her horse

Was surely there of course.

Original note *(c) *“Two lap-dogs.”

** Probably the same person as mentioned in verse II. See Burke’s *Landed Gentry, *1847, p. 758.

*** Fitzgibbon, who seems to have been known by this sobriquet - see *Lessons to a Young Chancellor, or a Letter from Mentor to Lord Jeffreys, Baron Petulant of the Kingdom of Barataria, *1792.

****** Possibly Marcus Beresford (eldest son of Rt. Hon, John Beresford), M.P. Dungarvan, 1783; called to the Bar 1786. Baron Hamilton, writing to his father in March, 1787, refers to him as “my companion *Mark”; *while the next line in the ballad may allude to his very junior standing as a barrister *(Beresford Correspondence, i., *321).

***** A lady somewhat notorious for her indiscretions at this period. She was daughter of a Mr. Plunket, of Killough, Co. West Meath, and married a Mr. Leeson. Her autobiography was published under the title *of Memoirs of Mrs. Margaret Leeson, *2 vols,, Dublin, 1795.

His creditors, poor men, were there,

And in their looks you’d see despair,

For bailiffs he cared not a louse,

Because you know “he’s in the House.”

Cuff from the Barrack Board *

Swore by great Temple’s Lord **,

This action to requite,

Tom should be dubb’d a Knight.

Rt. Hon. James Cuff M.P., Superintendent-General of Barracks and Treasurer to the Barrack Board, afterwards Lord Tyrawley. See Beresford Correspondence, ii., 69, and *Complete Peerage; *vii., 443.

** George Nugent Grenville Temple, Marq. of Buckingham, then Lord Lieutenant.

XI.

There came along with Jemmy Cuff

As Commissaire! Sir Paddy Puff *,

Ben Arthure ** fam’d for bounty rare,

(But that is neither here or there).

Sir King *, and fisty Ben **

Are both hard honest men.

It cost them nought - and so

They went to see the show.

“Sir Paddy Puff” and “Sir King” are the same, *viz. *Sir Patrick King, Knt., a commissary of the Muster Master General.

** Benedict Arthur - the same who is called “fisty* *Ben” two lines later.

XII

The Boxing Bishop *, and at his back,

Jack Coffee **, alias Paddy Whack.

His Grace had come (long may he live!)

His benediction for to give.

He trod (though did not know)

On Napper Tandy’s ***toe,

Who lent his Grace a clout,

And so they boxed it out.

Tradition says that there was a pugilist bishop of the Beresford family in the 18th century, so the reference is perhaps to the Rt. Rev. William Beresford, then Bishop of Ossory, afterwards Archbishop of Tuam, and first Lord Decies. He married Elizabeth, sister of Rt. Hon. John Fitzgibbon. Possibly, however, Dr. Robert Fowler, then Archbishop of Dublin, may be the person alluded to, as would appear to be the case from some lines in a contemporary publication already mentioned, *Both Sides of the Gutter, *p.123

Their Lordships the bishops, men of learning and parts,

In composing of prayrs have been breaking their hearts;

And his good Grace of D--- quits money affairs,

And boxing his Clergy-for thanksgiving pray’rs.

** Perhaps John Coffey, who appears amongst the attorneys in the Directory of the day.

*** James Napper Tandy, the well-known rebel. He had a more serious conflict with the Beresford family afterwards, a prosecution being instituted against him in 1793 for a seditious pamphlet containing, amongst other things, severe strictures on that family, with a list of their places and pensions. He fled the country before the trial came on.

XIII.

Now all embarked, this motley crew

Each minute lessened to the view;

Arid soon will plough the boisterous main,

Wealth, honour, and renown to gain.

Jerus’lem’s barren lands,

And Egypt’s dreary sands,

Like wandering pilgrims roam

To bring much knowledge home.

XIV.

From Cork see Tom Fitzgerald * steers,

His boat now trimmed in its best geers,

To give Beau Whalley an escort,

And see him safely out of port.

And in a fishing boat,

Astern was Lundy Foot **,

With all his penny boys

To make a roaring noise.

Possibly Major Thomas Fitzgerald, one of the Delegates from Co. Cork to the National Convention, 1783 *(Grattan’s Memoirs, *iii., 467).

** A tobacconist who had risen to wealth and eminence at the time. It is said that when he first set up as a man of society in Dublin, fearing the laughter of the populace, he requested Curran to write a Latin motto for the coat-of-arms he intended to put on his carriage. The wit suggested “Quid rides.”

Considering the early age at which Whaley was removed from school, he seems to have acquired no inconsiderable amount of education. He was certainly an observant and intelligent traveller, and in spite of many distractions, must have spent much of his time in noting down such descriptive details as he has preserved of his visits to Gibraltar, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Jerusalem, and other places of interest. At Rome, he tells us that he spent eight hours a day for two months “in viewing whatever was worthy the notice of a traveller.”

The sketches he made during his wanderings, which were, however, unfortunately lost, point to the possession of some artistic ability; and his allusions to ancient history and mythology, his occasional quotations from the Latin poets, together with some evidence of a knowledge of Greek, all go to show that he retained something more than a mere schoolboy smattering of the classics. Where he chiefly fails as a writer is in the spelling of foreign names of places, some of which, as he gives them, are quite impossible to identify.

The Memoirs were, however, compiled from notes made here and there through his travels, often, no doubt, in a hurried manner, and from casual information gathered by the way, and when after the lapse of some years he came to transcribe his disjointed memoranda, he had probably forgotten the less-known names, and may have been out of the reach of such books as would have enabled him to show more correctness in this branch of orthography.

Not unconnected with the subject of his general attainments in the way of education, there is one feature of the Memoirs which is deserving of more than a passing notice. He gives in his pages exact copies of several inscriptions, which he took from the original slabs or tombstones in Jerusalem as they then appeared, although saying nothing as to what led him into this branch of archaeology, one seldom touched on by any but those who have devoted some serious study to matters of the kind.

It might be suggested, and with plausibility, that his reproductions of these ancient writings were intended to be used as further proofs of his having been in the Holy City, and with a view to convincing the friends who had wagered against his getting there. But the honesty of his confession of the purpose for which he obtained the certificates given to him by the Superiors of the conventual establishments at Jerusalem and Nazareth show that such suggestions are unnecessary.

The importance of his readings of these early inscriptions lies in the fact that many of them are now no longer in existence, their destruction in 1808, just 20 years after he had copied them, having been effected by the Greek churchmen on the spot in their anxiety to get rid of all evidence that the Holy Sepulchre had ever been in the possession of the Latin, or Western, Church. Two of the inscriptions which Whaley transferred to his pages are to be found in the *Itinerary *of Fynes Moryson (London 1617), although the fact does not seem to have been noticed by the chief authorities who have written on the subject; but Moryson’s readings differ from those given by Whaley, and, curiously enough, it is Whaley’s versions that turn out to be the more accurate of the two.

I have already referred to the anonymous nature of the manuscript throughout, and the skeleton form in which nearly all the names of persons are set down whose identity might lead to the discovery of the author. The texture of the veil is, however, so extremely thin as to be almost transparent. The work, as originally penned, obviously gave the *real *initials of all the individuals whose names are hinted at; but when the manuscript came to be edited, it was evidently considered that the disguise was one too easy to be seen through, and we find that, at any rate in the first volume, the initials originally written have in many cases been erased, and others of a misleading kind have been introduced in their stead.

This tampering with the original text must, I think, have occurred subsequently to Whaley’s marriage - possibly even after his death-the substituted letters being in a different, and what is manifestly a *feminine *hand. Amongst the changes effected in this way are the letters “W. M.” as the initials of the author, written over an erasure on the title-page of Vol. I., and the frequent substitution of “Mr. N.” as descriptive of Mr. Richardson, Whaley’s stepfather, in places where “Mr. R.” had obviously been previously written.

The latter alteration has, however, been forgotten in some instances, even in Vol. I.; and, as already mentioned, Whaley’s full name occurs in the same volume at page 224. Another important change effected in the text has to do with Whaley’s relations with his “lady companion.” By a stroke of the pen she is made his “wife” early in the first volume, although in the second volume she is merely a “companion or” friend -“except in a solitary instance where she is referred to as “Mrs. W-,” indicative, I fancy, of the assumed character under which she passed when living with him in Paris. Other similar amendments of the original text are referred to in the foot-notes as they occur.

Whoever the editor may have been, his (or her) hand seems to have been stayed before even the first volume was ready for the printer; the second volume is, as a matter of fact, untampered with; even such tell-tale phrases as “my brother-in-law, the Chancellor” being left untouched. The difficulty of preserving the desired incognito of the persons referred to, and of the hero in particular, may have led to the discontinuance of the work.

Family considerations would of themselves have supplied a good reason for keeping it unpublished; and there was one, at least, of high and influential position at the time who can hardly have been anxious to give the public an opportunity of gloating over the eccentricities of his wife’s brother.

Lord Clare may, in all probability, be assumed to have taken stringent measures to keep the manuscript from the eyes of the world, much in the same way as, at a later date, Lord Brougham took care that certain inconvenient portions of the *Greevey Papers, *popularly supposed to have contained reflections of a compromising character upon persons then living, should not be allowed even to reach the hands of Creevey’s executors. Clare’s taking such a course is not rendered more unlikely by the fact of his having given orders when dying for the destruction of his own papers, a thing that we have reason to believe he did. [Dict. Nat. Biog.]

While engaged in correcting the proofs of the Memoirs, I became aware of the existence of two other manuscripts connected with the subject of Whaley’s life and travels. The first of these, brought to my notice by its owner, Mr. T. C. Greenfield of Sutton, Surrey, is contained in two plainly bound 4to volumes, and is to all intents and purposes a duplicate of my own, although the actual wording is occasionally different. It was given to the present owner some 20 years ago, together with some notes in reference to Buck Whaley, by a Dr. Orlando Thomas Dobbin, an Irish book-collector, but without any information as to how it had come into his possession. I refer to it hereafter for brevity as MS. No. 2. It is without a title-page, or other indication of authorship, and the “Notice” is missing. It begins:

“After having made the tour of Europe, etc.,” but some earlier leaves have obviously been removed from their places. The Jerusalem inscriptions are wanting, the Nazareth Certificate, and also the numbered items descriptive of the contents of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Proper names of persons are represented by initials; and erasures occur, at least in the first few pages, even more frequently than in my copy. It is quite possible that this MS. is in Whaley’s own handwriting; but if so it would seem to be a late copy, as the paper upon which it is written is water-marked “1799” all through. It may indeed have been the identical transcript prepared by Whaley himself for the press when he was about to publish the Memoirs, unwilling possibly that the handsomely bound copy should be used for such a purpose.

The alterations which have been made in the text were evidently subsequent in date to Whaley’s time, and the words which are occasionally substituted for passages crossed out are all in a lady’s hand. Attention is drawn to these passages in the foot-notes later on.

On the whole, the contents of this MS. are somewhat shorter than as they are given in my copy, although in one notable instance there is quite a long account of an episode in Cyprus which is not even alluded to in my version. This will be found in the Appendix.

On the other hand, the very full account of Cyprus given in the pages following has practically no place in MS. No. 2; and indeed, so far as Cyprus is concerned, the journeys and incidents as described in the two narratives might very well be journeys made by two different travellers. Another remarkable feature of MS. No. 2 is that in it the amount stated to have been staked on the journey to Jerusalem is put at £25,000, while in my copy it is only £15,000, a discrepancy for which it is difficult to suggest any reasonable explanation.

Some other variations will be found noted from time to time as they occur.

If this MS. No. 2 was not the copy intended for the printer, as I have suggested, it may perhaps have been a duplicate made for the use of Whaley’s intimate friends, who might naturally be supposed to have been more interested in his actual adventures than in the results of his archaeological researches, and for whose benefit the work was possibly docked of its drier details but even on this supposition it is hard to account for the omission of the Certificate which established the fact that the traveller had visited the Holy Land. Mr. Greenfield has been kind enough to give me many opportunities of inspecting his MS. and for this and other assistance I am much indebted to him.

hughmoore.jpg (19482 bytes)The second additional MS. has an interest and importance of quite another kind, being an independent account of the Journey to Jerusalem written by Capt. Hugh Moore (pictured, left), Buck Whaley’s travelling companion from Gibraltar to the Holy City, and from thence back to Dublin. This MS. was written on board ship, as the writer mentions, and it has been preserved in the author’s family ever since. Mr. H. Armytage Moore, of Rowallane, Co. Down, the grandson of the writer, has generously lent it to me for the purpose of supplementing and completing Whaley’s own account of this portion of the Memoirs.

A peculiar value is given to this MS. by the fact that in it there is no attempt to conceal the names of the persons with whom the travellers came in contact; and with its assistance I have been enabled to fill up a large number of blanks which occur in Whaley’s narrative, or to confirm conjectural additions which I had already made from other sources of information.

Some extracts from the original will be found in the Appendix. It commences at Gibraltar on the 6th November, 1788, and covers much the same ground as Whaley’s journal as far as St. Jean d’Acre on the return journey from Jerusalem. Here it comes to an end somewhat abruptly. That it is incomplete is shown by the interesting Itinerary which is found on one of its last pages, and which contains a *résumé *of the entire journey, with dates and distances, from Gibraltar to Jerusalem and from thence to Dublin.

The language used in this journal of Capt. Moore is quite different from Whaley’s; but now and again there are passages which show that one of the writers must have copied from the other, or that both had incorporated material derived from a common source. Moore’s account of Constantinople, its public buildings, antiquities, and other objects of interest, occupying some 40 pages of the MS., is all in French, transcribed, as he says himself, from “an Itineraire” made by Mons. Grand, “a young Frenchman of observation” to whom he had been introduced by Sir Robert Ainslie, the British Ambassador at the time. By way of explanation for its insertion, he states that he had himself been prevented from getting more than a cursory view of the Turkish capital owing to his constant attendance upon his comrade Whaley, who was an invalid during most of the time they spent there. Whaley’s own description of much that he saw in Constantinople must necessarily have been derived largely from second-hand information, as he was obviously less able to go about the city than Capt. Moore.

A particularly interesting page of this journal is the one on which is pasted the original certificate of having visited Nazareth, with the seal of the Convent of St. Mary attached. This document is reproduced in facsimile at page 224. The original of the more important Jerusalem certificate seems also to have been preserved at one time in this volume, but the leaf to which it was attached has unfortunately been torn out of the book.

In the matter of inscriptions, Hugh Moore seems to have been even more of an antiquarian than Whaley, setting out, as he does, many of those which were then to be seen in Constantinople, in Greek, Latin and Russian, while his readings of those at Jerusalem are fuller at times than the versions given by his companion. Here again Capt. Moore was sometimes indebted to others, as he acknowledges, both for the originals and the renderings which occasionally accompany them.

I am under a further debt of obligation to Mr. Armytage Moore for the photograph of Capt. Moore’s portrait, which is reproduced.

I have taken as few liberties as possible with the original text of Whaley’s manuscript, the changes introduced being mainly directed to the correction of faulty punctuation, the cancellation of constantly recurring capital letters, and the occasional modernising of the spelling.

In some rare cases where Whaley’s language is somewhat too outspoken, I have indicated omissions from the original by asterisks. Any words added to the text will be found enclosed in square brackets [ ].

In addition to those already mentioned as assisting me in the editing of these Memoirs, I desire to express my thanks for aid and information to Mr. W. G. Wood, of Streatham; Mr. John Whaley, of Annsboro, Naas, co. Kildare; Miss Whaley, of Malahide, co. Dublin; Mr. Thomas Cunnellon, T.C., Knutsford; the Manageress, Fort Anne Hotel, Douglas; Mr. Horace Headlam, of the Public Record Office, London; the Assistant Librarian, Royal United Service Institution, Whitehall; the Librarian of the Foreign Office; Mr. F. Elrington Ball, of Dublin; and the Secretary of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

EDWARD SULLIVAN.

*January, *1906.

[Henry Whaley, son of Edward the Regicide, came to Ireland in 1658 with a letter of introduction from Oliver Cromwell to Henry Cromwell, then Lord Deputy. The original is in the possession of Mr. John Whaley of Annsboro, co. Kildare. *

Letter from Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector.*

“Harry Cromwell - I write not often to you. Now I think my selfe ingaged to my deare Cousin Whaley to lay my comands upon you that you shew all lovinge respect to his eldest sonn, by his present Ladye, whom you are to receave in the room of his eldest brother both into his comand and into your affection. I assure you though hee bee soe neerly to us as you know, yett I would not importune on his behalfe soe heartily as now I can upon the scoare of his owne worth, wch indeed is as remarkable as I believe in any of 10,000 of his yeares. Hee is excellent in the Latine, ffrench, aud Italiane toungues, of good other learninge wth partes suitable, and (wch compleates this testimonie) is hopefully seasoned with religious principles. lett him be much wth you, and use him as yr owne. being most serious in this desire, and expecting a suitable returne there unto,

“I rest your lovinge Father

” Oliver P.

“my love to your deare wife and to the two babes.

“June 1, 1568.

“(Endorsed) 1 June 1658. His Highness cconserning Capt. Whaly.”

The reasons for the advancement of Henry Whaley “in the room of his eldest brother” (John) will be found on referring to the *Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, *where documents are given from which it appears that Capt. John Whaley, a few days before the date of the above letter, had incurred the Protector’s displeasure by fighting a duel with the Earl of Chesterfield, in consequence of which both combatants were committed to the Tower. The Petition of Capt. Whaley, dated 15th June, 1658, to Cromwell, contains a touching reference to the writer’s recent marriage:

“[He] would submit to his confinement were he alone concerned, but he has newly entered into a condition wherein his suffering will as nearly become another’s affliction as his own and is anxious to avoid the unhappiness which a longer separation may produce.”

Another document set out in the *State Papers (Ireland, *1647-1660. *Addenda, *p.700), mentions him as “being displaced for deboistnesse.”

Many members of the Whaley family are described in contemporary records as being interested as Adventurers in the double ordinance and as getting grants of land in Ireland. Henry Whaley, the Judge Advocate, in this way became seized of several denominations of land in the liberties of Galway and also in the barony and liberties of Athenry, for which his son John, after his father’s death, passed patent under the Acts of Settlement (Lodge, *Peerage of Ireland, *vi. 71).

I have not been able to discover the relationship, if any, of Richard Whaley (husband of Elizabeth. Chappell) to Cromwell’s cousins, but he may well have been connected with them. Sir Walter Scott erroneously refers to the Regicide Whaley as *Richard (Peveril of the Peak, *Cadell’s Ed., 1838, p. 266 and note).

See Noble’s *Memoirs of the Protectorate-House of Cromwell; The Visitations of the County of Nottingham, *1569 and 1614 (Harleian Society Publications, 1871); *Familiae Minorum Gentium, vol. *iv. (Harl. Soc..); Lodge’s *peerage of Ireland *(Archdale), vol. vi.; Sir Wm. Betham’s MS. Pedigrees, Brit. Mus.; Do. MS. Pedigrees in Ulster’s Office, Dublin; MS. *Visitation of Nottinghamsheire, by Sr. Rich. St. george Ny King of Arms in *1614, Brit. Mus. (Harl.); Nichol’s *Leicestershire, *ii. 736; *Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, *1650-1660, *passim; *and *Notes and Queries, *5th Series, iii. 591 5th Series, v.463-4; vii. 81; viii. 177 and 358.]

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