society, and took part in some of these extraordinary freaks in which the young aristocracy loved to indulge. He carried to Cambridge the same wildness which distinguished him at Westminister; and was rusticated for throwing some obnoxious personage into the Cam. The Duke of Manchester gave him a commission in the Grenadiers of the Huntingdon Militia, and, whilst a Captain in that regiment, he obtained considerable éclat by swimming in his full regimentals, with a fusee slung at his back, from Gossport to Plymouth. His college and military life abound in none, but trivial details, like these. During his college career, he accepted the post of secretary to Sir Charles Montague, who was governor of South Carolina. With him he sailed to Charleston, where, however, he remained only three months. In his autobiography, he gives us no reason for his return, which he notices thus : Having spent nearly three months at Charleston, I got a passage from Captain Hayward to England, on board the Swallow; taking with me a racoon, an oppossum and a young bear. After a very rough passage, I landed at Portsmouth-my racoon dead, my bear washed overboard, and my opossum lost in the cable tier-and I returned to Cambridge." The character of Rowan was given in the World newspaper by Topham Beauclere, who was a contemporary of his at Cambridge, and who published a series of characters of the different young men about London who had been educated at Westminister and Eton. The following extracts will serve to show the estimate, in which he was held by his fashionable intimates : "With more than boyish aptitudes and abilities, he should not have been lost amongst boys. His incessant intrepidity, his restless curiosity, his undertaking spirit, all indicated early maturity-all should have led to pursuits, if not better, at least of more spirit and moment, than the mere mechanism of the dead languages. "Besides, Hamilton was to be found in every daring oddity. Lords Burlington and Kent, in all their rage for pediments, were nothing to him in a rage for pediments. For often has the morning caught him scaling the high pediments of the school door, and, at the peril of his life, clambering down, opening the door within, before the boy who kept the gate came with the key.* His evenings set upon no less perils ; in pranks with gunpowder, in leaping from unusual heights into the Thames! "Had he been sent to Woolwich, he might have come out, if not a This is wretched stuff; but it shows the description of society and the pursuits of the future politician, who was foremost in teaching, and in suffering for, the bold and noble doctrines of "Universal Emancipation."-ED. rival of the Duke of Richmond, at least a first-rate engineer. In economic arts and improvements, nothing less than national, he might have been the Duke of Bridgewater of Ireland. Had the sea been his profession, Lord Mulgrave might have been less alone in the rare union of science and enterprize. "To Cambridge, therefore, he went; where, having pursued his studies, as it is called, in a ratio inverse and descending, he might have gone on from bad to worse, and so, as many do, putting a grave face upon it, he might have had his degree. But his animal spirits and love of bustle could not go off thus undistinguished; and so, after coolly attempting to throw a tutor into the Cam-after shaking all Cambridge from its propriety, by a night's frolic, in which he climbed the signposts and changed the principal signs, he was rusticated until the good humour of the University returning, he was readmitted and enabled to satisfy his grandfather's will.* Through the intercourse of private life, he is very amiable. The same suavity of speech, courteous attentions, and general good nature he had when a boy, are continued and improved. Good qualities the more to be prized as the less probable from his bold and eager temper, from the turbulence of his wishes and the hurry of his pursuits." If all this affected description be true, and there is no reason to doubt it, as we find it copied, without any disclaimer in Rowan's Autobiography, it presents to us the image of a gay young man, leading fashion in fashion's silliest shapes, and fitter to be the founder of the modern school of aristocratic rioters, than to be the grave and energetic reformer of political grievances, and the martyr of strong and generous convictions; but still with good qualities that promised a release, sooner or later, from the giddiness of his youthful pursuits. He continued, however, for some years, the career which his rank, fortune and disposition opened to him; and having visited France during the period of the American war, he met with George Robert Fitzgerald, and enjoyed the unenviable honour of acting as his friend in a duel which he fought with Major Baggs, in which both principals behaved badly, and both were severely wounded. The French authorities made a great deal of noise about the matter, but in the end did nothing, and Mr. Rowan escaped the consequences of his folly. Shortly after this last feat, he was appointed by the Marquis de Pombal, then minister in Portugal, to a lieutenant-colonelcy in the Portuguese service, but the Marquis having been disgraced, Mr. Rowan never served, and spent the next few years in the gratification of a roving habit of mind-visited Tangiers, and became intimate with its * Mr. Rowan had directed him to graduate in Cambridge. governor-went to Paris and amused himself to the top of his bent; in fact, went everywhere, saw everything, and did a great many eccentricities, which he details with amusing simplicity in his Autobiography. The period, however, was come, when, if he did not altogether throw aside the wild habit of his youth, the first step was taken, and the foundation was laid of a future course of useful exertion and honourable suffering. Speaking of this period, he says: "When I mentioned my mother's family at Pinnel, I alluded to a young Irish lady, then a visitor with her. I should explain how Miss Dawson had become almost an inmate in her family-my mother had the strongest friendship for her father, Walter Dawson, Esq., of Lisanisk, near Carrickmacross; this gentleman had determined to give a London education to Sarah Anne, his only daughter, who was possessed of great personal beauty and innate elegance of manner; and, at the age of thirteen, he brought her over from Ireland, and placed her at one of the most celebrated schools. During the vacation she resided with my mother, who thus became extremely attached to her; and when, at the age of sixteen, she left school, and had not yet returned to her parents; my sister's absence made her affection and society more than ever necessary to my mother. At my mother's earnest entreaty, Miss Dawson consented to accompany her to France. I saw in her so much good sense and propriety, in many different and embarrassing situations, that I determined on offering her my hand, and wrote to her father in Ireland for his permission, to which he consented, and in 1781, we were married by the Dutch Ambassador's chaplain in Paris, and for the purpose of registry we set out immediately for London where we were married a second time, in St. James's parish church, from my mother's house in Great Marlborough-street." He returned to Paris, and resided with his mother in a house which she had taken from Lord Southwell, where his eldest son, Gawin Hamilton, was born. He remained for two years in France after his marriage, and after the expiration of that period came to reside in Ireland. He purchased Rathcoffey, in the county of Kildare, in 1784. Nor did his active mind remain long unemployed, though its activity found occupation altogether different from scaling pediments, fighting duels, or swimming tutors. Before he was long in Ireland he strenuously took up the case of Mary Neale, a young girl of fourteen years of age, who had been grossly abused in the house of a Mrs. Lewellyn, and whose abuser was one in high station. The woman was prosecuted and sentenced to death, and one Edgeworth, who had induced a girl to swear a robbery against Neale, his wife, and the injured child, was also tried and sentenced to a year's imprisonment and the pillory. These wretches were fit objects for the mercy of the Government, and received a pardon, to the amazement and indignation of the public, who felt the iniquity of the interference more keenly as it was supposed that the infamous Lord Carhampton, (who was suspected of being a principal in the transaction), had influenced Lord Westmorland to this abuse of mercy.* This was resisted by Mr. Rowan, and his opposition to this extension of pardon to such atrocious criminals, together with his active exertions in bringing them to justice, earned for him a considerable share of popular affection, and general esteem. Sir Jonah Barrington, in his Personal Sketches, gives a ludicrous account of the excess to which Mr. Rowan carried his enthusiam on the part of Mary Neale; but Sir Jonah's statements are rather more valuable for their wit, than their truth. One passage is worth preserving, as a description of Mr. Rowan, done in the broad style of caricature for which Barrington is celebrated—“ A man who might serve as a model for Hercules; his gigantic limbs conveying the idea of almost supernatural strength; his shoulders, arms, and broad chest were the very emblems of muscular energy; and his flat, rough countenance, overshadowed by enormous dark eyebrows, and deeply furrowed by strong lines of vigor and fortitude, completed one of the finest, yet most formidable figures I ever beheld." Mr. Rowan entered the ranks of the Volunteers, as a private, in his father's Company, at Killyleagh, and attended the last review of that body which took place in the plain of the Falls near Belfast, on the 12th and 13th of July, 1784, and was appointed by the line to present an address, (which he had drawn up himself,) to Lord Charlemont, "from a body of armed citizens determined to continue that association." The Earl of Charlemont—always elegant, and always weak, a hero-bigot-declined to receive the address; but said that they would shortly meet in their civil capacity and pass an address to Parliament for a reform of abuses. Rowan made a characteristic reply, "that citizens with Brown Bess on their shoulders were more likely to be attended to." In May, 1786, he was elected to command the Killyleagh Volunteers. In every political movement, and * The following lines were written at the time :— PETITION OF THE STATUE OF JUSTICE ON THE CASTLE GATE. Since Justice is now but a pageant of state, Remove me, I pray you, from this Castle gate, On the front of their prison, or hell let me dwell in, † Autobiography of A. H. Rowan, 117. every military display of the national army, he took an active part. It suited the character of his mind, and the tone of his politics. Brave and impetuous, an ardent lover of liberty; he delighted in the display of armed citizens, by whose courage and constancy he vainly hoped that she might be boldly attained, and nobly preserved. In 1790, he became a member of the Northern Whig Club, formed under the sanction of Lord Charlemont, and mainly by the exertions of Dr. Halliday, a man of great wit and general attainments; and at a later period he joined the Society of United Irishmen. He entered warmly into their views, made the acquaintance of the leading men of that party, and was soon himself one of the most popular persons in the Union. His connection with them led to the circumstances disclosed in the following memorable trial-memorable for being amongst the first attacks of Government upon the society, and memorable too for the splendid ability with which the doctrines of universal freedom were defended by John Philpot Curran―a name never to be mentioned in Ireland, but with pride and affection. The libel for which Mr. Rowan was prosecuted will be found set out in the ex officio information filed by the Attorney-General. It was a paper addressed by the United Irishmen to the Volunteers, and was circulated at a meeting of the Dublin Volunteers, held in Cope-street, at the house of a fencing master. It is unnecessary to give any detail of the circumstances, which appear in full in the testimony of the witnesses for the crown. Mr. Rowan was inclined to employ none but barristers who were members of the Union, to defend him; but Messrs. Emmet and Butler, conceiving themselves too junior for the conduct of so grave a case, declined, and at the special instance of Mrs. Rowan, Curran was retained on this understanding, (to which he alludes in his speech) that he should employ his talents more in defence of the paper than on any minor subject.* The trial came off on the 29th January, 1794, and Mr. Rowan was found guilty. A motion for a new trial having been unsuccessfully made, he was called up, and Mr. Justice Boyd pronounced the sentence of the Court of King's Bench, that Mr. Rowan should pay a fine of £500, and be imprisoned for two years, and that he should find security for good behaviour for seven years, himself in the sum of two thousand pounds, and two others in one thousand each. Mr. Rowan was committed to Newgate, and his situation was rendered as agreeable as it could well be made, under the circumstances. His conviction having been calculated upon, it is told by the editor of his Autobiography, that some respectable adherents of Government antici Autobiography of A. H. Rowan, 184. |