II. 1728 Crosbie, who in 1600 was made Bishop of Ardfert by CHAP. Queen Elizabeth. The Bishop bought estates in the country, which his son increased by good management and a judicious alliance. Sir Thomas, his grandson, a staunch loyalist, was knighted by Ormond. He was twice married, and left behind him eight sons and one daughter. Daniel Crosbie, the eldest, inherited the family property at Ardfert. From him it passed to Sir Maurice, who married a Fitzmaurice, a daughter of Lord Kerry, and, at the time to which our story relates, was member for the county in the Irish Parliament. Sir Maurice, it will be remembered, was one of the magistrates before whom Sylvester O'Sullivan was brought at Killarney. Thomas Crosbie, Sir Maurice's uncle, the eldest son of Sir Thomas by his second marriage, succeeded to the estates at Ballyhige, which had belonged to his mother. Like the rest of the family he was a fierce High Churchman,' and sate with the Knight of Kerry for the borough of Dingle. He too had married into the peerage, his wife, Lady Margaret, being sister of the Earl of Barrymore. Another Crosbie, a cousin William, was member for Ardfert. Arthur, a cousin also, was Commissioner of the Customs, and had a son who married a daughter of Lord Mornington, the Honourable Fanny Wesley or Wellesley. The family, which was became the actors in one 1 "Those of the Old Church, which they call the High one, are in expectation that either Mr. Meredith, a very honest English gentleman, or Mr. Crosbie, of Ballyhige, are pricked as sheriffs by my Lord Chief Justice, because they were never yet thus highly connected, sheriffs, and that they are High III. BOOK episodes of Irish history in the last century; and the story of it illustrates how much could be ventured with impunity in that country by persons who commanded so many votes in the Parliament. 1729 Ballyhige was at this time a long straggling house, built low to avoid the storms, and thatched, which was a proof of confidence in the people, and a sign that the owner had no reason to fear incendiaries. On the east side was a large fruit and kitchen garden; on the west, attached by a wall to the main building, was a square stone fire-proof tower of unknown antiquity. Between the house and the sea there had been run up a set of cabins forming a court or quadrangle, and occupied by workmen; for Mr. Crosbie, being a man of enterprise, had erected a linen factory there, and was doing a thriving business, with a Scotchman named Dalrymple for a foreman. Behind the factory the ground sloped away to the sandhills, and thence to the shore. It so happened that, in the autumn of the year 1728, a Danish East Indiaman, the Golden Lion, having on board twelve chests of silver bullion, which she was bringing home from the East, was driven by foul weather into the Bay of Tralee.1 The wind falling round to the north-west, and blowing dead on the land, she was unable to extricate herself, and at five in the morning of the 28th of October she grounded, in the shallow water, half a mile from shore. She had eighty-eight men on board, and she carried twenty-two guns. When first seen the evening before the wreck, she had been taken for a privateer. Her character and 1 Local tradition says that she was tempted in by false lights. The charge rose probably from the habits of a later generation, and is certainly unjust. In the contemporary depositions there is not a hint of anything of the kind. the value of her cargo, however, were very soon known. As the tide went back a mob of wreckers and smugglers assembled, who, under pretence of giving help, would have soon disabled and overwhelmed the confined and half-drowning crew. But Mr. Crosbie turned out with his servants and workmen, drove away the people, assisted the captain and sailors to land with their bullion chests, and carried them into the shelter of Ballyhige. The ship was lost. All her company and everything of value which she had on board were saved. The silver coined and in bars was worth nineteen or twenty thousand pounds.' Mr. Crosbie showed only the most honourable desire to preserve the property which had been recovered for its lawful owners. He deposited the chests in a cellar, gave the commander, Captain Heitmann, an acknowledgment for their delivery into his charge, and allowed the Danes themselves to keep guard on the place where the treasure was deposited. The exposure on the morning of the wreck was unfortunately fatal to him. He caught a severe cold from standing in the water, and being an old man he died in a few weeks. A claim was put in for salvage by his executors, seemingly exaggerated, for in December an order was sent from Dublin Castle to the Tralee Custom House to protect the Danes from extortion; but, until the question was settled, they were not permitted to remove the treasure, and Captain Heitmann was made uneasy at the tone in which the subject was talked of in the county. Mr. Crosbie's funeral drew together a crowd from all The purchasing power of money being more than double what it is at present. СНАР. II. 1729 BOOK III. 1729 parts of the neighbourhood. The Irish were present there in overwhelming numbers, and their general tone was reckless and menacing. The rejection of the salvage claims had been resented in the household, and the servants' ideas on rights of property were evidently loose. The Captain at last asked Lady Margaret to make over to him the detached stone tower, in which he could lodge his seamen, and have the treasure with him under the same roof. Lady Margaret refused. She wanted one at least, she said, of the rooms in the tower for her own purposes. She permitted the chests, however, to be buried in the tower cellar in a position unknown to any one except her butler. The hole was filled in with broken glass and crockery, and earth was thrown over it. The greater number of the crew went away. Ten or twelve who remained were lodged in the tower garret, a sentinel was stationed at the door at the foot of the staircase, while Captain Heitmann himself continued Lady Margaret's guest in the castle itself. The months passed on; spring followed winter. The salvage difficulty could not be settled, and the unusual presence in Kerry of so large a quantity of money, over the ownership of which meanwhile some uncertainty was supposed to hang, set the whole county in agitation. The name of the Vicar-General of the diocese now re-appears. The Rev. Francis Lawder resided but a few miles from Ballyhige. Towards the middle of April, Mr. Lawder's steward was superintending a party of labourers, who were thrashing out corn, when a stranger entered the barn and whispered something to the steward, who went away with him. The same evening the steward told the labourers that there was II. 1729 a plan on foot to carry off the Danes' treasure, and CHAP asked if they cared to take a part in it. The exploit was tempting; but whether it might be safely ventured depended on the opinion of the county. If all ranks were implicated, none would be punished; a small party would be discovered and hanged. They asked whether the gentry approved. The steward answered that all the gentry had consented, except the Earl of Kerry who had not been consulted. They had promised either to be present themselves, or else to send their servants. To men to whom smuggling had become a second nature, chests of bullion recovered out of the sea had lost the character of private property; and the hesitation in paying the Crosbies' salvage claims removed the scruples of the waverers. What, however, did Lady Margaret think about it? Lady Margaret was the great person of the neighbourhood. Lady Margaret's supposed rights were the legal groundwork of the proceeding, and, without her leave, the lowest Rapparee would not stir. The Ballyhige butler, Mr. Banner, was taken into council. Banner was instructed to inform his mistress that, if she would give the word, the thing should be done, and a third or half the spoil should be her ladyship's share. Lady Margaret was neither better nor worse than other ladies and gentlemen in the county; she could not live in an atmosphere of lawlessness without contracting something of the same temperament. Had she spoken her real thoughts she would have answered like young Pompey This thou shouldst have done, And not have spoke on't. Being done unknown, I should have found it afterwards well done, But must condemn it now. |