place in which it was bestowed, and she offered, if he preferred it, to keep the chests in her own bedroom. Captain Heitmann said that the dwelling-house being thatched, and therefore liable to be fired, he thought they were safer in the tower. The officer carried back the answer. Lady Margaret had so odd a smile that he was led to ask ow she knew that there were ill designs on foot. In his own country, he said, persons revealing intended crimes were brought before a magistrate, and examined upon oath. If she had serious grounds for suspicion there ought to be a similar inquiry.

Lady Margaret said that this was not the custom in Ireland. Information might be given privately, but gentlemen did not like their names to be made public. In fact, she could say no more, but she desired to let him understand generally that mischief was in the wind.

The Danes knew not what to make of information so ambiguously given. They were strangers; most of them understood no language but their own one or two spoke English imperfectly, and Irish not at all. But they naturally assumed that in the English dominions, and under the English flag, they were in a country which respected the first principles of law. Similar warnings continued to reach them: the butler's wife told them one day they ought to be much obliged to her husband; half a hundred villains had come to her house one night, to make away with them, and, but for Mr. Banner, they would have been all murdered, and the treasure taken away. She too, pernaps, like her mistress, wished them to take precautions which should make the robbery impossible; but they only laughed at her. In the house of the sister of a peer and the widow of a member of Parliament, they refused to believe that they could be really in danger. She left them, they said afterward, "very angry."

This affair was by this time whispered over the whole country side, and, among others, reached the ears of Mr. Collis, the vicar of Tralee. Mr. Collis had not perhaps been long enough in Kerry to outgrow his prejudices. He was stopped on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of May, by one of his parishioners, who said that he desired. to consult him. The twelve chests of silver at Ballyhige were about to be carried off and divided: Lady Margaret was to have four of them; four were for the gentlemen of the county; the four remaining were to be shared among the party, who were to ex

ecute the robbery. He had himself, he said, been invited to join, and he wished to know whether it was robbery in the real sense of the world, and whether it was an act which the vicar would approve. Collis, astonished and shocked, told him that it was a monstrous piece of wickedness, and that, at all hazards, it must be prevented. He was unable to conceive that a person in Lady Margaret's position could herself be an accomplice; and not being himself acquainted with her, he desired a gentleman of Tralee, whom he knew to visit at Ballyhige, to let her know what was going on. The gentleman promised to tell her, but he understood Kerry better than the vicar of Tralee, and put it off from day to day. Collis himself at last rode over to Ballyhige, had an interview with Lady Margaret, and told her frankly that officious friends of her own, under pretense of doing her the justice which the Danes refused, were about to commit a frightful crime in her supposed interest.

Lady Margaret was polite but unsatis factory. She expressed "a great dislike" to the idea, but had evidently not realized the criminality of it. She said that she would speak to Captain Heitmann, and that the chests should be removed to her own room. It would have been more to the purpose if she had proposed to send them to the jail or barracks at Tralee. Collis left Ballyhige with more misgivings than he had brought with him.

He endeavored to impress upon

She

her before he went, that, besides robbing. there would be bloodshed and probably murder; and he seriously entreated her to forbid an act which a word from her, spoken decidedly, would certainly prevent. Lady Margaret's conscience was again moved. sent once more for the officer to whom she had spoken before. Her present informant she was able to name. Mr. Collis, of Tralee, she said, had told her that a robbery would certainly be attempted. A second time she suggested that the chests should be removed to the dwelling-house and placed under her personal charge.

Her object probably was less to prevent the robbery than to prevent a collision between the Danes and the Vicar-General's gang. The officer was still incredulous, that an act of open violence would be ventured upon strangers in the house of a gentleman of fortune, full of servants, with a linen factory swarming with workmen not a hundred yards distant. He was perhaps less satisfied that, if the chests were transferred from their present position, they might not mysteriously

disappear. He declined to let them be removed. He took the precautions of placing a second sentinel at the turret door during the night. He again begged Lady Margaret to let the Danes have the turret to themselves, and asked that some of his own ship's muskets, which were in the castle, with ball and powder, might be served out to his men. first request Lady Margaret declined; it would be inconvenient, she said, and she could not allow it. After some delay, eight or ten muskets were sent over and some balls, but, under one pretext or another, no powder was sent with them.

The

Even yet the unfortunate Danes were not seriously alarmed. The officers and seven sailors slept in the upper rooms in the turret. One of the servants occupied the apartment on the ground-floor, so that they were unable to barricade the door. They kept careful watch, however; and Captain Heitmann had so far seen no reason to move his quarters from the dwelling-house and remain with his

men.

Lady Margaret meanwhile had given her definite consent, and in keeping back the powder, she trusted that she had taken sufficient precautions to prevent bloodshed. Everybody in the house was now in the secret. Mr. Thomas Hasset came to stay at Ballyhige with a number of servants. They They were all taken into confidence. Several other gentlemen's servants were in attendance; their presence was the price they were made to pay for their share of the booty. The preparations were made with the utmost deliberation. A sloop was brought round into the bay to be at hand in case of sudden danger. the wheel-barrows and truckles, which were in the yard, to be repaired, that they might be in condition to bear a heavy load. Mr. Lawder's servants put in readiness his horses and carts. The night of the fourth of June was fixed on for the attack. The gang were to come up as before from the sea, through the sand-hills. The servants undertook that they should find all gates and doors unlocked.

The house steward sent

No fresh warning was allowed to the Danes. The officer in the turret had gone to bed, and was asleep. He was awoke at midnight by a sound of shots. A moment after one of his men was at his bedside, wounded and bleeding. The two sentries had been suddenly fired on, and had both been killed. Peterson, the wounded man, who had been with them, had dragged himself up the stairs, securing behind him the

door which divided the upper and lower stories. The officer sparng up and few with the rest to the leads. He saw the court below swarming with armed men, with guns and torches. By the flaming light he recog nized one of the Crosbie family, and more than one of the household. The Danes had but a pair of pistols and one gun with them, and no ammunition for a second charge. To fire would be to throw away their lives uselessly, so they remained behind the parapets, watching the robbers' proceedings.

Captain Heitmann, in the dwelling-house, had in a like manner been roused by the uproar. He too had darted out of bed, and had run down to the hall, where he found the family assembled. He went to the door to open it. Lady Margaret threw herself is his way, and implored him not to stir as he would be killed. He asked if she would not send some one down to rouse the factory hands. She said it was impossible. In fact they were already roused, and were at work in the court with the rest. He appealed to the servants. No one stirred. He appealed to Mr. Hassett.

Mr. Hassett sate still and made no reply. If he went out alone, he feared they would lock the door behind him, and leave him to be murdered. He flung himself, in despair, upon a bench, and sate helplessly listening to the yells and cries in

the court.

The turret door meanwhile was wide open: the cellar floor was torn up; the earth and broken bottles were cleared away, and the twelve chests were lifted out to be distributed, according to the arrangement. Beforehand the division had appeared easy. Lady Margaret was to have a third, the gentlemen a third, and the robbers a third: but the question now rose, who were the gentlemen, and who were the robbers? Were the Ballyhige servants to be paid out of their mistress's share, or out of the share of the Vicar-General's gang? The butler, the footman, the coachman, a young David Crosbie, the Scotch factory foreman, and six or seven others, all insisted that they had borne their part in the robbery, and were entitled to their part of the robbers' portion: at last they laid hold on six of the chests, and tried to carry them off. A fight began, which, had there been time to finish it, would have diminished the number of the claimants; but the gray June morning was already breaking, and for Lady Margaret's sake it was essential to prevent daylight from overtaking them before they had finished their work. Half by force, a rough partition was effected:

the Ballyhige party secured what they had seized; Lady Margaret's four chests were. buried in the garden; two were broken up and the contents rudely divided; and the Dolphin sloop sailed in the morning, with young David Crosbie and several others, who had staggered down to the shore loaded with money-bags. The six remaining chests were taken off in carts to the Vicar-General's barn. One cart broke down on the way. There was no time to repair it: the chest was opened by the roadside, and "the scum," as the rank and file of the gang were called, received their wages in handfuls of silver. Mr. Lawder's proctor had marked three, which he intended to secrete; perhaps for private and careful distribution at leisure; but the other parties interested were impatient or suspicious. Mr. Arthur Crosbie's steward came over a day or two after to inquire after the gentlemen's shares, and intimated "that it would be worse for those concerned if they were not sent." Servants came on horseback, who filled their hats and their pockets; and thus, in a short time, the whole disappeared. The strangest part of the story has now to be told. Even in Kerry it was not expected that an exploit of this kind could be passed over without a show of inquiry. The day after the robbery, Lady Margaret sent word to Mr. Chester, chief collector of the revenue, that her house had been broken into and the Danish silver stolen. Her son and her servants, she said, had attempted to trace the perpetrators, but had failed in discovering them.

The son, who was a mere lad, was not ikely to discover them. Lady Margaret, perhaps, noped that the excuse would be accepted, but the affair had been on too large a scale. The leading magistrates in the County were, Sir Maurice Crosbie, county member and high sheriff; William Crosbie, member for Ardfert; Mr. Blennerhassett, Edmund Denny and the Knight of Kerry; Mr. Blennerhassett, if not related to the Hassett who was an accomplice, certainly asisted afterwards in suppressing investigaon. The Crosbies' first duty was to their own family. The Knight had too many transactions of his own with the smugglers to be able to exert himself if he had wished Mr. Denny could not act alone in 3 matter which might bring him in deadly feud with his neighbors. The robbery was on the night of the 4th of June. A week passed. No arrests had been made, and no steps taken. On the 15th there came a sharp reprimand from Dublin from Mr. Lin

gen, the first Commissioner of the Customs. The Government, Mr. Lingen said, were at a loss to understand such extraordinary remissness in an affair of so much consequence. The magistrates were commanded to exert themselves instantly to recover the money, and "prevent the damage which would otherwise fall on the inhabitants of the neighborhood."

For decency's sake it was necessary to do something, but something which should furnish no clue to the real perpetrators. A notorious smuggler named Anderson, who had not been concerned, was taken up, and sent to Dublin to be examined. Anderson pleaded his own innocence, and of course there was no evidence against him. He could not call himself wholly ignorant of what every one knew; but when pressed by Sir Edward Southwell, the principal secretary, for the names of the parties guilty, he said, that he could mention no one in particular "unless he named the whole commonalty on that side of the county of Kerry."

If the commonalty were all implicated there was, at least, the Earl of Kerry, the lord lieutenant of the county. Carteret, the then Viceroy, was in England. The Lords Justices, Archbishop Boulter, and the Speaker Conolly, wrote in real indignation to require the Earl to bring the offenders to justice, and compel them to restore their plunder. Lord Kerry himself promised to do his best. His own hands were clean, and, for himself, he had nothing to conceal; but he acknowledged, frankly, that there would be great difficulty. He could expect no help from the magistrates. The money, he feared, was beyond recovery.

His son, Lord Fitzmaurice, if his behavior at Killarney was a specimen of his general conduct, was probably less scrupulous than his father. On Lord Fitzmaurice and the Earl, however, the responsibility was now thrown so seriously that they could not evade it. The steward and the butler at Ballyhige were arrested, threatened with the gallows, and frightened into full confessions; but, the more they confessed, the more perplexing the situation became. The first families in the county; high officials in church and state; members of Parliament who had votes, and who required to be conciliated; the Earl of Kerry's own kindred, for Sir Maurice Crosbie was his son-in-law; the whole county side, as Anderson truly said, were implicated.

There was no longer a difficulty in getting at the truth. Captain Heitmann and his officers gave their evidence. The Ballyhige

The

servants made a clean breast of it. Vicar General's servants, seeing concealment useless, were as plain-spoken as the rest. Mr. Collis, of Tralee, deposed to his conversation with Lady Margaret. The depositions were ere sent to the Castle, and Lingen returned Lord Kerry his hearty thanks "for having unraveled such an enormous piece of villainy, which was now set in the truest light."

But the difficulty now was the truth itself. There had not been robbery only, but murder, and murder of a dastardly kind-mur, der of two shipwrecked foreign seamen-in violation of the sacred rights of hospitality. Yet no one, high or low, seemed aware of its wickedness. The origin of the crime was the utter demoralization of the gentry of an entire Irish county. Those who, by the constitution, were the natural governors of the people, were their leaders in depravity. They, if any, ought to have been selected for . punishment.

The public trial and execution of an earl's sister, a vicar-general of the Irish Establishment, and a member or two of the Irish Legislature, would have been an example that would have lifted forward the civilization of Kerry by three-quarters of a century. But the days of George the Second and Sir Robert Walpole were not the days of Cromwell. The judges came to Tralee on their summer circuit, and the assizes were opened at Tralee. One or two of the gang were tried and sentenced; but the Earl of Kerry pleaded "that it would be small service to the county to let the poor rogues be hanged, while the principals escaped." The judges shared Lord Kerry's opinion, or, when they came into the county, they assumed the habits of thought which prevailed there. If no one was to be punished, an effort might at least be made to recover the plunder. Here the apathetic magistrates affected a real zeal, and gave the concluding touch of the grotesqueness of the picture. Since they were not wanted for the gallows, there could be no longer a reason for detaining the prisoners. The Knight of Kerry had written generally to Mr. Lingen, that he knew of persons who, if assured of pardon, would assist in discovering the money. Lingen replied with general encouragement; and under the shelter of Lingen's letter, and pretending to be acting by order of the Government-the Knight, Sir Maurice Crosbie, Mr. Blennerhassett, and two other magistratessigned an order to the governor of Tralee jail to release the Vicar-General's servants, the most prominent of the actual perpetrators

of the crime; and to two of these persons-one of them the steward who had planned the robbery and divided the plunder-they committed the recovery of it from the hands of those among whom it had been distributed No choice could have been better if there had been a real desire to find the money, but the object was merely to turn ridicule on the whole affair. The released prisoners strutted about the county showing their commissions amidst universal amusement, saying openly, that if the thing had been still to do they would do it again, and parading the protections which they professed to have received from the Castle.

If the most notorious villains were selected for special favor, those who had promoted the investigation became naturally alarmed for themselves. The Earl of Kerry wrote to the Castle, that he expected nightly to have his house burnt over his head. On his own authority he rearrested the two scoundrels who had been thus ridiculously pardoned. Lingen wrote in towering indignation to the Knight. The Kerry gentry should not le allowed to carry matters with so insolent 1 hand. For decency's sake they were forced to undertake an appearance of a real search for the money, and hopes were held out from time to time that the greater part would soon be collected.

Unfortunately for the Irish Administration there was a party in the case which declined to be satisfied with mere restitution. Two Danish subjects had been killed, and a third wounded. The Copenhagen Government, when Captain Heitmann's report reached them, insisted not only that the stolen silver should be restored, but that the guilty persons should be brought to justice. Walpole felt or affected a proper displeasure. He admitted that England's honor was concerned in punishing crime, and gave Carteret orders to prosecute. He discovered that a mode of administering justice, which may answer well among a people who have a natural love for right and abhorrence of wrong, is the worst gift which can be bestowed on those who dal not know what justice means. Carteret set in motion the usual machinery. A hundred obstructions were at once flung in the way Arthur Crosbie, the clerk of the Crown, was at last actually tried in Dublin. The Danes remained in Ireland to give evidence. The confessions of the Ballyhige servants proved as plainly as possible that he knew what was about to be done, and that neither by word? nor deed had he attempted to prevent it Yet' the judge summed up in favor of the

prisoner, and the jury acquitted him. Captain Heitmann complained indignantly "that the judges were in a conspiracy to suppress the inquiry;" that "they showed partiality to shield the Crosbies." The judges answered, that Mr. Arthur Crosbie was acquitted for want of such proof as was according to law," and affected to feel injured and insulted by the suspicion of favoritism.

The robbery had been committed in 1729. In 1731 Carteret retired from the viceroyalty, and as yet there had been no redress. The Kerry magistrates pretended that 9,000 pounds worth of bullion had been found, and that they were ready to account for it; but three more years went by; the Danes had lingered on, besieging the Castle with their complaints, yet the Irish disliked "paying back" as heartily as Falstaff. They had so far not received an ounce of it. "During all this time," wrote the Duke of Newcastle in 1734 to Carteret's successor (the Duke of Dorset), "the master and sailors of the Golden Lion have not been able to obtain satisfaction for their loss, nor restitution of the money and plate which were recovered from the persons concerned."

Dorset was as powerless as Carteret had been. He could but act by forms of law, and law in Ireland was organized iniquity. Again there was a delay of two years, and in

January, 1736, the Danish minister in London laid his last remonstrance before Newcastle and the English Cabinet.

"In an affair so odious," he said, "every trick and stratagem has been employed to screen parties who are notoriously guilty from the punishment which they have deserved. The chief authors and accomplices of this infamous conspiracy are as well known to your Grace and to the Lords of the Council as to the whole of Ireland. Your Grace has many times expressed to me your indignation at the manner in which the Danish Company has been dealt with in that country throughout the whole affair. His Majesty, my sovereign, instructs me now to say to you, that if justice is longer refused, the Danish consul will be recalled from Dublin; and if any British vessels are so unfortunate as to be cast away hereafter on the coast of Denmark, the Irish Administration will be responsible for any misfortune which may overtake them."

With this letter the curtain drops on the. scene. Whether the Danes went back empty-handed to their own country, forming their own reflections on the English method of civilizing Ireland, or whether the Kerry gentlemen at length unwillingly relaxed their clutch upon their prey, no evidence has as yet been discovered to show.

III.

Between that serpent and the scholarwhose face is that of a scoffer there is a moral gradation, as definite as any Mr. Darwin could trace between the forms themselves. The increasing mastery of external nature by man, changing hostile elements and forms from foes to friends, corresponds with moral changes of not less significance than those which have passed upon his physical frame. The serpent became the type of evil when and where it seemed the

*Delivered before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, by Moncure D, Conway.

VOL. V.-16

ization where he finds that some things may be worse than a serpent's bite. The serpent may thus become a fossil demon, which will mean that he has slipped into a higher formhas become winged, to aim at something above the heel. Thenceforth he will change with the changing fears of man, will shadow his successive dreads,-will take the color of a hated race, or the physiognomy of a formidable heretic. The Africans of MozamThe kidnappers on the Guinea coast have bique represent the devil as a white man. taught the poor negroes there that men may be worse than fierce animals, and they call the devil Muzungu-Maya, that is, 'wicked white man.' They make images of the devil, paint them white, and lend them to persons who believe themselves troubled by the devil,