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MEMOIRS

OF

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

RICHARD LALOR SHEIL.

CHAPTER I.

1791-1809.

Bellevue-Birth and parentage-Valley of the Suir-School days at Kensington-Charles X.-Stonyhurst-University of Dublin-Dramatic tendencies-A fancy ball-Family reverses ---Dr. William Foley.

On the left bank of the Suir, about three miles from Waterford, is situated Bellevue, the home in childhood of Richard Lalor Sheil. The estate, of which it forms a part, originally bore the name of Gurteens, and is mentioned in the Inquisitions of Leinster as belonging, in the year 1607, to one Nicholas Fitzgerald. Being forfeited in the civil wars it became the possession of Samuel Skrimshiere, one of the sol

*Temp. Jac. I. Thomastown, 16th July, 1607.

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diers of the Commonwealth who accompanied Cromwell into Ireland; and, under the Act of Settlement, it was confirmed to him in 1667 by the Court of Claims.*

Won without thrift, the estates of the military colonists were seldom preserved with care. In the second or third generation their descendants were frequently compelled to alienate the lands, which, in the hope of founding families, had been invariably tied up in the strictest forms of entail.

Partly owing

doubt to the

to this circumstance, and partly no condition of things which prevailed in Ireland from the Revolution to the end of the American war, little progress was made in reclamation or tillage, and still less in building or planting. The industry of the many was forbidden by law to invest its savings in the purchase or permanent occupancy of land:‡ so the land which nature had meant to be prolific was

* Report Record Commissioners, 1825, p. 120.

+ Reflections and Resolutions proper for the Gentlemen of Ireland, by R. E. Madden, 1738.-State of Ireland, by Thomas Prior, 1742; Arthur Young's Tour, 1779.

By the 9 Will. III., ch. 3, and 2 Anne, ch. 6, Catholics were disabled from purchasing or holding lands for a longer time than thirty-one years; a son who conformed to Protestantism might dispossess his father of his estate by a bill of discovery; and by a similar proceeding a Protestant landlord might break the lease of any Catholic tenant who could be proved to have made more than one-third above the rent of his farm.

condemned to lie profitless and unfruitful; and the enterprise interdicted at home sought in foreign realms for honour and reward.

Edward Sheil, the father of the subject of these memoirs, had passed his earlier years in Spain. He was a man of quick intelligence, and active in the pursuit of business. Many of his countrymen were settled at Cadiz, where they gradually acquired wealth and distinction by their devotion to trade. Mr. Sheil, although possessing the advantage of some family connexions in the place, was mainly, if not altogether, indebted to his own energy and perseverance for the acquisition of a considerable fortune, with which he returned to his native country. It was about the period when a disposition had manifested itself to relax the severities of the penal code. An act had been passed in 1778 by the Parliament of Ireland, extending the term for which land might be held by Catholics to ninety-nine years; and in 1782, through the exertions of Mr. Gardiner and Mr. Grattan, backed by the impressive petitions of the Volunteers, the right to purchase and transmit property in fee, with other important privileges, was further conceded. In the following year Gurteens was for sale, and Mr. Sheil became the purchaser. It had previously

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passed into the possession of the Honourable Henry Ponsonby, who had already chosen the site of a dwelling-house near the spot on which the present mansion stands, when he was summoned to join his regiment abroad, whence he was not destined to return. Other portions of the original estate had been mortgaged or leased to different parties, but they were reunited in the hands of the successful merchant. ancient keep, the relic of troubled times, and which the peasantry were used to call Gurteens Castle, still overlooked the broad and winding river from the summit of the undulating hill on which it stood. A few old trees likewise remained; but nothing had been done to improve the natural capabilities of the soil, and a considerable portion of the lands had long been overgrown by the wild thorn and the fern. The place soon assumed a very different aspect. A handsome and commodious dwellinghouse was built by the new possessor, and the plantations formed that now render it an object of no little attraction in a neighbourhood full of noble mansions and picturesque localities. The valley of the Suir, of which Spencer speaks in admiration, has at all times been a favourite place of residence with the gentry of the neighbouring counties; and

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