Jonah Barrington - Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3)

The matter was not at that day considered the least extraordinary, and was, in fact, never mentioned except in the course of common conversation, and as the subject of a paragraph in the Leinster Journal.

It is a singular circumstance, that the termination of poor Palmer’s life resulted from his consistency in strictly keeping his own aphorism which I have before mentioned. He dined at my father’s Lodge at Cullenagh; and having taken his quantum sufficit , (as people who dined there generally did,) became obstinate, which is frequently the consequence of being pot-valiant, and insisted on riding home, twelve or thirteen miles, in a dark night. He said he had a couple of songs to write for the high sheriff, which Mr. Boyce from Waterford had promised to sing at the assizes; – and that he always wrote best with a full stomach. It was thought that he fell asleep; and that his horse, supposing he had as much right to drink freely as his master, had quietly paid a visit to his accustomed watering-place, when, on the animal’s stooping to drink, poor Palmer pitched over his head into the pond, wherein he was found next morning quite dead – though scarcely covered with water, and grasping the long branch of a tree as if he had been instinctively endeavouring to save himself, but had not strength, owing to the overpowering effect of the liquor. His horse had not stirred from his side. His loss was, to my father’s affairs, irreparable.

It is very singular that nearly a similar death occurred to an attorney, who dined at my father’s about a month afterward – old Allen Kelly of Portarlington, one of the most keen though cross-grained attorneys in all Europe. He came to Cullenagh to insist upon a settlement for some bills of costs he had dotted up against my father to the tune of fifty pounds. It being generally, in those times, more convenient to country gentlemen to pay by bond than by ready money – and always more agreeable to the attorney, because he was pretty sure of doubling his costs before the judgment was satisfied, Allen Kelly said, that, out of friendship , he’d take a bond and warrant of attorney for his fifty pounds; though it was not taxed, which he declared would only increase it wonderfully. The bond and warrant, which he had ready filled up in his pocket, were duly executed, and both parties were pleased – my father to get rid of Allen Kelly, and Allen Kelly to get fifty pounds for the worth of ten. Of course he stayed to dine, put the bond carefully into his breeches pocket, drank plenty of port and hot punch, to keep him warm on his journey, mounted his nag, reached Portarlington, where he watered his nag (and himself into the bargain). Hot punch, however, is a bad balance-master, and so Allen fell over the nag’s head, and the poor beast trotted home quite lonesome for want of his master. Next day Allen was found well bloated with the Barrow water; indeed, swollen to full double his usual circumference. In his pockets were found divers documents which had been bonds, notes, and other securities, and which he had been collecting through the country: but unfortunately for his administrators, the Barrow had taken pity on the debtors, and whilst Allen was reposing himself in the bed of that beautiful river, her naiads were employed in picking his pocket, and there was scarcely a bill, bond, note, or any acknowledgment, where the fresh ink had not yielded up its colouring; and neither the names, sums, dates, or other written matters, of one out of ten, could be by any means decyphered. In truth few of the debtors were very desirous, on this occasion, of turning decypherers , and my father’s bond (among others) was from that day never even suggested to him by any representative of Allen Kelly, the famous attorney of Portarlington.

Lieutenant Palmer and his black servant – The Lieutenant’s sister marries Mr. George Washington, a “blood relation” of the American president – This lady presents her husband with a son and heir – Awkward circumstance connected with the birth of the infant – Curious and learned dissertation respecting “fancy-marks,” &c. – A casus omissus – Speculations and consultations – Doctor Bathron, surgeon and grocer – His suggestion respecting little Washington – Doctor Knaggs called in – Operation begun – Its ill success – “Black and all Black” – The operator’s dismay and despair – Final catastrophe of Master Washington.

Another, and a not unpleasant, because not fatal, incident may serve to illustrate the “state of medicine and surgery,” between forty and fifty years ago, in Ireland. It occurred near my brother’s house, at Castlewood, and the same Lieutenant Palmer, of Dureen, was a very interested party in it. The thing created great merriment among all the gossiping, tattling old folks, male and female, throughout the district.

The lieutenant having been in America, had brought home a black lad as a servant, who resided in the house of Dureen with the family. It is one of the mysteries of nature, that infants sometimes come into this world marked and spotted in divers fantastical ways and places, a circumstance which the faculty, so far as they know any thing about it, consider as the sympathetic effect either of external touch or ardent imagination; – or, if neither of these are held to be the cause, then they regard it as a sort of lusus with which Dame Nature occasionally surprises, and then (I suppose) laughs at the world, for marvelling at her capriciousness, – a quality which she has, as satirists pretend, plentifully bestowed on the fairest part of the creation. Be this as it may, the incident I am about to mention is in its way unique; and whether the occasion of it proceeded from sympathy, fancy, or touch, or exhibited a regular lusus Naturæ , never has, and now never can be unequivocally decided.

A sister of the lieutenant, successively a very good maiden, woman, and wife, had been married to one Mr. George Washington, of the neighbourhood, who, from his name, was supposed to be some distant blood relation to the celebrated General Washington; and, as that distinguished individual had no children, all the old women and other wiseacres of Durrow, Ballyragget, Ballyspellen, and Ballynakill, made up their minds that his Excellency, when dying, would leave a capital legacy in America to his blood relation, Mr. George Washington, of Dureen, in Ireland; who was accordingly advised – and, with the aid of the Rev. Mr. Hoskinson, clergyman of Durrow (father to the present Vice Provost of Dublin University), he took the advice – to write a dignified letter to his Excellency, General George Washington of Virginia, President, &c. &c. &c. stating himself to have the honour of entertaining hopes that he should be enabled to show his Excellency, by an undeniable pedigree (when he could procure it) that he had a portion of the same blood as his Excellency’s running in his humble veins. The letter went on to state, that he had espoused the sister of a British officer, who had had the honour of being taken prisoner in America; and that he, the writer, having reasonable expectation of shortly fathering a young Mr. Washington, his Excellency’s permission was humbly requested for the child to be named his god-son: till the receipt of which permission, the christening should be kept open by his most faithful servant and distant relation, &c.

This epistle was duly despatched to his Excellency, at Mount Vernon, in Virginia, and Mrs George Washington, of Dureen, lost no time in performing her husband’s promise. No joy ever exceeded that which seized on Mr. Washington, when it was announced that his beloved wife had been taken ill, and was in excessive torture. The entire household, master included, were just seated at a comfortable and plentiful dinner; the first slices off the round, or turkey, were cut and tasted; some respectable old dames of the neighbourhood had just stepped in to congratulate the family on what would occur, and hear all that was going forward at this critical, cheerful, and happy moment of anticipation, when Mrs. Gregory (the lady’s doctor ), who was, in her own way, a very shrewd, humorous kind of body, and to whom most people in that country under thirty-five years of age had owed their existence, entered the apartment to announce the happy arrival of as fine a healthy little boy as could be, and that Mrs. Washington was as well, or indeed rather better, than might be expected under the circumstances . A general cheer by the whole company followed, and bumpers of hot punch were drunk with enthusiasm to the success and future glory of the young General Washington.