George Walton was a 35 years old lawyer and father of two when he signed the Declaration of Independence. He died at the age of 63 in 1804.
The exact date of George Walton’s birth is unknown, but scholars say 1740 or 1741 in Virginia. His life was anything but easy. His parents died early on, and Walton was “adopted” by his uncle, who quickly apprenticed him to a man described a selfish as a carpenter. Little else is known of Walton until he appeared in Savannah, Georgia, where he studied law. He was admitted to the Bar in 1774.
” At the expiration of his apprenticeship, he removed to the province of Georgia, and entered the office of a Mr. Young, with whom he pursued the preparatory studies of the profession of law, and in 1774, he entered upon its duties.
“At this time the British government was in the exercise of full power in Georgia. Both the governor and his council were firm supporters of the British ministry. It was at this period that George Walton, and other kindred spirits, assembled a meeting of the friends of liberty, at the liberty pole, at Tondee’s tavern in Savannah, to take into consideration the means of preserving the constitutional rights and liberties of the people of Georgia, which were endangered by the then recent acts of the British parliament.
“At this meeting, Mr. Walton took a distinguished part. Others, also, entered with great warmth and animation into the debate. It was, at length, determined, to invite the different parishes of the province, to come into a general union and co-operation with the other provinces of America to secure their constitutional rights and liberties. In opposition to this plan, the royal governor and his council immediately and strongly enlisted themselves, and so far succeeded by their influence, as to induce another meeting, which was held in January, 1775, to content itself with preparing a petition to be presented to the king. Of the committee appointed for this purpose, Mr. Walton was a member. The petition, however, shared the fate of its numerous predecessors.” (Colonial Hall)
by Ole Erekson, Engraver, c1876, Library of Congress http://www.ushistory.org/ declaration/signers/ walton.htm
Early on, Walton served as Secretary to the Georgia provincial Congress and later was elected to the Continental Congress. After signing the Declaration of Independence, “he spent many of the following years engaged in the defense of his state, and in a messy political battle with Button Gwinnett, another signer from Georgia. In 1778 Walton was commissioned a Colonel of the First Regiment of the Georgia Militia. He was injured in Battle and taken prisoner. He gained his freedom in 1779 through a prisoner exchange and was soon after elected Governor of Georgia, an office he heldfor only two months. Political conflict colored all of Walton’s career. He was allied with General Lachlan McIntosh in a fierce struggle against Gwinnett for political dominance of the state. Walton was dispatched from office on several occasions, indicted for alleged criminal activities on others, in an interminable battle between two factions of the patriot movement in Georgia.
“He was returned to congress in 1780 and stayed through 1781. He remained in Philadelphia until 1783. That year he was censured by the legislature for his involvement in a duel which led to the death Gwinnett by the hand of his rival, commissioned to treat with the Cherokee nation in Tennessee, and appointed Chief Justice of his state. In 1789 he served in the college of Electors and again elected Governor. The government was reorganized under an new constitution in November of that year, at which time Walton stepped down. He was immediately appointed a superior court judge. In 1795 he was sent to fill an unfulfilled term in the US Senate. He was not reelected. He then retired to farming. He died in Augusta in 1804 at the age of 64.” (U. S. History)
As readers and writers of Austenesque fiction, we spend a great deal of time thinking about the world Jane Austen inhabited. We know her drawing rooms, assembly halls, and country estates. We understand the social rules governing courtship, inheritance, reputation, and family obligation. Most importantly, we understand that Austen’s true subject was never politics or war, but character.
While writing my latest novel, Kindle the Light of Liberty, I found myself immersed in a world Austen never wrote about—a world that nevertheless asked many of the same questions.
As America approached the 250th anniversary of its founding, I became fascinated by the people whose stories often remain at the margins of its history. As both a Jewish author and a devoted admirer of Jane Austen, I wanted to understand how ordinary Jewish families experienced the Revolution: what they feared, what they hoped for, and how they navigated a society that was itself being transformed. The deeper I researched, the more I encountered individuals whose lives embodied courage, uncertainty, sacrifice, and resilience. Their stories revealed a transformation that extended far beyond famous generals and founding fathers. Immigrants who had spent their lives navigating uncertainty and limitation suddenly found themselves confronted with the promises—and demands—of liberty.
Some served on battlefields.
Philip Moses Russell enlisted in 1775 as a Surgeon’s Mate in the Continental Army. He endured the brutal winter at Valley Forge, caring for soldiers suffering from disease, exposure, and starvation. His service was so distinguished that George Washington personally commended him for his dedication to the sick and wounded.
Others contributed through leadership and sacrifice.
Colonel Mordecai Sheftall became the highest-ranking Jewish officer in the Continental Army. As Commissary General for Georgia and South Carolina troops, he spent much of his personal fortune securing desperately needed supplies for Patriot forces. Like so many supporters of independence, he risked not only his safety—he and his son were captured by the British and imprisoned aboard a prison ship for nearly two years—but also his livelihood for a cause whose success was far from certain.
Still others served through intelligence and civic duty.
Solomon Bush earned recognition for helping expose a British spy ring operating in Pennsylvania. While recovering from war injuries, Bush uncovered a British spy operating in Pennsylvania and alerted Washington to the danger. His story reminded me that the Revolution was not won solely on battlefields. Information, secrecy, and vigilance were often just as important as muskets and cannon.
Another historical figure who particularly captured my imagination was Isaac Franks.
Franks served under George Washington’s command as a foragemaster and later rose to the rank of colonel in the Pennsylvania militia. His story did not end with independence. During Philadelphia’s devastating yellow fever epidemic of 1793, when the federal government temporarily fled the capital, President Washington rented Franks’ home in Germantown and conducted the nation’s business from there. Today the house is remembered as the Germantown White House. I find something profoundly symbolic in that image. A Jewish patriot who had served the cause of independence now provided shelter to the nation’s first president during another moment of national crisis.
Historical details like these remind us how deeply Jewish Americans were woven into the fabric of the early Republic. Yet military service and public leadership tell only part of the story.
Modern readers are often familiar with the Culper Spy Ring, George Washington’s famous intelligence network operating in British-held New York. The image of coded messages, invisible ink, secret couriers, and carefully guarded identities has become one of the most enduring legends of the American Revolution. Yet the deeper I researched, the more I realized that intelligence gathering extended far beyond any single spy ring.
Information moved through merchant houses, family networks, religious communities, and ordinary correspondence. Women carried news between households. Tradesmen listened while conducting business. Travelers transported letters, rumors, and observations from one city to another. Entire communities participated in preserving and transmitting information, often without receiving recognition in the histories that followed.
For a novelist, this realization was irresistible.
It allowed me to imagine how a young Jewish woman in Philadelphia might contribute to the Patriot cause—not as a soldier, but as an observer. The daughter of a chandler would naturally move between homes, marketplaces, and social gatherings. She would hear conversations others dismissed. She would notice details that more powerful people overlooked. And because society often underestimated women, she could gather information while remaining nearly invisible.
That insight became the foundation for my heroine, Rose Wachsman.
Rose is not a member of the famous Culper Spy Ring, but as I continued my research, I became increasingly fascinated by the women whose lives history marginalized in fragments and footnotes. Women such as Abigail Lopez Gomez, Reyna Levy Moses, Abigail Minis, Grace Seixas Nathan, and countless wives, daughters, and sisters who sustained families and communities through years of uncertainty. Their stories survive in letters, business records, communal histories, and occasional references in the papers of more famous men. They reminded me, in many ways, of Austen’s heroines, who lived in a world where intelligence, judgment, and character mattered profoundly. These Jewish colonists navigated family expectations, social pressures, questions of loyalty, and uncertain futures. They simply did so against the backdrop of a revolution.
As I wrote Kindle the Light of Liberty, I found myself returning to a truth Austen acknowledged exceptionally well: history may provide the setting, but character determines the story. The American Revolution changed governments, borders, and laws. Yet beneath those dramatic events were ordinary people making deeply personal decisions. Whom should they trust? What did they owe their families? What risks were worth taking? How much should one sacrifice for principle? These are not merely political questions. They are profoundly human ones.
They are also the kinds of questions that animate Austen’s novels—written two centuries ago!
Although Jane Austen never wrote about Revolutionary America, I sometimes wonder what she might have thought of these forgotten patriots and their families. I suspect she would have been less interested in the battlefield than in the parlors, shops, and households where loyalties were tested and character revealed. She understood that history is shaped not only by public events, but by private choices. Perhaps that is why I never felt I was importing Austen into colonial America. I discovered, instead, how naturally her moral imagination already belonged there.
The more I learned about these forgotten Jewish Americans, the more convinced I became that their stories deserved to be told—not because they stood apart from the larger American story, but because they were always part of it.
And for a novelist, there is no greater invitation than discovering a story hidden in plain sight.
EXCERPT:
Rose learned the true weight of a word that night as her cousin laughed. It was not loud, nothing so coarse. It passed across the parlor like the clink of porcelain against a saucer: deliberate, polished, and unmistakably final. It moved through silk and candlelight, through men who had not fired a musket, but who would decide precisely where they were aimed
The cold lesson settled over her as she stood by the far wall, hands folded neatly before her, precisely as her aunt had instructed and her father warned. Observe. Speak only when addressed. And above all, never betray her ignorance—or her wit. She had obeyed. She had watched.
And she wished she had never come.
“Then we are agreed,” Rebecca said, her eyes gleaming with something dangerously close to delight. “The British shall find Philadelphia most… accommodating.”
The men around her smiled. Someone bowed. Another lifted his teacup as if in salute. Every sentence spoken within these walls carried the charge of treason. Rose resolved to conduct herself with care, lest any sign of partiality betray her—especially now when her aunt’s claims upon her attendance were equal to her father’s dependence upon her good sense.
The Franks hosted the most desirable salon in the city. Every week, loyalist merchants, British sympathizers, and townsmen not yet openly declared would gather here under the pretense of civility. They would come for the music, for gossip, for brandy imported before the ports closed. The exquisite mockery of it all was almost too much to bear. Here—here, treason was toasted with the very tea that had set the colonies aflame.
Rose’s fingers tightened against the fine rustle of her skirts just as her hostess appeared beside her, a plate of sweetmeats in hand.
“You look flushed,” said Rebecca, pressing a sugared almond upon her with an air of concerned authority.
“I am only a little warm.”
She studied Rose with curious intensity. “You disapprove of the company, I suppose. You must not judge too harshly.”
“I do not pretend to understand the finer points of politics, Cousin.”
“If our history has taught us anything, it is that understanding is rarely required,” Rebecca smiled faintly.
She felt her reserve begin to yield; there was something in the look of Rebecca’s eyes, a weariness in her tone, that gave Rose pause. For a fleeting moment, she searched for an extenuating excuse for her cousin’s duplicity.
“Survival is what matters in such a contest, and Rose, dear—the Crown remembers its friends.”
“And forgets its enemies?” Rose asked before she could stop herself.
“It forgets nothing.”
The illusion of vulnerability vanished, and Rose saw not a victim of circumstance, but a woman who had coolly weighed her options and chosen a side. She could not bestow sympathy on one who had made such a deliberate calculation. Would her own integrity have remained so resolute, had she been granted the same precarious choices? It was an inquiry she could not answer with confidence, and the doubt humbled her with a sense of her own untried virtue.
Grateful for a moment’s respite when her cousin was called away, Rose turned her scrutiny toward the other guests. A man shifted his stance with a singular lack of ease. Tall and broad-shouldered in a coat of superfine wool, he stood as if he had forgotten the art of occupying his own frame.
Nathan Hirsch.
She could only wonder which side of the room he believed himself to occupy. He was a familiar figure; she encountered him often enough while seeing to her tasks about town, and saw him every Sabbath in the beit tefillah—or as their neighbors styled it, their Jewish House of Prayer. Rose had heard him speak there amongst the men—softly, reverently, as if the very words required protection. Now he stood among Loyalists, his jaw tight, his eyes scanning the room with careful restraint.
He made his bow before her. Rose met his unreadable gaze as he straightened and held it a moment longer than courtesy required. She would dare him to justify his presence if she could —though her own, in truth, was no less precarious.
“Mr. Hirsch, sir!” A melodic voice sliced through the air. “Your condescension to attend our little soiree is most appreciated.”
Rebecca stepped into the gap between them, her silk skirts a shimmering barrier. She laid a hand on his sleeve—a gesture that was as much a claim as a caress.
“Ah—I see no introduction is required,” she continued. “No doubt you have met Miss Wachsman. My cousin has a certain grace, does she not? It is inherited from my father’s side of the family. One almost forgives the scent of the chandlery that follows her into the parlor.”
Mr. Hirsch did not immediately answer. His gaze rested somewhere beyond Rebecca’s shoulder, as though the matter required consideration rather than politeness. “In times of such…unfortunate upheaval,” he said at last, “one finds the usual boundaries of society become regrettably permeable. Needs must.”
“Oh, Mr. Hirsch! How droll you are this evening!”
“How so, madam? A chandler provides light where there is none. Whether that light is refined enough for this parlor,” he said, turning his gaze upon Rose’s countenance, “is perhaps less important than the fact that it allows one to see what is standing directly before one’s eyes.”
Rose lowered her eyes, not wishing to show her indignation. After all, she was a guest—not an escapee from the scullery. She managed to suppress a biting rejoinder, yet she could not help but notice that although Mr. Hirsch flexed his hand, he did not pull his arm away from her cousin.
This, then, was the lay of the land!
The contest, as her cousin put it, was not going to be decided only by muskets and marching men. It would be shaped in parlors like these—through rumors and assignations, and the subtle power of women who knew how to move loyalties without ever touching a sword. Yet power did not always announce itself with steel. Sometimes it arrived quietly, illuminating one path while leaving another in shadow. As the daughter of a chandler, Rose had long understood the utility of light. Hers was not the ostentatious glow of beeswax reflected in crystal, nor the blinding brilliance of these chandeliers. It was a common light, carried in guarded words and the subtle shift of a gaze—the kind of light that could expose or obscure as necessity required. And as the night progressed, Rose began to comprehend that very necessity.
Author’s Bio:
Mirta is a second-generation Argentine; she was born in Buenos Aires in 1962 and immigrated to the United States that same year. Because of the unique fringe benefits provided by her father’s employer- Pan American Airlines- she returned to her native country frequently- growing up with “un pie acá y un pie allá” (with one foot here and one foot there).
Mirta’s fascination with Jewish history and genealogy, coupled with an obsession for historical period drama, has inspired her to create unique and enlightening novels. She has been a guest speaker for book clubs, sisterhood events, genealogy societies and philanthropic organizations. Sharing Jewish historical fiction has become her passion.
Besides being an avid novel reader, she has had a lifelong love for choral music and is a devoted Beatles fan. Follow Mirta on Amazon, Goodreads, Instagram, and BookBub or stop by her WordPress blog.
Daniel Mendoza was the first Jewish prize fighter to become Champion of England from 1792 to 1795. Mendoza stood but 5’7”, but he was a scrapper. Weighing in a 11.5 stone (160 pounds), he was billed as “Mendoza the Jew.” Mendoza was the only middleweight boxer to win the Heavyweight Championship of the World.
It was Mendoza who brought changes to boxing. Before he became popular, men simply stood still and slugged it out. Mendoza introduced the idea of “defense.” Many criticized Mendoza’s tactics, but soon all boxers were using the techniques. He opened his own boxing academy in 1789, which was known as the Mendoza School or the Jewish School. Mendoza also published The Art of Boxing, a book that described his techniques.
Mendoza’s first win came over an opponent known as Harry the Coalheaver, whom he beat in 40 rounds. In a 1787 professional fight, Mendoza won both the bout and the patronage of the Prince of Wales (later George IV). Mendoza was the first Jew to have an audience with England’s King George III, which both elevated the Jew in London’s population, but also a vicious tide of anti-Semitism.
From 29 March 1787 edition of The Times, we see a bit of the secrecy behind the English Sport of Boxing. Generally, only a few knew of the site for a match until the last moment. Prize fights were against the law. Most of the clergy and many of the middle class thought the bare knuckles bouts brutal. That being said, the brutality did not keep the throngs from enjoying the matches. “The boxing match between Martin the Bath Butcher, and Mendoza the Jew, which has been the subject of every blackguard’s conversation for some days, was put a stop to on Tuesday, by the prudent and praise-worthy interference of the civil poser. The parties met on Ealing Common, attended by a great concourse of people (among whom was the Prince – whether accidental or otherwise, we know not – we may, however, reasonably suppose the former – and some other personages of note) when a Justice of the Peace, and a posse comitatus, assisted by a party of the Light Dragoons, made their appearance, and prevented the decision of the combat. In justice to the high personage, whose name we are sorry to mention on this occasion, he was the first to shew respect to the civil authority, by retiring with his party, as soon as the Magistrate made his appearance. The riot act was read, and the mob, in number perhaps ten thousand, dispersed quietly.”
The fight was rescheduled for Barnet Racegroun on 17 April. The crowd numbered some 5000. Mendoza easily defeated Martin in 30 minutes. He won a prize of £500 from the Prince.
In 1788, 1789, and 1790, Mendoza fought storied matches against Richard Humphries, Mendoza’s mentor. He lost the first bout in 29 rounds, but managed to win the other two in 52 and 15 rounds, respectively. The 1789 match was the first time spectators were charged an entry payment to a sporting event. The fights were hyped by a series of combative letters in the press between Humphries and Mendoza.
Mendoza laid claim to the English Championship when Benjamin Brain retired in 1791, but Bill Warr challenged Mendoza’s claim. The two met in Croydon in May 1792. Mendoza’s claim to the title prevailed in 23 rounds. The two met again in 1794. Mendoza dispensed with Warr in a little over a quarter hour.
Gentleman John Jackson
In 1795, Mendoza fought “Gentleman” John Jackson for the championship at Hornchurch in Essex. Jackson was five years younger, 4 inches taller, and 3 stone (42 pounds) heavier. Jackson won in nine rounds. Reportedly, Jackson caught Mendoza long hair, holding Mendoza in place where Jackson could pummel him into submission in ten minutes. Jackson used the win to propel him into Society. Jackson’s Rooms opened at 13 Bond Street, along with the Fives Court off Jermyn Street, where public sparring took place.
Born in Aldgate in July 1764, Mendoza, a descendant of Spanish Marranos (Jews coerced into conversion to Christianity) who had lived in London for nearly a century, became such a popular figure in England that songs were written about him, and his name appeared in scripts of numerous plays. His personal appearances would fill theaters, portraits of him and his fights were popular subjects for artists, and commemorative medals were struck in his honor.
At age 13, he was apprenticed to a glasscutter, but he fought with the employer’s son and was forced from the position. Later, he apprenticed to a Jewish greengrocer and still later to a tea dealer. His fortune rested in his fists.
In his 72 years, Mendoza made and spent a fortune. His memoirs were finally published in 1818. After his glory days, he spent time as a pub owner, teaching boxing, and even was hired by the theatre manager John Philip Kemble in an attempt to suppress the Old Price Riots; the resulting poor publicity probably cost Mendoza much of his popular support, as he was seen to be fighting on the side of the privileged. He even spent time in King’s Bench prison for his debts.
Mendoza made his last public appearance as a boxer in 1820 at Banstead Downs in a grudge match against Tom Owen; he was defeated after 12 rounds. He died on 3 September 1836. By then, the thrill of the boxing ring had waned. Mendoza left his family of 11 children in poverty. One of Mendoza’s descendants, Rufus Daniel Issacs, became Lord Chief Justice and 1st Marquess of Reading.
Peter Sellers
Another of Mendoza’s descendants, the actor Peter Sellers of Pink Panther fame, bears a resemblance to his great-great-grandfather. Perhaps, Sellers used some of the lessons he learned from his relative in those zany scenes of Cato attacking Inspector Clouseau. A print of Mendoza fighting Humphries can be seen on the wall of Clouseau’s office in the films.
Mendoza features as a character in Rodney Stone, a Gothic mystery novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and one of his fights is mentioned in the 1934 The Scarlet Pimpernel film. A play about Mendoza, “The Punishing Blow” by Randy Cohen debuted in 2009.
Daniel Mendoza was one of the inaugural group elected in 1954 to the Boxing Hall of Fame and of the inaugural class of the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.
Also, there was a 2013 film regarding his life. “Nan-Tom Film Arts International [brought] to the screen the amazing and inspirational story of Daniel Mendoza in a compelling documentary tour de force: Mendoza the Magnificent: The Man Who Revolutionized Boxing. Through the dark streets, gaming parlors, and treacherous social circles of Regency London, our guide will be the opinionated Mr. Pierce Egan. In the 1790s, this charismatic young sportswriter was boxing’s earliest impresario. The articles that he published in the manly “turf and ring” journals of the day provide immediate, eyewitness accounts of the Mendoza fights and an insider’s view of the high-stakes sports bets being staked every night in gentlemen’s clubs. Egan later collected and republished his boxing articles as Boxiana: Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism (1813), and then launched his own monthly journal of popular sports culture, the hugely successful Life in London (1821-1828), for an upper-class readership of sports fans and gamblers.
“Two hundred years later, Daniel Mendoza and Pierce Egan spring from the screen in Mendoza the Magnificent, brought back to life by a sportswriter in the 21st century whose compelling interest resurrects the grit and the excitement of these two gloriously intertwined lives.” [The National Center for Jewish Film]
According to etymonline.com, the work “Esquire” is a noun. It came to use “in the late 14C., from Middle French esquier “squire,” literally “shield-bearer” (for a knight), from Old French escuier “shield-bearer (attendant young man in training to be a knight), groom” (Modern French écuyer), from Medieval Latin scutarius “shield-bearer, guardsman” (in classical Latin, “shield-maker”), from scutum “shield” (see escutcheon). For initial e-, see e-. Compare squire (n.). Originally the feudal rank below knight, sense broadened 16c. to a general title of courtesy or respect for the educated and professional class, especially, later, in U.S., regarded as belonging especially to lawyers.
In our own dear title-bearing, democratic land, the title of esquire, officially and by courtesy, has come to include pretty much everybody. Of course everybody in office is an esquire, and all who have been in office enjoy and glory in the title. And what with a standing army of legislators, an elective and ever-changing magistracy, and almost a whole population of militia officers, present and past, all named as esquires in their commissions, the title is nearly universal. [N.Y. Commercial Advertiser newspaper, quoted in Bartlett, 1859]
Meanwhile, Wikiquote tells us: “Esquire (abbreviated Esq.) is a term of British origin (ultimately from Latin scutarius in the sense of shield bearer via Old French “esquier”). In Britain, it is an unofficial title of respect, having no precise significance, which is used to denote a high but indeterminate social status. Esquire is cognate with the word squire, which originally meant an apprentice or assistant to a knight. Relics of this origin can still be found today associated with the word esquire. For example in the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, “Esquire” is today the most junior grade of membership. In the United States, the suffix Esq. most commonly designates individuals licensed to practice law, and applies to both men and women (in more modern times).”
Historically, in the UK, “esquire” was a title of respect, sometimes referred to as a courtesy title, accorded men of higher social rank, especially those members of the landed gentry who were above the rank of “gentleman,” but below the rank of “knight.” William Blackstone, a renown judge and jurist and author of Commentaries on the Laws of England said of the subject, “The title should be limited to those only who bear an office or trust under the Crown and who are styled ‘esquires’ by the king in their commissions and appointments; and all, I conceive, who are once honoured by the king with the title of ‘esquire’ have a right to that distinction for life.”
The Complete English Gentleman (1630), by Richard Brathwait, shows the exemplary qualities of a gentleman.
A gentleman was considered to be any man of good and courteous conduct. Originally, it was the lowest rant of the landed gentry of England, ranking below both “esquire” and “yeoman.” The rank of gentleman was comprised of the younger sons of the younger sons of peers and the sons of a baronet, a knight, and an esquire, in what is known as perpetual succession. A gentleman was not only courteous and law abiding, but he could display a coat of arms, which was a right he shared with members of the peerage, as well as some of the gentry. These groups equaled the British nobility.
In the 17th century, in Titles of Honour (1614), the jurist John Selden said that the title gentleman likewise speaks of ‘our English use of it’ as convertible with nobilis (nobility by rank or personal quality) [Selden, John (1614). Titles of Honour (1st ed.). London: William Stansby for Iohn Helme] and describes the forms of a man’s elevation to the nobility in European monarchies. In 1827, James Henry Lawrence explained and discussed the concepts, particulars, and functions of social rank in a monarchy, in the book On the Nobility of the BritishGentry, or the Political Ranks and Dignities of the British Empire, Compared with those on the Continent. [Lawrence, Sir James Henry (1827) [1824]. The Nobility of the British Gentry or the Political Ranks and Dignities of the British Empire Compared with those on the Continent (2nd ed.). London: T.Hookham — Simpkin and Marshall.]
Esquire was not in general use for solicitors. More likely to be used by barristers. It was the form used by all those grandsons of peers without any other titles.
The rules of precedence of the Regency period put “esquire” and “gentlemen” in different categories. Landed men, especially those related to peers, like Fitzwilliam Darcy in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” would be an “esquire.” He was the grandson of an earl. All the sons of younger sons of the peerage would be an “esquire” as would be sons of knights and baronets. Their sons would be gentlemen as would those with the king’s commission as an officer and a gentleman. The lines between esquire and gentleman were often hard to distinguish for all except the College of Heralds, and they charged a fee to make the decision.
“Esquire” was a status on the table of precedence.
An “esquire” was also a barrister or a judge who had not been given a peerage or even a knighthood. Younger sons of younger sons of dukes and marquesses or sons of earls, viscounts, and barons might be presented “esquire” after their names. Professors usually used their academic degrees, but would probably be seated with the esquires. The sons of a baronet ranked there.
A knight is a title senior to “esquire” for a barrister, for example. William Garrow was both. He was Sir William Garrow, PC, KC, FRS. (No “esquire.) Once knighted, he would be called Sir William. [On a side note and of interest to me with 40% of my ancestral DNA being from Scotland, Garrow was descended from the Garriochs of Kinstair, a Scottish royal line.]
“Esquire” was not used in speech, but, more so, perhaps, in addressing a formal letter.
Thomas Lynch, Jr., was one of the youngest men to attend the Continental Congress. He was only 26 years of age when he signed the Declaration of Independence. A lawyer, he represented Prince George Parish in South Carolina. He was married, but he had no children, for Lynch died in 1779 at the age of 30.
Thomas Lynch, Jr., was born at Hopseewee Plantation in Prince George’s Parish, Winyah, South Carolina, on August 5, 1749. [This handsome home exists today on 58 acres on the Santee River on the gateway to Georgetown city and the Santee River delta. It is not a “restored” colonial property, but rather it has been preserved largely intact by the several private owner families.] The family was an ancient one, and is said to have originally emigrated from Austria to England, where they settled in the county of Kent; sometime after which, a branch passed over to Ireland, and thence some of the descendants removed to South Carolina. Jonack Lynch, the great grandfather of Thomas Lynch, emigrated from Ireland to America. At his death, he left his son Thomas (Sr.) a slender patrimony, which Thomas’s father turned to substantial legacy. The rice fields were its source of income until the Civil War. At one time there were about 13,000 acres owned by the family. This fortune, at Thomas Sr.’s death, was left to Thomas, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Sr., was married to Elizabeth Allston, of Brookgreen Plantation, another Georgetown prominent and wealthy family, and they had daughters Sabina (b.1747) and Esther (b.1748) and one son, Thomas Jr. (b.1749). After Elizabeth Allston died (c.1755), Mr. Lynch Sr. married Hannah Motte, and they had a daughter, Elizabeth (b.1755).
Thomas, Sr., was a distinguished public servant and one of the most important Santee River planters. He was the first President of the WinyahIndigo Society, and was elected as a delegate to the Commons House of Assembly by the people of Prince George, Winyah Parish, where he served until his death(1776). Having early espoused the cause of the colonists, in 1774, he was elected to the First Continental Congress. He was highly esteemed by the founding fathers, who in October, 1775, appointed him along with Benjamin Franklin and Colonel Benjamin Harrison as advisors to General Washington. In February, 1776, he was paralyzed from a cerebral hemorrhage while in Philadelphia, and never recovered his health.
At an early age, young Thomas Jr. was sent to a flourishing school, at that time maintained at Georgetown, South Carolina. Before he had reached his thirteenth year, his father removed him and sent him to England to continue his education. Thomas Jr. entered Eton and eventually made his way to Cambridge. He graduated with honors at Cambridge and studied law in London and then, after some nine years, returned home in 1772.
He soon after married, on May 13, 1772, a beautiful young lady he had known since childhood, Elizabeth Shubrick, daughter of Thomas and Mary Baker Shubrick, of Charleston, SC. They had no children. Interestingly, Elizabeth’s sister, Mary, married Edward Rutledge, and her sister, Hannah, married William Heyward, brother of Thomas Heyward, Jr. Rutledge and Thomas Heyward, Jr., were also signers of the Declaration. Thomas Jr. quickly became much sought after for public service, becoming a member of the colony’s first and second Provincial Congress (1774-1776) and the Constitutional Committee for South Carolina, where he helped draft the state constitution.
In 1775, on the raising of the first South Carolina regiment of provincial regulars, he was appointed to the command of a company. Having received his commission, he soon enlisted his quota of men, in some of the neighboring counties, and at the head of them took up his march for Charleston. Unfortunately, during the march he was attacked by a violent bilious fever, likely via malaria mosquitoes, which greatly injured his constitution, and from the effects of which he never afterwards entirely recovered. He raised his company and they joined his regiment, only to learn a few days later of the sudden and incapacitating illness of his father from a paralyzing stroke in Philadelphia, which caused the father to resign his seat in Congress. The Provincial Assembly elected young Lynch to fill it, and he hastened to Philadelphia to take his seat in 1776. Lynch and his father thus had the unique distinction of being the only father-son team of representatives to the Congress.
When Thomas Lynch, Jr. returned home from Philadelphia, he was a sick man. He retired from public life and lived on at Peachtree Plantation on theSantee River with his wife. The malingering fever contracted from his time in the military service continued wracking his body into worsening health. Upon the advice of his doctors, in 1779 he and his wife decided to travel to France with the hope that therapeutic help there may restore his health. The war, with the possibility of his capture, made ocean travel ever more dangerous, so they embarked for St. Eustatius in the West Indies, to seek out a vessel to transport them to France. On this first leg of the long journey, their ship was last seen when it was but a few days out at sea. Presumably it foundered during a storm and they both drowned, no one survived; ship and passengers and crew all simply disappeared, another mystery of the fabled “Bermuda Triangle” area. At age 26, he was among the youngest to sign the Declaration; at age 30, he was the youngest of the Signers at their deaths.
Having had no children, this Signer has no direct descendants. Interestingly, his will made before the fateful journey includes provisions for his sisters and step-mother, but requires that no one would inherit Lynch land unless “they shall take and use the Surname Lynch and no other…it having been my father’s intention and it being my meaning to limit a part of his estate as far as the law will permit to such of his family as shall use the surname ‘Lynch’….”. Mr. Lynch’s nephew, John Lynch Bowman later changed his name to John Bowman Lynch, he was the only son of the Signer’s sister, Sabina. John Bowman Lynch had three sons and four daughters, all three sons were killed in Confederate service during the Civil War, and left no descendants.
Question: What can you tell me of the Thames River Police? How active were they in the Regency era? Etc.
Response: When I was writing The Prosecution of Mr. Darcy’s Cousin: A Pride and Prejudice Mystery LOTS of research was required, especially information about the policing practices in Regency Era London. One of my discoveries was the River Thames Police.
John Harriott – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org
In the 18th Century, importers docking along the River Thames in London had lost £500.000 annually as cargoes were unloaded on the unprotected River Thames. In 1797, an Essex Justice of the Peace, farmer, and inventor from Great Stanbridge, Mr John Harriott, came up with a plan to change all that. Mr Patrick Colquhoun, LLD. (the principle magistrate of Queens Square Police Office), advocated for Harriott’s plan with the West India Merchants and the West India Planters Committees to finance preventative policing of the central shipping area of the Thames. The government approved the establishment of the Marine Police on 2 July 1798 in Wapping High Street. Originally, the West India Merchants Company Marine Police Institute was to operate for just one year, but as the Government was involved with the war with France, the time was extended.
A Surveyor (equivalent rank of an Inspector, by today’s standards) and three waterman Constables under the direction of a Superintending Surveyor manned each of the rowing galleys. The Superintending Surveyor also had a supervision galley with a crew of four. The Surveyors had taken an oath to the Crown and were issued an excise warrant by the Customs and Excise Service.
In addition, ship and quay guards were employed on a part-time basis. They were only employed when the West India fleets were on the river. Otherwise, they were dismissed until needed again. These “guards” were supervised by the boat patrols, which eventually became the first River Police Special Constables. Initially, it cost £4.200 to set up the force (hires and premises), but , by all estimates, they had saved £122.000 in cargo and had saved a dozen individuals.
Only numbering in the low 50s, these Officers were expected to control some 30.000 + people who made their living on the river. One must realize a large portion (some 25-35%) of that 30.000 were likely criminals. Unfortunately, during the first six months, a riot took place outside the Office, and a crowd of 2000+ threatened to burn the building to the ground, with officers and magistrates inside. Harriott managed to quell the riot. Sadly, Gabriel Franks (Master Lumper) was shot and killed – the first recorded police death. “After a year, Harriott was able to give his first report to the Home Office stating ‘instead of many waterman’s boats hovering nearby while ships unloaded, the river now appears quiet and peaceful, except for those going about their lawful business.” (River Thames Police – History – Establishment)
Ship owners convinced the government of the value of the Marine Police. Letters from importers, shipmasters, and wharf owners praised the deterrent tactics of the boat patrols and quay guards. On 28 July 1800, Parliament passed the Marine Police Bill making the river police a public domain. The bill also increased the number of officers to 88. “They were taken with the Magistrate John Harriott to be directly under the control of the Home Secretary, who used their hard won experience throughout the whole of the Metropolis until such times as the Metropolitan Police were formed.” In 1800, Patrick Colquhoun released a book entitled The Commerce and Policing of the River Thames. “As the only police body extant whole chapters were included about criminals of the Thames, its policing and the effect. The book was widely read and approved of, so much so that many other police forces were formed throughout the world on his principles, the most famous being Dublin, New York and Sydney, Australia.” (River Thames Police – History – Government Support)
By the time the Metropolitan Police began in 1829, the River Thames Police had grown in numbers and in stations. They had extended their jurisdiction to above Chelsea and down to Woolwich and had acquired two old naval vessels to patrol the extent of the Thames. “In 1817 an excise “Cutter” was purchased to patrol the lower reaches as far as the Downs, firstly to protect the Kings stores at Sheerness, a Magistrate with powers in the surrounding counties was then essential to empower the River Police to prevent such crimes and in particular crimping. Winter for the officers patrolling in open boats was most rigorous.” (River Thames Police: History)
By 1839, the Metropolitan Police, under Commissioners Sir Richard Mayne and Sir Charles Rowan, who operated with the Home Secretary’s permission, had unified other police bodies in London, including the Bow Street Runners, Horse patrols, and the River Police. The only exception was the City of London Police force, which was founded in 1834 and remains a separate entity even today.
With this unification, the Thames Magistrate Office was moved to Arbour Square and renamed the Thames Magistrates Court. “Thames Division of the Metropolitan Police was built on the officers and experience of its earlier force. It was always that the land police were formed (and indeed their uniform suggests it) on the pattern of an army regiment and the River Police on the pattern of a Royal Navy ‘man of war’ (Hence their reefer jackets and naval boaters.).
For the next forty years the rowing galleys and sailing patrols continued and were found adequate, while the river trades slowly became merchandised and to a large extent iron replaced wood. In 1878 the loss of over 600 lives in the disastrous collision between the paddle steamer “Princess Alice” and the collier “Bywell Castle” made it obvious that at least some powered craft were necessary. In 1884, two steam launches were purchased for supervisory purposes and later a third was found necessary.” (River Thames Police: History)
Something else one might want to consider, if it matters to the story being written, is how long it would take from the time a person, or a body, went into the river to the time it was found. The Thames is a tidal river, which means that at high tide, the water actually flows upstream, as far as Teddington, while at low tide it flows downstream, as one would expect. Since the lower reaches of the Thames are tidal, there is more salt in the water, which would make anything thrown into it more bouyant than something thrown into fresh water.
Previous I read the book, Thames: A Biography, by Peter Ackroyd. It is a fascinating read, and one thing he has noted is the vagaries of the currents in the Thames. Some tests were done which show clearly that something which was tossed in the river in the vicinity of London could take from three to six weeks to travel downstream to the area known as the Port of London.
Charles Dickens has a character (Gaffer Hexham) in Our Mutual Friend who scours the Thames in a boat for dead bodies, and anything else of value that he can turn up. It has been a long time since I read Dickens’s tale, so I do not recall if he turned in the bodies for money or if he just kept what valuables he found on them. Before Dickens’s time, the bodies had value at medical schools, but, otherwise, they were useless, meaning in a Regency based tale, one could steal a body and not be arrested, but stealing the “Sunday best” the person wore could have you arrested and jailed or even transported.
The Thames river police were the ones who were supposed to be notified if bodies were found in the river. Accidental drownings and suicides were the most frequent causes of death.
Bodies were found elsewhere, for instance, in the Serpentine and other rivers and bodies of water as well. In those cases the nearest magistrate was notified. He was supposed to notify the coroner. The Coroner had to be informed of all deaths occurring without the presence of a physician/surgeon.
The Prosecution of Mr. Darcy’s Cousin: A Pride and Prejudice Mystery (Mystery/Suspense/Thriller; Fiction/Historical Fiction) – currently out of print, but I hope to bring this back out near the end of 2026 – PLEASE do not purchase this title if you come across it on Amazon. Someone hacked it, and I am waiting on Amazon’s investigation to take it down. If you want a print copy, contact me. I have copies here and would be happy to send you out one (cost $8.00 + shipping).
Fitzwilliam Darcy is enjoying his marital bliss. His wife, the former Elizabeth Bennet, presented him two sons and a world of contentment. All is well until Darcy receives a note of urgency from his sister Georgiana. In truth, Darcy never fully approved of Georgiana’s joining with their cousin. Major General Edward Fitzwilliam for Darcy assumed the major general held Georgiana at arm’s length, dooming Darcy’s sister to a life of unhappiness.
Forced to seek his cousin in the slews of London’s underbelly, at length, Darcy discovers the major general and returns Fitzwilliam to his family. Even so, the Darcy’s troubles are far from over. During the major general’s absence from home, witnesses note Fitzwilliam’s presence in the area of two horrific murders. When Edward Fitzwilliam is arrested for the crimes, Darcy must discover the real culprit before his cousin is hanged for the crimes and the Fitzwilliam name is marked by shame.
I am relatively confident that many of you who read this blog already know this: The New York Times in 2018 had this interesting piece on the discovery by a University of Pennsylvania Ph.D student, which has thrilled Austen scholars. (I also liked the aside that Austen’s publisher made her “punch up” her terse book dedication to the Prince.) However, as we just celebrated the 250th Anniversary of Austen’s birth last year, I thought many of you might still be on an “Austen high.”
Jane Austen’s novels may epitomize Regency England, but she did not think much of the man for whom the period was named. This purchase, made on October 28, 1811, predated the novel’s public advertisement by two days. The discovery of this transaction, documented in a bill of sale, was made in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle. Nick Foretek’s discovery in the Georgian Papers Programme archives that the likely first purchaser of Austen’s first novel was none other than the Prince Regent.
You can actually see a copy of the bill of sale on Penn Today. The Smithsonian Magazine also has a lovely article on the Prince Regent’s purchase.
Like many of her compatriots, Austen loathed the Prince Regent, once railing in an 1813 letter against the man whose gluttony, profligacy and infidelities scandalized the nation. In 1815, when she was strong-armed into dedicating her fourth novel, “Emma,” to the future George IV, she produced a tribute so strained that a scholar called it “one of the worst sentences she ever committed to print.”
But now, in a delicious irony that Austen herself might have appreciated, it turns out that the man who was counted among her most reviled readers might also have been one of her very first.
In the article above, a graduate student working in the Royal Archives in Windsor Castle came across a previously unknown 1811 bill of sale from a London bookseller, charging the Prince Regent 15 shillings for a copy of “Sense and Sensibility,” Austen’s first novel. Oddly, as mentioned above, the transaction took place two days before the book’s first public advertisement — making it what scholars believe to be the first documented sale of an Austen book.
A man on the Janeite list discovered that Princess Charlotte wrote to her friend some time after this praising Sense and Sensibility. The question was asked perhaps whether the books were bought for his daughter. Some Gothic novels were also purchased at that time which do seem more to the taste of Princess Charlotte than her father.
The same man, as mentioned above, also remembered that Princess Charlotte praised the novel to a friend shortly after the book was published. She compared herself to Marianne.
It could be that this set and the horror novels, also purchased, were for Charlotte and not himself.
Robert Morris was a merchant and a land speculator. He was 42 years of age when he signed the Declaration of Independence and 72 when he passed. He was the father of seven children, and one of 5 signers not born in the American colonies.
Born to an ironworker from Liverpool, England, Robert Morris’s childhood was anything but quiet. His mother died when he was two. His father, Robert Morris, Sr., came to Maryland in 1738 as an agent for Foster, Cunliffe, and Sons for whom he purchased and shipped tobacco to England. “He was the originator of the tobacco inspection law, and had it passed over powerful opposition. He was considered a mercantile genius, and was the first to keep his accounts in money rather than in gallons, pounds, yards, etc. In 1750 Robert Morris, Sr., gave a dinner party on board one of the ships of the company. As he left the ship in a small boat, a farewell salute was fired from the ship and wadding from the shot burst through the side of the boat and severely injured him. As a result of the accident, he died of blood poisoning on July 12, 1750.” (The Society for the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence)
Raised by his maternal grandmother, Robert Morris, Jr., did not arrive in America until 1748. Unlike many of his fellow signers, Morris had little formal education. He apprenticed at Charles Willing & Co. as a clerk, but when his father died, he was 16 and alone in a country he knew little of. Eventually, Morris saved enough to open the London Coffee House in Philadelphia. During the Seven Years War (1756-1763) he captained a ship on a trade mission to Jamaica, where French Privateers took him and his crew captive. Eventually, he was able to escape and made it to Cuba, where he remained until an American ship returned him to Philadelphia.
After Charles Willing’s retirement, Morris and Thomas William began a partnership. Their ships traveled to the West Indies and England, importing and exporting goods. They also banking interests. “At the height of his success, he was ranked by the Encyclopedia of American Wealth, along with Charles Carroll of Carrollton, as the two wealthiest signers among the 56 signers of the Declaration.” (The Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence) Robert is known to have led a street protest agains the 1765 Stamp Act. He and Willing organized the first non-importation of slaves agreement in 1769.
After he married Mary White in 1769, Morris purchased 80 acres on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River, a beautiful estate he named “The Hills.” As the warden of the port of Philadelphia, Morris stopped the chaos that was the Boston Tea Party by convincing tea ships to return to England. He and Willing furnished the militia with weapons and powder. So many supplies arrived at Morris’ wharfs that Congress placed special guards there to protect the colonial supply line. Although he supported the colonial efforts, Morris was not sold upon the idea of separation from England. He did think the colonies were prepared for self rule and that anarchy would ensue. (The Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence) It is reported that Morris excused himself from the room when the vote for independence came on 2 July 1776.
In Charles Rappleye’s Robert Morris: Financier of the American Revolution (Simon & Schuster), we learn that “Morris was thinking in terms of global commerce at the same time the Scottish economist Adam Smith was describing it in The Wealth of Nations. The primary [means of finance] for the international traders [were] called ‘bills of exchange,’ which were debts and foreign currencies that you could then buy and sell in foreign capitals, and in your own country, to other traders who needed capital. A lot of it was based on personal relationships, so correspondence was critical and reputation was fundamental. During the Revolution, Morris use chis reputation and business connections to effectively bankroll American forces. He was active in supplying Washington’s army with gunpowder, which he smuggled in under the noses of British authorities in Europe and the Caribbean.
“‘He was getting the cattle from Connecticut, he was getting the flour from Pennsylvania and Virginia, and he was getting it all to the soldiers on the road.’ Before Yorktown, the United States’ fledgling new currency had all but failed, and the only medium of exchange with which to finance to revolution was Morris’ own personal credit. So four years after opposing the Revolution, Morris had effective become America’s treasury and banker.” [Note: When Ken Burns’s “The American Revolution” spoke of Morris’s efforts to pay the American soldiers, I was already screaming these facts at the screen. He had truly been a traitor to the British. Keep in mind I wrote these pieces nearly ten years ago, I was not copying others, as some have suggested.]
According to The Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, “In 1779 Thomas Paine and Henry Laurens delivered charges of fraudulent transactions against Willing and Morris. Morris demanded that a congressional committee examine his books, and he was exonerated. The committee reported ‘that (Robert Morris)…has acted with fidelity and integrity and an honorable zeal for the happiness of his country.’
“The Continental Congress called Morris to service again, in 1781, appointing him the Superintendent of Finance. This was the first executive office in American history.
“Faced with a serious governmental financial crisis, Morris submitted the first national funding proposal, On Public Credit, which served as the basis for Hamilton’s plan submitted a decade later during the Washington Administration. Morris established the Bank of North America with the help of two other signers—James Wilson and George Clymer. Morris slashed governmental and military expenditures, personally purchased Army and Navy supplies, tightened accounting procedures, and pleaded with the states to contribute, a process he likened to ‘preaching to the dead.’ Before he left office he used over a million dollars in his own notes to feed and pay the troops, with most of those notes to be repaid with loans from France. At the end of the war he took on the mission of repaying the debt to France, but circumstances made that impossible and he lost a fortune in the effort.”
“He personally put up 1.4 million dollars for the effort and coordinated with the French to get French ships into the Chesapeake, which made the planned evacuation of the British army impossible.
“Robert Morris sent the first American ship to China in 1784 which began the country’s China Trade. At one point he had ships going as far as the Levant and India. Morris confided to an old friend that he had lost over 150 ships during the Revolution, but had managed to come out “about even.” This was mostly due to privateering, and selling American goods to the French and Spanish islands in the Caribbean.
“Robert Morris had become a strong advocate of a more powerful government and attended the Annapolis Convention in 1786 to discuss amending the Articles of Confederation. In 1787 he hosted George Washington as they both attended the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, and it was Morris who nominated Washington to be Chairman of the Convention. Morris signed the new U. S. Constitution, one of only two signers of the Declaration of Independence to sign all three basic founding documents—the Declaration, the Articles of Confederation and the U.S. Constitution. (The other signer of all three documents was Roger Sherman of Connecticut.)”
Question from a Reader: Who ruled on the incompetence or insanity of a titled peer? What is the general procedure, and were there ways to keep preliminary hearings on it discreet?
Also, I am seeing from research that insanity could be grounds to invalidate a marriage (in the case of my story, by secret elopement). Am I understanding that correctly? Friends and family were already expressing their concerns at the time of the elopement and there were rumors of it among the locals around his estate, if that helps.
This is kind of tricky. Generally speaking, the family would try to keep him under control themselves or tuck him into a private hospital. Nobody actually did anything about Earl Ferrars until he murdered his valet, but I expect his family was relieved to see him hanged. But that information will not help you if you are attempting to have a marriage dissolved as part of the plot line. I think that before 1845 it was the Lord Chancellor who would have to appoint a commission to determine that the peer in question was too insane to marry, etc.
Arms of Wallop, Earls of Portsmouth: Argent, a bend wavy sable
Lord Portsmouth was married to an older woman and did very well until she died. Then he was married to the daughter of his solicitor. The brother wanted the marriage annulled because the earl did not have the sense to know what marriage was.
The “madness” of the 3rd Earl of Portsmouth refers to a famous and scandalous 1823 insanity trial where his own family sought to have him declared legally insane. The trial became a sensation due to the Earl’s eccentric behavior, his high social standing, and the involvement of prominent figures like Lord Byron. While some considered him a harmless eccentric, others, including his family, presented evidence of bizarre and sadistic behavior, leading to a lengthy and expensive legal battle.
The 3rd Earl of Portsmouth, John Charles Wallop, was a wealthy aristocrat with connections to notable figures like Jane Austen and Lord Byron. While seemingly normal in some social settings, he engaged in bizarre and disturbing behavior behind closed doors, such as whipping servants, attending funerals obsessively, and even bleeding horses.
His family, particularly his nephew, Henry Wallop Fellowes, initiated the 1823 trial, alleging that his actions stemmed from a dangerous and immoral nature, not just eccentricity. The trial was a major public event, packed with spectators and covered by newspapers. It became the longest and most costly insanity trial in British history, lasting for weeks and costing a fortune.
At first the Lord Chancellor who deals with the insane, infants, and rich orphans–refused to consider the matter, but the brother kept pushing. First a commission was appointed to investigate his mental health. No health privacy laws so the investigation and witnesses were heard in a public room of a pub.
Despite Lord Byron’s defense of the Earl, the court ultimately declared him insane, backdated to 1809. This led to the annulment of his second marriage and the disinheritance of his children from that marriage. The Earl lived for many years after the trial, though he was confined to a section of his estate and believed himself to be a king.
It took more than 5 years for the commission to declare that the earl had no more idea of marriage than his dog did.
The church annulled the marriage. A commission was set up as guardian of the person. His wife and two children (she was living with her lover in their bed.) The earl was physically incapable of fathering children and a nephew cared for the property. The earl was allowed to live on his property with just a cadre of guards — he lived many years. His brother was earl for a year before he also died.
The wife was not a wife and the children were not legitimate. They went to Canada. She married the lover who was father of the children. She died in poverty, but that might be relative property. The nephew — second in line of succession for the earldom– took care of property, etc. Not an easy job.
The murder mentioned above for Lord Ferras would have required a coroner’s inquest and then a proper trial. Unless the person is raving at the time so that he/she could not be tried, it is the judge and jury that would have to declare him/her innocent by reason of insanity.
Then fees would be paid to a private asylum to take the person. The person would have to be guarded so most would have a house they owned turned into a prison/asylum with guards and attendants they paid and hired to care for the person.
The government did not really have a decent place for the criminally insane.
Sanitariums were a later development.
The person’s rank is not important. What the family can afford is the primary issue. An honsest man would not want his wife in Bedlam, for example, where the treatment was terrible.
When Mary Lamb [an English writer, known for TalesfromShakespear, written with her brother Charles] killed her mother and wounded her father one hot September day, she was declared innocent by reason of insanity. Her father would not have her in the house so she was placed in a private asylum until he died and then she went to live with her brother. They lived together until he died. They wrote books together and fostered a child together. If she felt an attack of madness coming on, she would return to the asylum for a short stay.
Generally, a coroner’s inquest had to be held over all dead bodies that presented as other than normal — a man on his sick bed with doctor in attendance – even if it was an accident.
Most crimes had to be prosecuted by the individual victim or the family. Murder would be a Crown case. If a peer was dead and murder was suspected, all the government agencies would be urging investigation.
Hiding away because of rumors is a good way to feed the rumor mill.
Button Gwinnett was a Gloucester, England, born signer of the Declaration of Independence. At the time of the American Revolution he was a 41 years old merchant and plantation owner. He was the father of three. Tragically, he died before viewing what he helped to create, for he passed in May 1777.
Button Gwinnett was one of three Georgia signers of the Declaration of Independence. He served in Georgia’s colonial legislature in the Second Continental Congress, and as president of Georgia’s Revolutionary Council of Safety. Born in April 1735 in Down Hatherly, Gloucestershire, England (baptized in Gloucester in 1735), the son of Anne and the Reverend Samuel Gwinnett, Button Gwinnett came to America, first briefly residing in Charleston, South Carolina, a route frequently traveled by Georgia settlers in the 1760’s, but in 1765, Gwinnett acquired a large tract of land in Savannah, Georgia.While still in England (in 1757), he married and began a career in trading. Ann Bourne presented him three children—Amelia, Ann, and Elizabeth Ann. Unfortunately in his new American venture, he knew little success in farming or business, but found a footing in the revolutionary politics of his adopted colony.
Gwinnett arrived in Savannah in 1765 and became a merchant, but soon became disillusioned while running a store in town. After this venture failed, he purchased St. Catherine’s Island and set himself up as a planter. When Gwinnett purchased the island (actually a thirty-six sq. mile tract of land including St. Catherine’s) he tried to raise cattle and farm with limited success. He became active in local politics, winning election to the Commons House of Assembly in 1769. His politics were deeply influenced by his contempt for the wealthy and powerful city Whigs of Savannah. Gwinnett’s political base of country Whigs consisted of less prosperous coastal dwellers like himself and backcountry farmers. By 1773 Gwinnett was again in financial straits; he sold most of his personal property and possessions and withdrew from the political scene.
His lack of success at farming forced Gwinnett to withdraw from politics and he struggled to pay off his debt. St. Catherine’s was sold to the highest bidder along with other personal property. Still an active member in both the community of Sunbury and St. John’s Parish, Gwinnett came in contact with Lyman Hall, the Midway-based physician who would heavily influence Gwinnett’s Radical mindset. At first Gwinnett was uncommitted to the cause of the Patriots, but by 1774 he became an outspoken Radical. Gwinnett was present at the meeting at Peter Tondee’s Tavern in Savannah on 24 July 1774 that debated the right of England to impose the “Intolerable Acts” on the colonies.
The Revolutionary crisis brought him back into politics. Over the next two years Gwinnett rose quickly and played a pivotal role in Georgia politics, although he was disliked by a number of factions within the state. When Lyman Hall journeyed to the Second Continental Congress, Gwinnett became the de facto leader of the radical faction. Button saw two enemies to battle: England and the so-called “city party,” a more conservative element of the radicals that represented the wealthier merchants and shipping interests in Savannah including Lachlan McIntosh and his brother George. Gwinnett rallied the opponents of the Christ Church Parish–led Whig Party, which until that time had dominated the leadership in the emerging dispute with the British crown.
On 23 January 1777, South Carolina representatives made public a long-whispered rumor — South Carolina wanted to annex the state of Georgia for the common welfare of both states. Gwinnett organized and led the opposition to the proposal, voting it down in the Assembly. It then became apparent that merely voting down the proposal was not enough. Georgia needed a constitution, not the Rules and Regulations it had been governed under for almost a year.
Borrowing heavily from John Adams, Gwinnett and others drew up the state constitution and presented it to the assembly, which adopted it on 5 February 1777. One of the most critical of the new state constitution was Lachlan McIntosh, who complained that it gave “power…to irresponsible and avaricious individuals and groups.” Two weeks later Archibald Bulloch was elected governor and commander-in-chief under this document, but he died under suspicious circumstances on the day he became head of the executive branch. Gwinnett was tapped to finish Bulloch’s term until a new election could be held.
He succeeded in uniting coastal and rural dissidents into a loose coalition that demonstrated its strength by electing Gwinnett commander of Georgia’s Continental battalion when the state’s Provincial Congress met in early 1776. He was engaged in a long-standing political rivalry with Lachlan McIntosh, a soldier and leader who would attain highest rank in the Georgia militia and in state politics. Gwinnett was respected figure, however. When Gwinnett’s election proved controversial (a post that he was forced to decline, owing to political faction), he stepped aside and accepted instead an appointment to the Continental Congress, then meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Lachlan McIntosh commanded the battalion in Gwinnett’s stead, and these two would become bitter enemies.
In Philadelphia, Gwinnett served on a number of committees and supported separation from England. He voted for independence in July, signed the Declaration of Independence in August (along with other Georgians George Walton and Lyman Hall), and soon afterward returned to Georgia, where he became embroiled in political controversy. Quite soon after he signed the Declaration, he returned home, where he hoped to gain appointment, once again, to the leadership of the Georgia militia. The appointment went instead to his rival. Gwinnett served in the Georgia legislature where he was involved in drafting a constitution for the new state, but also in strenuous efforts to destroy the office of McIntosh.
Disappointed in his military ambitions, Gwinnett continued to lead the opposition to the Christ Church Parish coalition, and when his followers gained control of Georgia’s Provincial Congress, they succeeded in electing him Speaker. He played a key role in the passage of the Georgia Constitution of 1777 and began to purge the military of officers whom he and his followers deemed less than zealous in their enthusiasm for the Whig cause. This brought him into conflict with Lachlan McIntosh. After the death of Georgia’s president and commander-in-chief, Archibald Bulloch, in February 1777, the Council of Safety appointed Gwinnett to succeed him.
Gwinnett proposed a military foray into British East Florida, a defensive measure that he argued would secure Georgia’s southern border. McIntosh and his brother George (who had opposed Gwinnett’s election as president ,and subsequently had been arrested for treason, condemned the scheme as politically motivated. The expedition failed, and though he was not elected governor when the new legislature met in the spring of 1777, Gwinnett was exonerated of any misconduct in carrying out the campaign.
McIntosh was furious. He publicly denounced Gwinnett in the harshest terms, and Gwinnett challenged him to a duel. Though each man shot the other, only Gwinnett’s wound proved fatal. He died on May 19, 1777, and was buried in Savannah’s Colonial Park Cemetery, though the exact location of his grave is unknown. Gwinnett County was named for him when it was established in 1818.
Gwinnett’s signature is one of the rarest and most valuable of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. In 1979 a letter signed by Gwinnett brought $100,000 at a New York auction; its value was estimated in 1983 to be up to $250,000.
Thomas Lynch, Sr., was married to Elizabeth Allston, of Brookgreen Plantation, another Georgetown prominent and wealthy family, and they had daughters Sabina (b.1747) and Esther (b.1748) and one son, Thomas Jr. (b.1749). After Elizabeth Allston died (c.1755), Mr. Lynch Sr. married Hannah Motte, and they had a daughter, Elizabeth (b.1755).
He soon after married, on May 13, 1772, a beautiful young lady he had known since childhood, Elizabeth Shubrick, daughter of Thomas and Mary Baker Shubrick, of Charleston, SC. They had no children. Interestingly, Elizabeth’s sister, Mary, married Edward Rutledge, and her sister, Hannah, married William Heyward, brother of Thomas Heyward, Jr. Rutledge and Thomas Heyward, Jr., were also signers of the Declaration. Thomas Jr. quickly became much sought after for public service, becoming a member of the colony’s first and second Provincial Congress (1774-1776) and the Constitutional Committee for South Carolina, where he helped draft the state constitution.
Disappointed in his military ambitions, Gwinnett continued to lead the opposition to the Christ Church Parish coalition, and when his followers gained control of Georgia’s Provincial Congress, they succeeded in electing him Speaker. He played a key role in the passage of the Georgia Constitution of 1777 and began to purge the military of officers whom he and his followers deemed less than zealous in their enthusiasm for the Whig cause. This brought him into conflict with Lachlan McIntosh. After the death of Georgia’s president and commander-in-chief, Archibald Bulloch, in February 1777, the Council of Safety appointed Gwinnett to succeed him.
Gwinnett’s signature is one of the rarest and most valuable of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. In 1979 a letter signed by Gwinnett brought $100,000 at a New York auction; its value was estimated in 1983 to be up to $250,000.
Every Woman Dreams... 