brated Boyds of Kilmarnock in Scotland: some of the Boyds, in virtue of the above alliance, still possess a considerable landed property in the above country. Some of the Mac Auleys married into this family, but changed their names to Boyd, in order to inherit the paternal estates. One of these, the late Hugh Mac Auley Boyd, Esq., sent in 1784, ambassador to the Court of Candy, by Lord Macartney, Governor General of India, (reputed by some as the author of that still celebrated political work, called the Letters of Junius,) has left a son, Hugh Stuart Boyd, who is equal in elegant accomplishments to his father, and his superior in classic attainments; and especially in his profound knowledge of the Greek language, and the most illustrious writers of antiquity. He possesses a part of these estates, extending to, and comprehending Red Bay near Glenarm.*

The following two letters from Dr. Clarke, dated Dublin, June 15, and 26, 1823, will throw some more light upon the subject of the Clarke family.

I came in here last night, after a hard journey of several days: from Glasgow to Belfast we were twenty-three hours and a half, in which we encountered a violent storm, and had the wind right a-head the whole passage. went to see my aunt M'Ready, which took me one hundred miles out of my way, and at very considerable expense. However, I knew it must be the last opportunity I could ever have of seeing her, and making the inquiries you wished. I found her in comparatively good health, and all her faculties as sound as a bell. I set about the inquiries; and the following is the result.

My father JOHN CLARKE, was son to WILLIAM Clarke, who was son to JOHN Clarke, who was son to WILLIAM Clarke. She can go no higher; and this is to my great-great-grandfather. Now for particulars.

1. My great-great-grandfather WILLIAM Clarke, was an estated gentleman of Grange, in the county of Antrim, and was appointed in 1690 to receive the Prince of Orange, when he came to Carrickfergus. He had received the principles of George Fox, and, as he could not uncover his head to any man, before he came near to the prince, he took off his hat and laid it on a stone by the wayside, and walked forward. When he met the prince, he accosted him thus: "William, thou art welcome to this kingdom."-" I thank you, sir," replied the prince; and the interview was so satisfactory to the prince, that he said, "You are, sir, the best bred gentleman I have ever met.' 2. JOHN, my great-grandfather, the son of William the Quaker, married Miss Anne Horseman, daughter to Horseman, mayor of Carrickfergus, whose son succeeded to the mayoralty thirty years afterwards. Of the year in which Mr. Horseman, the father, who married Miss Anne Clarke, was mayor, she cannot tell; but this may be easily ascertained by searching the records of that city and fortress. To JOHN, my great-grandfather, and Miss Horseman, were born EIGHTEEN Sons and ONE daughter. The daughter, Sarah, was married to a Mr. Williamson, of the county Antrim;-I suppose an estated gentleman, but she does not recollect to have heard any particulars of him or his family.

William, the grandfather of Adam Clarke, married into the Boyd family; he was an intelligent religious man, a builder by trade, and the eldest of six brothers, who chiefly settled in the vicinity of Maghera, Magherafelt, and near the borders of the beautiful lake of Lough Neagh. The youngest of these

Of the eighteen sons of John, and Anne Horseman, she remembers only nine. They are the following:

1. SAMUEL Clarke, of Gulladuff, (his own estate,) who married Miss M'Peake, who had issue John and Thomas, of the same place, and several daughters.

2. ANTHONY Clarke, of Ballyruff, (his own estate,) who had issue Anthony, who had issue.

3. JOSEPH Clarke, who chose a military life, and was killed with General Wolfe, at the battle of Quebec; he had issue John; farther unknown.

4. ROBERT Clarke, of Ballyruff, (his own estate,) who had married Miss Burnet, and had issue Alexander, &c. &c.

5. WALTER Clarke, of Ballyruff, who had several daughters, of whom I have no particulars.

6. JOHN Clarke, a farmer, of whom I find nothing.

7. RICHARD Clarke, captain of a ship, and died in the Bloody Islands. Query-which were they?

8. HORSEMAN Clarke. He and several others having pursued a mad dog, and killed him, one of the company, in sport, took the dog by the legs and hit some of the others with him, among the rest Horseman, against whose neck some of the foam was spattered, and he died of hydrophobia in three days; as he was a young lad, he was not usually counted in the number of the sons, who were called the "seventeen sons," because so many grew up to man's estate.

9. WILLIAM Clarke, my grandfather, who married Miss Boyd, and who had issue John, my father, Archibald, William, and ADAM, after whom I was named, and who, as I found now on his stone in Kilchronaghan church, "died in August, 1756." There were two daughters, Anne, who married Mr. Wollock M'Kracken; and Mary, who married Mr. Alexander M'Ready.

Archibald Boyd, my great great maternal grandfather, was a Presbyterian clergyman, and the first who preached as Protestant, in Maghera, after the Revolution in 1688. He married Miss Catharine Strawbridge, a Scotch lady. Mr. Boyd's sister, married the Rev. Mr. Higgison, rector of Larne, in whose family that rectory still continues. Of the rest of this family I think you have Adam Boyd's own

account.

The above are all the particulars I could gain from this interview, and I think all the leading ones that can be obtained; and we were all surprised at the amazing accuracy and precision of my aunt's memory, she did not falter in the least; and still gave the same account in the same words.

Dublin, June 26, 1823.

Since I wrote the enclosed letter, which was early this morning, I have received yours of the 19th. From the state of the country you will see that I can make no more excursions; and therefore, I suppose all farther communications from my aunt must be given up. It is well that we have saved so much; I can tell you that " Gabriel, or, as

brothers chose a military life, and was slain with his general, the celebrated Wolfe, at the battle of Quebec, Oct. 18, A. D. 1759.

John, the eldest son of William, and father of Adam, was intended by his father for the Church, and in consequence got a good classical education, which having finished, he studied successively at Edinburgh and Glasgow, where he proceeded M. A., and afterwards entered as a Sizer in Trinity College, Dublin; at a time when classical merit alone could gain such an admission. His stay here was but short; a severe fever, he is called in the family, Geby Clarke, was one of our ancestors, and lost the Grange Estates, by the absence of one witness, who was the only one who could attest a certain marriage." This information 'I had accidentally from a woman in Belfast, who saw me standing at the coach-office door, waiting for the clerk, in order to take my place for Dublin. She came up to me and told me she was one of my relatives, mentioned Samson Clarke of Belfast, who I believe was her father or uncle; and mentioned Geby, as being famous in the family. I might have had much from this woman, but not knowing her, and it being in the street, I did not encourage her to talk; I know not who she is but I knew Samson Clarke of Belfast, he has been dead only about 10 years. I send you the minutes which Mary took while Aunt and I were conversing: there I find Samuel marked as the eldest of my granduncles, but whether older than William his brother, and my grandfather, I do not know-I always thought my grandfather Clarke the oldest. I believe all the others come in, in the order mentioned by Mary and myself; but I know my aunt expressed herself uncertain concerning the priority of some of them.

So far as I can find, the estates at Grange, were lost to our family, in consequence of the failure of a proof of marriage, in GEBY's case; from which I am led to think, that those estates came by marriage, and that they were not inheritances of the Clarke family: but there were several other estates, besides those, and there are some now, in the hands of some of my granduncles' sons.

If one had about a fortnight or a month to ride about the countries I have been in, he might make more out; but every branch of the family, knowing that they are wrongfully kept out of their estates, are full of jealousy, when you make any of those inquiries, thinking that you are about to possess yourself of their property! On this very ground, I have been very cautious in all my inquiries. I think I have heard of a Christopher, I am sure of a Bartlemy in the family, and Gabriel. I do not recollect to have heard of a Francis or Silvester, but doubtless my aunt could tell. I will send the questions to cousin Allic, and let him get me what information he can, but little can be had but on the spot, and I scarcely know how to get a letter direct to him, it is such an out of the way place. I asked my aunt particularly, if she knew any one before William the Quaker; she said she did not, so he is the utmost a priori, and she herself is the hindmost a posteriori, except our own family. About coming originally from England, and receiving some of the Debenture Lands, I have heard my father often speak, but I know no circumstances. Tomorrow I begin the Conference, and shall have no moment till it be concluded; and then I must march back.

and afterwards a premature marriage, terminated his studies, and blasted his prospects in the Church: and, although the latter step put him in possession of a woman, who made him one of the best and most affectionate of wives, yet an increase of family, and the uncertainty of any adequate ecclesiastical provision, caused him to adopt the creditable though gainless profession of a public parish schoolmaster; to which he was regularly licensed, according to the custom that then prevailed, in order to ensure a Protestant education to the youth of the country, and prevent the spread of Popish principles. By virtue of such license, all teachers in the parish had their nomination from the master; and without such could not legally perform the function of public teachers.

Before I proceed in this narrative, it may be necessary to state that Mrs. Clarke, was a descendant of the Mac Leans, of Mull; one of the Hebrides, or western isles of Scotland: and her great grandfather Laughlin More Mac Lean, called by others Neil, who was chief of his Clan and Laird of Dowart, lost his life, as did twenty of his nearest relatives and his own son, in a battle with the clan Mac Donald, in September, 1598. But their deaths were shortly after revenged by Eachin, or Hector Oig, his son and successor; who in a pitched battle defeated the Mac Donalds, and thus terminated all feuds between these two clans.*

Shortly after Mr. John Clarke's marriage, a circumstance occurred which had an embarrassing effect upon himself and family during his life. About the year 1758 or 1759, the rage of emigration to America was very prevalent in Ireland. Heavy taxation, oppressive landlords, and the small encouragement held out either to genius or industry, rendered Ireland, though perhaps on the whole, one of the finest islands in the universe, no eligible place for men of talents of any kind, howsoever directed and applied, to hope for an adequate provision or decent independence for a rising family.

America, thin in her population and extensive in her territory, held out promises of easily acquired property, immense gains by commerce, and lures of every description, to induce the ill provided for, and dissatisfied inhabitants of the mother country to carry their persons and property thither, that by their activity and industry they might enrich this rising and even then ambitious state. Mr. Clarke was persuaded among many others to indulge these golden hopes, with the expecta

In the Diary of Robert Birrel, this feud is thus mentioned: "About yis tyme," (between Aug. 3, and Oct. 23, 1598,) “Neil M'Lane slaine, and twentie of hes narrest freindis, and hes awen sone be M'Connel, yai being at ane tryst under trust." That is, they had engaged under a particular penalty to fight this battle. See Fragments of Scottish History, Edinb. 1798, 4to. p. 47, of the above mentioned Diary.

tion, if not the promise, of a Professorship in one of the nascent, or about to be erected universities in the new world. In an evil hour he broke up his establishment, sold his property, and with his wife and an infant son, went to the port and city of Londonderry, and took their passage in one of these merchant transport vessels then so numerous, bound for the United States.

At that time, and for many years after, this rage for emigration, was so great, that many young men, women, and whole families, artificers and husbandmen, who were not able to defray the expenses of their own passage, were encouraged by the ship-owners to embark, the owners providing them with the most miserable necessaries of life for their passage, and throwing them together like slaves in a Guinea ship, on the middle passage; they went bound, as it was called,—the captain having the privilege of selling them for five or seven years, to the trans-atlantic planters, to repay the expenses of their passage and maintenance! A supine and culpable government, which never sufficiently interested itself for the welfare of this excellent Island, and its hardy and vigorous inhabitants, suffered this counterpart to the execrable West India Slave Trade, to exert its most baneful and degrading influence, among its own children, without reprehension or control; and thus, many of its best and most useful subjects were carried away to people states, which, in consequence, became their rivals, and since that time, their most formidable enemies.

Among these, as we have already seen, Mr. J. Clarke, his wife, and infant son, had embarked, and were on the eve of sailing, when Mr. Clarke's father arrived from the country, went on board, expostulated with his son, and by the influence of tears and entreaties, enforced by no small degree of parental tenderness, and duly tempered with authority, prevailed on him to change his purpose, to forfeit his passage, and to return with him to the country.

Whether this, on the whole, was the best thing that could be done in such circumstances, is hard to say. What would have been the result had he gone to America, we cannot tell: what was the result of his return, the following pages will in some measure show. The immediate effects were however, nearly ruinous to the family and its prospects.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune:
Omitted; all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries."

The "Shallows and Miseries" in which Mr. Clarke was bound, almost through life, proved that HE omitted to take the tide at flood.

We have already observed that, in order to go to the conti