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this county under circumstances which afford a curious iUustration of the 

 manners of the period. It seems the then Bishop of Sodor and Man 

 was accustomed to beguile the monotony of his Episcopal duties by 

 gambUng, and one night the luck went so much against him, and in 

 favour of Ewan Christian, that the latter was able to purchase with his 

 winnings the estate and manor of Ewanrigg, near Maryport, which still 

 remains the property of the family. Ewan was blessed with five sons and 

 ten daughters. His successor, John, married a Senhouse, of Netherhall, 

 and their eldest daughter, Mary, married Dr. Law, afterwards Bishop of 

 Carlisle, and became the mother of the first Lord Ellenborough, who 

 chose that title in consequence of his having been born at Ewanrigg 

 Hall, which is close to the village of Ellenborough. John Christian's 

 second son, John, who became his successor, married a Curwen, of 

 Workington, and their son John, marrying his cousin, the heiress of the 

 Curwens, took his wife's name, and, as John Christian Curwen, M.P. for 

 Cumberland, acquired a fame which is not yet forgotten, both as a 

 politician and as an agriculturist. John Christian's sixth son, Charles, 

 was an attorney at Cockermouth, and married the grand-daughter of 

 Jacob Fletcher, of Moorland Close, who was, like myself, descended 

 from the William Fletcher who built Cockermouth Hall (now known as 

 the old Hall), in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 



Charles Christian and his wife took up their residence under her 

 paternal roof at Moorland Close, and there, according to the registers of 

 Brigham Church, on the 25th of September, 1764, was born their sixth 

 son, Fletcher Christian, — the ill-fated " Mutineer of the Bounty." Their 

 fourth son, Edward, was brought up to the Bar, became professor of law 

 at Cambridge and eventually rose to the dignity of Chief Justice of Ely. 

 Besides editing a well-known edition of Blackstone's Commentaries, he 

 was the author of numerous books on legal and social questions. One of 

 these, which would have been of great interest to me in preparing this 

 lecture, was called forth by the trial of some of the mutineers of the 

 "Bounty," in 1792, but I regret to say I have not been able to meet with 

 a copy anywhere, notwithstanding a careful search through the library 



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