2»« S. VI. 149., Nov. 6. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



365 



disappears from the books in 1700 ; and in 1702, 

 and 1707, I find in a list of persons receiving 

 parochial relief from St. Paul's, Covent Garden, 

 "Ann Portlock" — still not "Widow," as other 

 recipients are called — "12 months at 8s." From 

 this I infer that her husband absconded, and 

 abandoned her in 1697, when the witness Beesley 

 was informed that he had gone to Scotland. If 

 so, to whom does the following entry refer, which 

 I find in the parish register of burials ? : — 



" Nov. 1698. Richard Portlock."' 



Not to the husband. Probably, then, to a child 

 of theirs of the same name. But it is not a very 

 remote conjecture that the second child of the 

 Countess died in infancy like the first one, and 

 as was the case at that period with so large a pro- 

 portion of such nurse children ; and that " Richard 

 Portlock" in the burial register was Richard, the 

 son of "Madam Smith," the "Captain's wife." The 

 Portlocks, it will be remembered, when they re- 

 moved the child from " Nurse Peglear,"- asserted 

 that it was their own. She says, " the baker's 

 wife said she was the mother, and Richard Port- 

 lock the father." They probably indeed were 

 able to satisfy a justice of their claim ; for the 

 woman Peglear appears to have resisted it, or to 

 have had some squabble with " the baker and his 

 wife." She says, " I had Portlock before a Jus- 

 tice, and he was bound to Hicks's Hall." Not- 

 withstanding this, however, they were permitted 

 to take away the child as their own. They, there- 

 fore, in all probability, continued to call the child 

 their own ; and it is also probable that they would, 

 if it died soon after, register it, not in the name of 

 Richard Smith, but of Richard Portlock. 



I am, however, myself of opinion that the Port- 

 locks were employed only for the service of re- 

 moving the child from Hampstead. They were 

 probably instructed by the Ousleys, who lived in 

 the adjoining parish of St. Martin's. The Ous- 

 leys, who had acted in every stage of the matter 

 for several years — hiring and paying midwives 

 and nurses, absconded before the trial, and pro- 

 bably took the child with them to conceal it till 

 the husband's suit was ended. 



Although the case of the Earl of ^lacclesfield's 

 Divorce is a sort oi Cause Celebre in the law books, 

 it being the first case in which a divorce had been 

 decreed without judgment first obtained in the 

 Ecclesiastical Courts, there is, I believe, no 

 published report of the proceedings, or of the 

 arguments of counsel, &c. Ijuttrell gives some par- 

 ticulars evidently founded on very imperfect infor- 

 mation. He adds under date of March 3 [1697-8] : 



"'Tig s-iiil the son she h.id during her elopement goes 

 b^ thi; name of Savage, and supposed father the present 

 tarl of Uivers." 



But this is improbable, and it is very unlikely 

 that at this time anything should be known con- 



cerning the child except to the Countess and her 

 friends. 



The proceedings of the Earl are briefly de- 

 scribed in the speech of counsel on the Duke of 

 Norfolk's Divorce case, which came on a few 

 months afterwards : Mr. Pinfold said — 



"In that case [Macclesfield Divorce] the lady with- 

 drew herself five or six days before sentence. Yet there 

 the Lady Macclesfield had all her Defences, and even her 

 recriminations, and had time to prove it. There was 

 publication and a day set down for sentence: but she 

 spun out the time till the Parliament was ready to rise, 

 and then my Lord's friends advised him to begin in Par- 

 liament: and when the Lords were acquainted of the 

 Lady Macclesfield standing in contempt of the Court, and 

 she was prosecuted so far that she was almost ready to go 

 to prison for her contempt, then the House of Lords did 

 think fit to receive my Lord Macclesfield's Bill ; but be- 

 fore ray Lord MacclesSeld brought this Bill in Parlia- 

 ment there was nothing remained to be done in the 

 Ecclesiastical Courts but sentence." 



Serjeant Wright (on the other side) says : — 



" In the case of the Earl of Macclesfield, 'tis true they 

 had been there [to the Ecclesiastical Court], and exa- 

 mined witnesses upon one side with all precipitation. 

 Yet would thej' not stay for a sentence there, but quitted 

 their own proceedings, and came to the Parliament .... 

 There was no use at all, on that side the Bill was brought, 

 that there had been proceedings in the Spiritual Court. 

 Nor is any .such thing recited in the Bill, but only an ex- 

 press downright charge of adultery. Nor was it proper 

 for them to have mentioned anj' proceedings in the Spiri- 

 tual Court, since they waived that prosecution." 



I will, with your leave, offer some farther par- 

 ticulars and observations. W. Mot Thomas. 



A rOKGOTTEN EMPIRE : THE MAHA-RAJA OF 

 Z ABED J. 



The Times of October 6, in an article on the 

 sovereignty of Sarawak, thus speaks of the vast 

 archipelago in which it forms a mere point : — 



" In the way towards that Eastern coast of China lie 

 the fragments of a shivered continent. Great spiral pe- 

 ninsulas stretch southwards, and immense islands whose 

 interiors are unknown to us lie about. Bordering al- 

 though they do upon the highway of commerce, some of 

 them are as little known as the fanciful regions of the 

 ancient geographers. The microcosm of a Peninsular 

 *nd Oriental steamer listens with a half-credulity to 

 stories of flying-monkeys, and prodigious serpents, and a 

 population of cannibals, while the vessel dashes through 

 an archipelago of islands thickly clad with tropical foliage 

 and canopied with lofty palms. The passengers are 

 looking towards their point of destination, and spare few 

 thoughts to the untamed regions that lie upon their path. 

 Yet they are skirting the precincts of a future empire, 

 which must at some not very distant day take part in 

 the world's history. All commerce round the Cape, all 

 communication by way of Egypt and the Red Sea, must 

 thread the narrow channels that separate the fragments 

 of this broken piece of earth. It has all the elements of 

 a great future, all the possibilities of n vast empire. The 

 age of romance is not ended while the islands of the 

 Eastern Archipelago are unexplored. Sumatra and Bor- 

 neo and Celebes, and a thousand other islands that make 



