334 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2a* S. IX April 28. '60. 



"A wet sheet," etc. (2'" 1 S. ix. 182.) —You 

 have perhaps hardly yet come to a clear view of 

 the case. A sailing vessel to leave " Old England 

 on the lee," strictly speaking, would have to beat 

 dead to windward; in which case the wind would 

 not "cross her course," but be "right in her 

 teeth." I recollect to have seen somewhere a con- 

 siderable argument about " a wet sheet and a 

 flowing sea," with a suggestion that it ought to be 

 a following sea. Some of your non-nautical 

 readers may require to be told, or at least re- 

 minded, that the sheet in question is not the sail 

 itself (they may have seen sails tuctted or sheeted 

 in light airs, to make them hold wind), but the rope, 

 or rather tackle, by which the sail or its boom is 

 " hauled in" or "eased off" as the wind is less or 

 more favourable. A fore and aft mainsail, when 

 the vessel is going right before the wind, is eased 

 off as much as possible ; and then on every lull of 

 the wind the sheet drops into the waves, and be- 

 comes wet, — then you have "a wet sheet." You 

 seem to be disposed to construe a "flowing sea" 

 into a favouring tide, but I fear this will draw as 

 largely on poetical licence as leaving Old England 

 on the lee, when leaving it with a wind at least 

 abaft the beam. Query, Was Allan Cunningham 

 a sailor ? J. P. O. 



The Young Pretender (2 nd S. ix. 46. 208.)— 

 With reference to the remarks on the above pages, 

 I can state that when I was a boy about twelve 

 years of age (I am now a sexagenarian), an old 

 lady, a distant relative of the family, resided with 

 us. She died upwards of forty-five years since at 

 about eighty. She remembered being hurried 

 with the rest of her family into Wales (they lived 

 near Shrewsbury), on the receipt of the news of 

 Charles Edward entering Derby in 1745. This 

 old lady was in one of the side galleries in West- 

 minster Hall at the coronation banquet of George 

 III., and she often told me that when the cham- 

 pion flung his gauntlet on the floor a slight bustle 

 ensued, and she saw something picked up by one 

 of the attendants, which she was told at the time 

 was a silk glove enclosing a challenge. All this I 

 was well acquainted with years before Red Gaunt- 

 let appeared from the pen of its talented and la- 

 mented author. I was much struck with Scott's 

 description of the scene (although he doubts or 

 denies the fact), tallying as it does so closely with 

 one of the legends of my youth — and the narra- 

 tor had a vast store of them, which I used most 

 greedily to devour. Pi. H. 



Kensington. 



Admiral John Fish (2 nd S. ix. 282.) — Mr. 

 Gaustin will find a very short account of this 

 officer's services in the United Service Journal for 

 Dec. 1834. The notice states that he usually re- 

 sided at Castlefish, co. Kildare, and that he died 

 at St. Germain-en-Laye. 2. 0. 



Clerical Incumbents (2" d S. ix. 252. et ante.) 

 — The Rev. Robert Harris, B.D., the present in- 

 cumbent of St. George's Church, Preston, was 

 inducted to that living in September, 1797. The 

 reverend gentleman, who is thus in the sixty-third 

 year of his incumbency, and who completed the 

 ninety- sixth year of his age last February, 

 preached in St. George's on Sunday morning, 

 March 18 th, 1860. 



I would add to your list of lengthy incumben- 

 cies that of the present rector of Croston, the 

 Rev. Streynsham Master, who was inducted in 

 September, 1798. 



The Rev. Henry Bigot, B.D., who died April 

 10, 1722, aged 94, was vicar of Rochdale fifty- 

 nine years and seven months, and rector of Biindle 

 seventy-one years. (Baines's Lancashire, vol. iii. 

 498.) William Dobson. 



Preston. 



Edgar Family (2 nd S.ix. 248.)— With refer- 

 ence to the article Scots College at Paris, in which 

 paper the family of Edgar of Keithock and Wed- 

 derlie is mentioned, and uncertainty expressed 

 whether any representative of that ancient family 

 now exists, I beg to state that after the extinc- 

 tion of the direct line as above, the representation 

 devolved on the Edgars of Auchengrammont, co. 

 Lanark, which house was lately represented by 

 Miss Margaret Edgai-, of St. Bernard's, Edin- 

 burgh (daughter of James Handyside Edgar of 

 Auchengrammont), who died September, 1857 ; 

 and at her decease, by Capt. Henry Edgar, late 

 26th Regiment, her first cousin, and son of Alex- 

 ander Edgar, of Wedderlie, Falmouth, Jamaica, 

 and Edinburgh. This Alexander Edgar had a 

 large family, the only survivors of which are 

 Henry as aforesaid, Major James Edgar, 69th 

 Regiment, and Louisa, wife of the Rev. Samuel 

 John Jackson of Ay ton, St. David's, Jamaica. 



J. F. N. H. 



Ferdinand Smtth Stuart (2 nd S. viii. 495.) 

 — I am obliged to Carthusianus for the infor- 

 mation he has aflbrded me, but he has omitted 

 to mention whether Constantine was the elder or 

 younger of the brothers. With regard to the 

 sister, I thought it would be useless to inquire 

 about her, as she might have been married, and 

 therefore identification in that case would not be 

 so easy ; and also my desire being principally to 

 ascertain ivho is the eldest male representative of the 

 elder son, i. e. the head of the house. 



Bristoliensis. 



"Beauseant" (2" d S. ix. 170.) — The meaning 

 of this term, according to the French glossary of 

 Ducange (s. vv. JBaucant, Baucens,) is merely 

 "black and white"; and it was adopted as the 

 battle cry of the Templars because their banner 

 was of those colours. B. B. Woodward. 



Haverstock Hill. 



