1773 THE SIKS 95 



and a great sportsman altogether. It is recorded 

 that he * sported freely ' when he matched his Brutus 

 against Lord Kockingham's Eemus at Newmarket in 

 1757 for 500 guineas, B.C., 8 stone 7 Ib. against 

 8 stone 11 Ib., and won ; and he was the hero of the 

 leaping-match in 1752 or 1753, when he performed 

 with ease in 86 minutes, for a wager of 1,000 guineas, 

 the task of riding ten miles and taking forty leaps, 

 for which he was allowed at least 45 minutes, if not 

 longer. He was also the hero of a run with his 

 hounds, in 1775, after ' the noted old fox Caesar, who 

 made an extraordinary chace . . . upwards of 

 50 miles.' It was his son (also perhaps a member of 

 the Jockey Club) who in 1796 married the daughter 

 (or a daughter) of the rich banker Sir W. Newcomen 

 (who eventually seems to have blossomed into a noble 

 lord), of Carrickglass, and it is published abroad that 

 he had to relinquish horse-racing as part of the 

 settlement or marriage-agreement. The relinquish- 

 ment, however, can only have been ' over the left,' 

 or, at any rate, temporary (whether the promise were 

 cancelled by mutual consent or merely broken like 

 pie-crust), for he was evidently 'on the Turf when 

 he died, at the early age of thirty-eight, in 1810, though 

 no proof has been discovered that he was (as he most 

 likely was) a member of the Jockey Club. It was 

 this young Sir Charles who at York August races 

 in 1795 had purchased in a lump from Mr. John 

 Hutchinson (first stable-boy and then ' esquire ') for 



