VAENOL. 69 



and there was always a fair day's wage for a fair day's 

 labour. The summer months were generally passed by Mr. 

 Smith on his property in Caernarvonshire, and he returned 

 to Ted worth for cub-bunting in the early autumn. Let us 

 follow the squire and his establishment into North Wales. 

 He was for some time a member of the Royal Yacht Club, 

 and from the earliest period of life fond of sailing : with 

 nautical science he was indeed quite as familiar as he was 

 with fox-hunting. 



In the Straits of Menai, on the banks of which stood 

 Vaenol, his residence in Wales, he had ample scope for 

 indulging his sea-going propensities. Vaenol had originally 

 belonged to the Williams family of Fryars, Anglesea ; but 

 Griffith Williams, in the reign of Queen Anne, having no 

 issue, bequeathed the estates to the crown. That sovereign 

 granted them to the then speaker of the House of Commons, 

 and they thus became the property of the Smith family, 

 who had had previously no connexion with the Principality. 

 The grounds sloj^e down to the water's edge, and the squire 

 could embark immediately on board his yacht, which lay at 

 anchor at no great distance from the shore. Oj)posite 

 Yaenol, on the other side of the Straits, is Plas Newydd, 

 {Anglice, " the New Palace,") the property of the Marquis 

 of Anglesea, formerly graced by the presence of her 

 Majesty when Princess Victoria, and of her august mother. 

 Mr. Smith himself lived there for some time, while Vaenol 

 was undergoing alterations. The mansion is now tenanted 

 by the Dowager Lady Willoughby de Broke. During the 

 period of the Princess Victoria's residence at Plas Newydd, she 

 condescended to visit the squire of Ted worth at Vaenol, and 

 presented him with a portrait of herself and of the Duchess 

 of Kent, one of the few engraved only for private circu- 

 lation. This souvenir of the royal visit was highly prized by 

 Mr. Smith, and it filled a conspicuous place on the walls of the 

 mansion in Wales to the time of his death. His loyalty to his 

 Queen had in fact something of the romantic in it. Her name 



