rd of
his statement (which, further, was garnished with a tremendous number
of oaths); and he was, about eight o'clock, carried up to the house of
Squire Ballance, the neighbouring justice of the peace.

When the worthy magistrate asked the crime of which the prisoner had
been guilty, the captors looked somewhat puzzled for the moment; since,
in truth, it could not be shown that the Ensign had committed any crime
at all; and if he had confined himself to simple silence, and thrown
upon them the onus of proving his misdemeanours, Justice Ballance must
have let him loose, and soundly rated his clerk and the landlord for
detaining an honest gentleman on so frivolous a charge.

But this caution was not in the Ensign's disposition; and though his
accusers produced no satisfactory charge against him, his own words were
quite enough to show how suspicious his character was. When asked his
name, he gave it in as Captain Geraldine, on his way to Ireland,
by Bristol, on a visit to his cousin the Duke of Leinster. He
swore solemnly that his friends, the Duke of Marlborough and Lord
Peterborough, under both of whom he had served, should hear of the
manner in which he had been treated; and when the justice,--a sly old
gentleman, and one that read the Gazettes, asked him at what battles he
had been present, the gallant Ensign pitched on a couple in Spain and in
Flanders, which had been fought within a week of each other, and vowed
that he had been desperately wounded at both; so that, at the end of his
examination, which had been taken down by the clerk, he had been made
to acknowledge as follows:--Captain Geraldine, six feet four inches in
height; thin, with a very long red nose, and red hair; grey eyes, and
speaks with a strong Irish accent; is the first-cousin of the Duke of
Leinster, and in constant communication with him: does not know whether
his Grace has any children; does not know whereabouts he lives
in London; cannot say what sort of a looking man his Grace is: is
acquainted with the Duke of Marlborough, and served in the dragoons at
the battle of Ramillies; at which time he was with my Lord Peterborough
before Barcelona. Borrowed the horse which he rides from a friend in
London, three weeks since. Peter Hobbs, ostler, swears that it was in
his master's stable four days ago, and is the property of John Hayes,
carpenter. Cannot account for the fifteen guineas found on him by the
landlord; says there were twenty; says he wo