sing that
I had filled a dozen sheets of paper with my signature, under the
names of Ballybarry and Barryogue, and had determined with my usual
impetuosity to carry my point. My mother went and established herself
at Ballybarry, living with the priest there until a tenement could be
erected, and dating from 'Ballybarry Castle;' which, you may be sure,
I gave out to be a place of no small importance. I had a plan of the
estate in my study, both at Hackton and in Berkeley Square, and the
plans of the elevation of Ballybarry Castle, the ancestral residence of
Barry Lyndon, Esq., with the projected improvements, in which the castle
was represented as about the size of Windsor, with more ornaments to
the architecture; and eight hundred acres of bog falling in handy, I
purchased them at three pounds an acre, so that my estate upon the map
looked to be no insignificant one. [Footnote: On the strength of this
estate, and pledging his honour that it was not mortgaged, Mr. Barry
Lyndon borrowed L17,000 in the year 1786, from young Captain Pigeon, the
city merchant's son, who had just come in for his property. At for the
Polwellan estate and mines, 'the cause of endless litigation,' it must
be owned that our hero purchased them; but he never paid more than the
first L5000 of the purchase-money. Hence the litigation of which he
complains, and the famous Chancery suit of 'Trecothick v. Lyndon,' in
which Mr. John Scott greatly distinguished himself.-ED.]

I also in this year made arrangements for purchasing the Polwellan
estate and mines in Cornwall from Sir John Trecothick, for L70,000--an
imprudent bargain, which was afterwards the cause to me of much dispute
and litigation. The troubles of property, the rascality of agents, the
quibbles of lawyers, are endless. Humble people envy us great men, and
fancy that our lives are all pleasure. Many a time in the course of my
prosperity I have sighed for the days of my meanest fortune, and envied
the boon companions at my table, with no clothes to their backs but
such as my credit supplied them, without a guinea but what came from
my pocket; but without one of the harassing cares and responsibilities
which are the dismal adjuncts of great rank and property.

I did little more than make my appearance, and assume the command of my
estates, in the kingdom of Ireland; rewarding generously those persons
who had been kind to me in my former adversities, and taking my fitting
place among the ari