Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/444

 should be disbanded, Clancarty determined to visit his wife, who was living in London under Sunderland's roof, and, if possible, obtain his pardon. He obtained by a ruse admission to his wife, who received him kindly, but information of his arrival was given by a waiting-woman to Sunderland's son, Lord Spencer, ‘who flew to Vernon's office’ and betrayed his brother-in-law to the government. A warrant for his arrest as a traitor, in England and without a license, was procured, and he was that night (1 Jan. 1697–8) committed to Newgate (, iv. 327; Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. App. pt. iv. p. 333).

The prayers of his young wife, who begged permission to join him in prison, combined with those of Clancarty's mother, who was dying in a house belonging to the Evelyns in Dover Street, and those of a more influential person, Lady Russell, who had been touched by the romantic story, prevailed upon William to grant Clancarty his pardon, together with a pension of 300l. a year, provided that he left England and made no attempt to disturb the political settlement of affairs. At the same time Lady Clancarty was granted 2,000l. a year out of the first fruits office (, iv. 194). The earl pleaded his pardon before the king's bench on 17 May 1698, and left the kingdom within ten days. The story of his capture, condemnation, and pardon, eloquently told by Macaulay, formed the subject of an ‘original drama’ by Tom Taylor, first produced at the Royal Olympic Theatre on 9 March 1874, with Henry Neville and Ada Cavendish in the leading rôles of the earl and countess, parts subsequently played by Mr. and Mrs. Kendal (, Historical Dramas, 1877).

Clancarty proceeded with his wife to Hamburg, and took up his abode on an island in the Elbe, near Altona, which he purchased. According to the writer of ‘A Tour through Ireland,’ 1748, he derived much profit from the flotsam and jetsam incident to its position. He died at Praals-Hoff on 19 Sept. 1734. By his devoted wife, who died in 1704, he left a daughter, Charlotte, who married John West, seventh lord Delawarr, and two sons, Robert and Justin; the latter became an officer in the Neapolitan army.

The elder son, (d. 1769), viscount Muskerry and titular earl of Clancarty, had entered the British navy, and at the time of his father's death was in command of a vessel off Newfoundland, of which island he was governor from 1733 to 1735. Returning to England in 1735, he attempted to recover the large family estates, but the influence which he possessed through his connection with the Sunderlands and the Duchess of Marlborough was unequal to the task. Upon his father's attainder on 11 May 1691, lands to the value of 400l. a year had passed to Sir Richard Cox [q.v.], who had strenuously resisted the proposal made in 1692, that Clancarty should be treated as a prisoner of war and exchanged for a Dutch officer; but the bulk of the forfeiture went to William Bentinck (Lord Woodstock), the grant passing the great seal in December 1697 (, Cat. Southwell MSS. p. 26). Though he could in no wise have participated in his father's treason, and although the justice of his claim was pressed upon Walpole by Cardinal Fleury, he could effect nothing against such powerful opponents. He nevertheless remained in the British navy until 1741, by which time he was in command of a first-rate, the Adventure. Shortly after this date he went over to France, and devoted himself to the Stuart cause; he was in consequence excluded from the Act of Indemnity of 1747. Being granted a pension of 1,000l. a year by Louis XV, he retired to Boulogne, kept open house, told pleasant stories of Swift, Bolingbroke, and Lord Wharton (in a drunken brawl with whom he had lost the sight of an eye), and ‘generally finished the evening in an oblivion of all his former cares’ (cf., Works, ed. Scott, 2nd edition, xviii. 412). ‘In this simple, uniform life,’ continues his biographer, in Walker's Hibernian Magazine, July and August 1796, ‘he passed the remainder of his days,’ and died at Boulogne on 19 Sept. 1769 (Annual Register, 1769). He left two sons, who obtained commissions in the French army.

 MACCARTHY, JOHN GEORGE (1829–1892), Irish land commissioner and author, born at Cork in June 1829, was son of John MacCarthy, of Cork. He was educated at a private school in that city. He was admitted a solicitor in Easter term 1853, and continued to practise in Cork until 1881. From 1874 to 1880 he represented Mallow in parliament as a home ruler. While in parliament he devoted particular attention to the Irish land question, and his mastery of the subject led to his appointment as an assistant commissioner under the Land Act of 1881. On the passing of the Land Purchase