Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3)

“The Tower! the Tower!” said his Majesty, with horror and indignation. “The Tower for an Irish hog that ate a pious Christian! – No, no – no, no, my lords. – Mr. Recorder, Mr. Recorder – here, see, see – I command you on your allegiance – shoot the pig, shoot him – shoot, Mr. Recorder – you can’t hang. – Eh! you would if you could, Mr. Recorder, no doubt. But, no, no – let me never hear more of the monster. A sergeant’s guard – shoot him – tell Sir Richard Ford to send his keepers to Ireland to-night – to-night if he can find them – go, go – let me never hear more of him – go – go – go – go – shoot him, shoot him!”

The Recorder withdrew with the usual obeisances, and notice was given that at six next morning a sergeant’s guard should attend to shoot the “olive branch,” and bury his corpse in the Tower ditch, with a bulky barrel of hot lime to annihilate it. This was actually executed, notwithstanding the following droll circumstance that Sir Richard Ford himself informed us of.

Sir Richard was far better acquainted with the humour and management of the Irish in London, than any London magistrate that ever succeeded him: he knew nearly all of the principal ones by name, and individually, and represented them to us as the most tractable of beings, if duly come round and managed, and the most intractable and obstinate, if directly contradicted.

The Irish had been quite delighted with the honour intended for their compatriot, the Enniscorthy boar, and were equally affected and irritated at the sentence which was so unexpectedly and so unjustly passed on him; and, after an immediate consultation, they determined that the pig should be rescued at all risks, and without the least consideration how they were to save his life afterwards. Their procedure was all settled, and the rescue determined on, when one of Sir Richard’s spies brought him information of an intended rising at St. Giles’s to rescue the pig, which the frightened spy said must be followed by the Irish firing London, plundering the Bank, and massacring all the Protestant population – thirty thousand choice Irish being ready for any thing.

Sir Richard was highly diverted at the horrors of the spy, but judged it wise to prevent any such foolish attempt at riot, by anticipating his Majesty’s orders; wherefore, early in the evening, a dozen policemen, one by one, got into the hog’s residence, with a skilful butcher, who stuck him in the spinal marrow, and the “olive branch,” scarcely brought life to the ground with him. The rescue was then out of the question, and in a very short time Doctor Haydn’s Gourmand was not only defunct, but actually laid ten feet under ground, with as much quick-lime covered up over his beautiful body as soon left hardly a bone to discover the place of his interment.

Sir Richard told this anecdote, as to the execution, &c. with great humour. The Irish used to tell Sir Richard that a pig was dishonoured by any death but to make bacon of; that God had sent the breed to Ireland for that purpose only; and that, when killed for that purpose, they considered his death a natural one!

THE END