IV. MRS SARSFIELD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 33, 3 June 1892, Page 25

IV. MRS SARSFIELD.

On both sides Charley Sarsfield came of an excellent family. When Cromwell and hia extraordinaiy army were all-powerful in England in the days of the Commonwealth, the Irish Catholics amazed and alarmed on the one side by the actions of the Papal Nuncio and fearfal on the other of the power of the English Parliament, elected that their greatest source of safety was ia declaring for the support of the declining authority of the EDglish King. A deputation was accordingly seit to Paris, and Ormonde, the Lieutenant, was invited to return and once more resume the reins of government is} the King's name. One of the chief promoters of this policy was Patrick Jerome Sarsfield. He fought bravely with the Lord-Lien-tenant's troops. He was present at the taking of Dundalk and Drogheda and entered those cities as a member of Ormonde's victorious army, at the time when Charles 11., then living at the French court, was anxiously looking toward Ireland as the best stepping-stone to the throne which was his right. When this bright hops of the King's wss dashed to pieces after Cromwell hat secured his appointment as Lord-Lieutenant of the island, be was present at the suddea attack of Ormonde's army, and its disastrous defeat ia the vicinity of Dublin at the hands of Colonel Jones and his EDglish troops. One of his sons had

W his life there fighting bravely for the cause in which hia father had been to interested. Then came Cromwell's crashing victories and the disasters aod horrors of Drogheda, Wexford, Kilkenny and Clonmel, till when the cause was broken and every hope was shattered, he left the island be loved so well with his family and numbers of his friends to accept service under the French King. His sons and grandsons and their progeny followed the army as their calling through the wars of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. When the American war broke out, and Franklin had been sent over to Paris as an envoy to solicit tbe support of tbe French, amongst whom the cause of tbe new country was very popular, at once on account of their hatred ot Eog'and and also their own desire for power in the New World, one of the Marquis de la Fayette's companions, when that worthy soldier offered bis assistance to the Americans, was a promising young officer named Haiold James Sarsfield. This young soldier fought bravely under the American flag, no doubt mindful of the blood of his forefathers which had been spilt fighting against the arms of the English, at whose hands the Irish had always received such hard and bitter treatment. He fought with all his energy for the cause and country he had adopted. Every day of the war his love for America and his hatred for England grew stronger and more intense; he rejoiced over every American victory and wept over her slightest defeat, in spite of the fact that his forefathers had fought for the restoration of monarchy during the Commonwealth in England and that he himself had been brought up and educated in France, which country had grown to be perhaps the greatest power in Europe under an almost absolute monarchy. He rapidly imbibed the republican ideas which he heard on all sides from his companions in armß, and when Lord Cornwallis surrendered his army of seven thousand men to General Washington at Yorktown after the famous American Oommander-in-Chief had so thoroughly deceived General Clinton, whose army he left behind him in New York, and after tbe English Parliament had decided that it waß useless to prolong the war and voted to end it and the British had evacuated New York, Sarsfield decided to remain with the men by whoee sides he had fought. These he had learned to love, and he joined them with spirit in the formation of the republic.

Mrs Sarsfield came cf an English family, her ancestor, Christopher Bolton, a close friend of George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, accompanied that famous Catholic nobleman, who was anxious to secure a refuge for his co-religionists for the persecution they were subjected to in England, when he endeavoured to form a colony in Newfoundland, only to be obliged to give it up and return to England on account of the severe and inclement climate. Lord Baltimore returned and received from the King a grant of land which he named Maryland. Amongst the Catholic gentry who accompanied Lord Baltimore's brother, Leonard Calvert, in the " Dove," waa Christopher Bolton, for a Becond time a fugitive from the indignities which were daily offered to his religion in England. During all the quarrels with the Virginians, who were intensely anti-Catholic, and the fierce struggles with Clayborne, he gave his best energies towards the successful foundation of the colony. He had a large family of sons, all worthy of an illustrious father, all of whom grew to manhood and in turn married, thus securing tbe propagation of a famous family and a good old name. Boger Johnson Bolton, the grandfather of Mrs Sarefield, had made a name for himself in literature.

John Roger Bolton, the grandfather of our hero, became famous as a diplomatist and represented his country at Brussels, in which beautiful city Mrs Sarsfield had every opportunity of practising the religion she laved bo much. It was common hearsay that the daughter of the American Minister had been seen in the Cathedral of St Gudule every morning of her four years' residence there. The Minister, at the expiration of his term, was appointed to the Court of St James, in London, and it was at this time that his beautiful and graceful daughter met and became engaged to Clarence Sarsfield Their only child was Charles, whom we have met, and who wa9 now en his way home from his visit to Charibert in the stable adjoining their cottage near Dobb's Ferry on the Hudson.

(To be continued .)