No. LIX.

R. G. HOGAN, Esq., D.C.L.

LATE CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE COLONY OF SIERRA LEONE.

MR

R. Hogan was born in the north of Ireland, in 1774, and not only received a liberal education, but obtained the highest honours that an university can bestow. His family had been long settled at Rathcormick in the county of Cork, and while his brother chose the profession of arms, he addicted himself to the more profitable career of the law.

His character, conduct, and excellent talents soon obtained notice; and if we are not greatly mistaken, he filled an inferior station in the colony of Sierra Leone, before he presided as Chief Justice.

To that post, at the especial request of those who wish to vindicate, not only England, but human nature itself, from the indelible reproach annexed to the slave trade, was annexed an office of a very different kind; but entirely compatible with the former. This was the Judge of the Vice-Admiralty court, in which capacity he was to decide, in the first instance, as to the capture of vessels engaged in that nefarious traffic.

No one better fitted for such a station could have been chosen at the present moment, for he was scrupulously and conscientiously hostile to the enormities accompanying slavery of all kinds and degrees.

On this occasion, he succeeded Robert Thorpe, Esq. LL. D. in both situations, and notwithstanding the quarrel of the latter gentleman with the African Institution*, there can be no doubt but that his decisions, during the time he presided in the

* See a letter to W. Wilberforce, Esq., 8vo. 1815, with the reply and rejoinder.

Vice-Admiralty Court, were highly friendly to the best interests of humanity.

-While Mr. Hogan was fulfilling the duties of his station with exemplary zeal, fortitude, and integrity; he was suddenly cut off by the diseases incident to a pestilential climate, in the forty-second year of his age, after he had exercised his funetions but a few short months..

OF THE KINGDOM OF IRELAND; BARON KILTARTON; A GOVERNOR OF THE COUNTY; CHAMBERLAIN FOR THE CITY OF LIMERICK ; AND COLONEL OF THE MILITIA.

"VINCIT VERITAS." - Mot.

THE

HE Smyths are supposed to have settled in Ireland during the reign of Charles I., a period at which a number of respectable English families were induced to repair thither, for the purpose of effecting a permanent establishment, both for themselves and their posterity. They afterwards enriched their descendants, or at least, greatly added to their original fortunes by means of church leases,

Mr. Smyth was born in 1741. In consequence of his property in the immediate vicinity, he possessed influence sufficient to represent the city of Limerick in Parliament, of which one of his ancestors had been bishop in 1695, and he

* William Smyth was consecrated Bishop of Killala in 1681, and died Bishop of Kilmore in 1699. Thomas another branch of this same family, was Bishop of Limerick; Edward was Bishop of Down, and Arthur, Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland.

also became Chamberlain to the corporation. His nephew and successor, at the same time, was nominated Colonel of the militia, raised there in 1797, at the head of which he distinguished himself greatly during the unhappy disturbances afterwards prevalent in that country; and finally became M. P. also for the same place.

In 1810, Mr. John Prendergast Smyth was created Baron Kiltarton; and during the regency was advanced to the dignity of Viscount Gort. He possessed Lough-Cooter castle, and a considerable estate adjoining in Galway, but he died at Gort in the same county, May 22, 1817, in the seventy-sixth year of his age.

In consequence of this event, his titles and estates devolve on the Right Honourable Charles Vereker, to whom they were granted in remainder.

* Colonel Charles Vereker first sat in the Irish House of Commons in 1790, and became a Lord of the Treasury, and then a Privy Counsellor. In 1798, he exhibited great skill and bravery in an attack on the French troops, who had been joined by the insurgents; and the motto of "Coloony" has been added to his arms by way of com memorating both the place and the exploit.

PART II.

NEGLECTED BIOGRAPHY;

WITH

ORIGINAL LETTERS, PAPERS, Sc.

No. I.

SIR JAMES MACDONALD, BART..

OF SLATE IN THE ISLE OF SKY,

COMMONLY CALLED "THE SCOTTISH MARCELLUS.

THE Macdonalds of Slate, one of whom has been ennobled in the person of the late Lord Macdonald *, in consequence of a patent from his present Majesty, creating him an Irish Baron, are allowed to be a very ancient, and at one period, were a very powerful family. Douglas, and Walter Scott, have both given authentic testimony to this fact; and it appears from them, that there existed many feuds, equally sanguinary and ridiculous,

*This was Sir Alexander Macdonald, who obtained a patent as a peer of Ireland, by the title of Lord Macdonald of Slate, July 17, 1776; and died September 12, 1795. He was the second son of Sir James Macdonald of Oronsay, the sixth baronet of this house; and succeeded to the title on the demise of his eldest brother, the illustrious Sir James, who is the subject of this brief memoir.

The Right Honourable Sir Archibald Macdonald, Bart.; the third son, was a posthumous child, not being born until 1747. He is still alive, and after filling the high offices of Solicitor, and Attorney-General, was appointed Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 1793. He has lately retired from the bench.

about the delicate point of precedency, among the different branches of this warlike race. As usual, however, the weight of property finally preponderated, and the "lairds of Slate," having the largest share of territory, it of course followed, that they alone, in process of time, began to be considered as the legitimate chieftains.

If we are to credit tradition, they are of Norwegian, not of Caledonian race, being descended from Somerland Thane of Argyll, who is said to have acquired the Western Islands, by his marriage with Elfrica, or Rachel, daughter of Olaus, the swarthy, king of Man. Certain it is, that this Toparch, or roitelet, who afterwards assumed the pompous denomination of king of the Isles, invaded Scotland about the year 1164; but being slain in the attempt, and his descendants proving utterly incapable of even supporting their own independence, they were at last obliged to acknowledge themselves subjects to the monarch who then swayed the Scottish sceptre.

It appears, that Angus, who modestly termed himself, only "Lord of the Isles," afforded an hospitable asylum in his castle of Dunaverty, to the gallant Robert Bruce, during his adversity. A disputed succession having afterwards ensued, in consequence of attaint for treason, James V. refused to grant possession to the head of such a numerous, warlike, and "troublesome" clan; but Donald Gorme Macdonald, was reinstated by Queen Mary, in the lands of Slate; and one of his successors was created a baronet of Nova Scotia, by Charles I. This circumstance doubtless contributed to attach the family to the royal cause; and it accordingly took part against the English parliament.

Sir Donald, the fourth baronet, having unadvisedly engaged in the rebellion of 1715, was attainted; but Sir Alexander Macdonald of Slate, refusing to join the grandson of James II., in 1745, in consequence of the influence, and intervention of the Lord President Forbes, was thus prevented from sharing in the ruin, that attached to the devoted followers of the House of Stuart. It is of his immediate descendant we now propose

to treat.