or against him. His son, however, inheriting the father's pretensions,
and also apparently his faculty for raising money, contrived to find
supporters, and carried on the case. Maintaining his father's
truthfulness, he declared that his ancestor, the Hon. James Lindsay
Crawfurd, had settled in Ireland, and that he had died there between
1765 and 1770, leaving a family, of which he was the chief
representative. On the other hand, Lord Glasgow, who had succeeded by
this time to the estates, insisted that the scion of the family who
was supposed to have gone to Ireland, and from whom the pretender
traced his descent, had in reality died in London in 1745, and had
been buried in the churchyard of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. It was
finally proved that a record remained of the death of James Lindsay
Crawfurd in London, as stated, and 120 genuine letters were produced
in his handwriting bearing a later date than that year. The decision
of the House of Lords was--"That from the facts now before us we are
satisfied that any further inquiry is hopeless and unnecessary." This
opinion was given in 1839, and since that time no further steps have
been taken to advance the claim. Strange to say, Lord Glasgow allowed
the body of the original claimant to be interred in the family
mausoleum; and it has been more than suggested that if John Lindsay
Crawfurd was not the man that he represented himself to be, he was at
least an illegitimate offshoot of the same noble house, and that had
he been less pertinacious in advancing his claims to the earldom, he
might have ended his days more happily.




JOHN NICHOLS THOM, _ALIAS_ SIR WILLIAM COURTENAY.