Blackbeard | Page 5

the young earl, soon after his accession to the title and fortune of
the former, began openly to hold a correspondence with the court of the
pretender, which finally resulted in his becoming one of the first
noblemen to assist in raising the rebel banner in Scotland, in the year
1715. After running through a short career of active service, George

Armstrong the last Earl of Derwentwater, found his vast estates
confiscated to the crown, and himself a prisoner in the Tower of
London. This event happened during the spring of 1716. Early in the
summer of the same year, he, with a number of others was brought to
trial before a special commission appointed for that purpose, found
guilty of high treason, (and although, others who had taken a less active
part in the rebellion, were doomed to immediate execution.) The
earnest intercession of the French Ambassador at the court of St.
George Armstrong, to be commuted to foreign and perpetual
banishment, and in accordance with this sentence, he was about to join
his brother-in-law, a rich South American merchant, who was located
at Rio Janeiro in Brazil, when his progress was somewhat singularly
arrested by the adventure commenced in our first chapter.
Having related as much of the earl's previous history, as is consistent
with the progress of our story, the next of our voyagers in order of
description, is his fair niece, Mary Hamilton. In form, as we have
before said, she was stately and beautiful, her features were striking and
regular, though they could not be called pre-eminently beautiful, whilst
her complexion was fair and elegantly transparent. Her hair, which was
as dark in color as the plumage of the raven, as it clustered in short, rich,
silken curls over her small white neck, gave conclusive evidence, when
combined to a pair of large, languishing black eyes, that she was not
born beneath the ruddy influence of England's cold and vacillating
climate. And such was the fact, for the mother that bore her was of pure
Castilian blood, who had fallen in love with and married William
Hamilton, whilst residing with her father, who, at that time, held the
high situation of Governor of the Island of Cuba. Under the warm and
enervating influences of the climate of this island, Mary Hamilton first
saw the light, but long before she had learnt to lisp her mother's name,
she was sent to England, there to receive, through the agency of her
uncle, an education calculated to fit her for the station she would be
called upon to assume, as the only child and heir of the ancient house
of Hamilton. As she advanced from infancy to childhood, and her
young mind began gradually to expand, nature (that beautiful but
mystic chain which connects man with his Creator,) prompted her to
ask for her mother. The answer which fell from her aunt's lips, in cold

and icy tones, which precluded all farther questioning, was,
'Mary, your maternal parent is dead, but I will be a mother to you so
long as I live, and my husband shall be to you an indulgent father. And
now, dear Mary,' continued Lady Armstrong, 'for various reasons
which cannot now be explained, I must strictly prohibit you from
alluding to your real mother in my presence, or that of my husband.'
Many a long and bitter hour as she passed from childhood to youth, and
from thence to woman's estate, did the future heiress of the House of
Hamilton ponder sadly over the mysterious and cruel prohibition of her
noble aunt, and as she thus pondered, a strong but indefinite
presentiment of future sorrow and grief and misery in connection with
the fate of her real parents became so completely fastened upon her
mind as to cause her whole deportment to become tinged with a sort of
sad and mournful melancholy, which all the seductive arts of a London
life could not eradicate.
Although numberless suitors of almost every variety of rank and
character had knelt in real and assumed adoration before the virtuous
shrine of the beautiful West Indian heiress, she had turned from them
all with almost loathing indifference, and the summons which she
received (about three months previous to the commencement of our
story) calling upon her to join her father, in company with her uncle,
found her at the age of twenty-three, unmarried and unengaged. In less
than a month however, after her embarcation on board of the Gladiator,
a gradual change had taken place in her whole demeanor, caused by the
deep interest she found herself constrained to take in the person of
Henry Huntington, the son of Sir Arthur Huntington, who had followed
the fortunes of the Earl of Derwentwater during the rebellion, and who
had chosen also