The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 40

Fighting Fitzgerald

Fighting Fitzgerald.

T he portrait of Fighting Fitzgerald has been painted by enemies as vindictive as any that ever slandered the dead, and is therefore distorted in every feature.

George Robert—his baptismal name—was born in 1749. Through his father, a fair specimen of the profligate and reckless Irish landlords of long ago, he was the heir of Torlough, an estate near Castlebar, then worth £4,000 a year; and also the representative of the Desmond, the eldest branch of the haughty Norman-Irish Fitzgeralds. His mother came of a race so conspicuously eccentric that the saying ran concerning it—"God made men, women, and—Harveys." Separating from her husband after two years of miserable married life, she remained for many years one of the gay leaders of gayest London society. She was the sister of that splendid singularity, the Earl-Bishop of Derry.

Brought up in England from infancy to his sixteenth year, George Robert was for a time an Eton scholar. In 1766 he was gazetted to a lieutenancy in the 69th regiment, then stationed in Ireland. Here, while yet a mere boy, he fought several duels, in which he displayed not a little generous feeling, and in one of which he lost a portion of his skull. In February, 1770, he made a love-match with one of the daughters of a redoubtable Irish personage, the Right Honourable J. Conolly—otherwise known as "the Great Commoner." Thus he obtained a fortune of £30,000, and eventually became the brother-in-law of an Irish viceroy.

Ten thousand pounds of the money was handed over to the owner of Torlough, who was then, as ever, in pecuniary difficulties. In return he signed deeds securing George Robert £1,000 a year in the present and the reversion of his estate, whole and unimpaired. This settlement was the main cause of our hero's faults and misfortunes, and ultimately of his doom.

Immediately after his marriage George Robert resigned his lieutenancy and went to France. At this period his appearance was singularly striking, nor did it ever undergo any change. The portrait painted of him at tweniy remained perfectly true to the last.

He was under the middle height; "his person very slight and juvenile; his countenance extremely mild and insinuating. The existing taste for splendid attire he carried to the utmost. The button and loop of his hat, his sword-knot, and his shoe-buckles were brilliant with diamonds. His coat and vest were as rich as French brocade and velvet could make them. He wore a muff on his left arm, and two enamelled watches, with a multitude of seals dangling from either fob." Another writer describes the muff as "drawing the eye of the public by its uncommon size; it fell from his chin to his toes!"

Indeed, his fondness for glittering baubles and ultra-finery amounted to a passion. At a later date, when his house at Torlough was sacked by the mob of Castlebar, he estimated his loss, in jewels and embroidered robes, at upwards of £20,000.

Among the articles purloined on that occasion he mentions—"a casquet containing a complete set of diamond vest buttons, two large emeralds, a hat band with five or six rows of Oriental pearls worth £1,500, a large engraved amethyst, a gold watch and chain studded with diamonds, several other gold watches and seals, a great number of antique and modem rings, gold shoe and knee buckles, silver shaving apparatus, several pairs of silver shoe and knee buckles, with £6,300 worth of other jewels."

This diminutive, youthful-looking and ornate Fitzgerald was pronounced "an effeminate little being" by those of his own sex who did not know him. As to those who did—"He was so light, foppish, and distinguished, none could think he was the man who had fought more duels than any other of his time."

The dames, without exception, pronounced him "a fascinating creature," Nor was the opinion confined to them. One who owed him no goodwill, Sir Jonah Barrington, allows that "a more polished and elegant gentleman was not to be met with." And the renowned "Dick" Martin, who met him pistol to pistol and got the worst of the encounter, confessed the strong impression made upon him by "the elegant and gentleman-like appearance" of his antagonist.

Even polished Paris admitted itself surpassed in all that was graceful and splendid by this extraordinary young Irishman. "Qui est ce seigneur?" asked the Parisians of one another, on seeing him for the first time. "D'où vient-il? Il n'est pas François. Quelle magnificence! Quelle politesse! Est-il possible qui' il soit étranger!"

Let us now conceive this dazzling outside as covering the best and boldest rider, the deftest swordsman, the surest shot, and the most reckless gambler of the day; let us conceive him with literary tastes, an author, and a pattern of authors; with as much subtlety as daring; with intensest pride of race and intensest contempt for all that was vulgar; and with a repugnance that was absolutely passionate for the gross vices and carnalities and the course amusements of his era—and we shall have some idea of what "Fighting Fitzgerald" really was.

Received with enthusiasm by the Parisians, our hero plunged headlong into what was then the all-absorbing pursuit—gambling. Thanks to it, and to his inordinate taste for splendour, not a farthing of his twenty thousand pounds was left by the end of the first year. As to his annuity, he never received a penny of it,

He might have found a home with the Bishop, who could see nothing but perfection in him; or, had he desired it, nothing would have been easier than for his numerous powerful friends to have thrust him into a lucrative sinecure. But he could not bring himself to quit delightful Paris and its whirl of refined excitement. So he sent his wife home to her friends, and remained in the gay capital, relying on the gambling skill he had acquired by this time for the support of his splendour. And here he showed to the fullest that strange capacity for rapid and complete transformation of character which seems peculiar to the Celtic race. In an incredibly short space of time he was all over the cruel and remorseless gambler, yet still as brilliant and fascinating as ever.

Among our hero's chosen associates was the Count d' Artois—afterwards Charles X.—who was then the votary of every pleasure, and notably as keen a gambler as Paris could boast of. The Prince had pocketed a very royal share of George Robert's fortune; and when that was gone, continued to pocket an equally royal share of his dashing young friend's winnings. On one occasion Charles happened to win three thousand louis, which Fitzgerald would not pay down. The latter vanished therefore for a time from the presence of the Prince. A few days later he reappeared, with his purse replenished, but forgot to pay his debt of honour. Nevertheless, he presumed to take a part in the game that was going on, betting in his usual plunging style "a thousand louis against the Prince's card."

Raising his head, Charles remarked very coolly, "you owe me three thousand louis; are you prepared to pay?"

"No."

"Then how dare you bet in my presence?"

Suiting the action to the word, his Royal Highness took Fitzgerald by the shoulder, led him to the stair-head, and dismissed him with an ignominious kick.

George Robert was now in an unpleasant position. As a man who had been publicly dishonoured, he was excluded from good society. Nor could he set himself right by crossing swords with the Prince, who was beyond the reach of a cartel, even from the head of the house of Desmond. To a common mind there was no getting out of the predicament, except by flying from the land or from life. Our youth, however, was not the possessor of a common mind. Disdaining both the alternatives, he hit upon a means of setting himself right with everybody, and that too with éclat.

Louis XVI. was a mighty hunter of the deer, and Fitzgerald, the beau idéal of horsemanship, was a constant follower of the royal pack. Shortly after the affair of the kick, the deer took a course not at all in harmony with the views of the mass of hunters, making straight for the Seine.

Along the bank ran a road, fenced from the river by a wall some three feet high on the land side, but having a descent of fourteen or fifteen feet towards the current, which here ran deep and strong.

The deer leapt the wall, swam the stream, and gained the forest on the other side. So did the dogs. But all the hunters pulled up, with a single exception—Fitzgerald.

He dashed at the wall with a cheer and cleared it, amid the astonishment of the gentlemen and the screams of the ladies. Everybody concluded that horse and rider must surely be drowned. In a few minutes, however, the gallant horse was observed breasting the river and making straight for the opposite shore, which it reached in safety with its rider. The latter did not even lose a stirrup in achieving the hair brained feat.

Fitzgerald became more popular than ever with the courtiers. But though he had effaced his ignominy from every other mind, he could not forget it himself. As soon, therefore, as etiquuette would allow he transferred himself to England.

Here he appeared under very favourable circumstances. The Harveys held high place in society, of which his mother, Lady Mary Fitzgerald, was one of the leaders. But our hero's most effective recommendation to the more exclusive London circles was the great reputation that had preceded him across the Channel. And a conspicuous item of that reputation was the fact that he had already fought eleven duels, though not yet twenty-four!

He soon became a favourite of fashion; and, moreover, a social leader him-self—gathering round him a body of golden youth who formed themselves in most essentials on him. And foremost among those exquisites were the "wicked" Lord Lyttleton, and the officers of the elegant regiment of the day, Burgoyne's Light Horse.

In company with these curled darlings, he frequented all brilliant assemblies, surpassing everybody else in glitter and deep play, and treating whoever and what ever he encountered at variance with his delicate tastes with merciless ridicule and scorn. The last peculiarity involved him in a number of scrapes, including one duel, from all of which he extricated himself in a way that added to his brilliant reputation. At length an event occured which showed his darker side, and brought forth in very bold relief his more repulsive characteristics as a gambler and a duellist.

Shortly after his arrival in England, a youth known as Daisy Walker—the son of an honest tradesman who had left him £90,000—had a cornetcy purchased for him in Burgoyne's Light Horse by his rather injudicious guardians. The plebeian, who was still a minor, was very much looked down upon by the exquisites of that refined corps. Nevertheless they condescended to introduce him to all the fasionable follies of the day, and especially to win his money.

Ere many months had flown the Daisy was in difficulties. All his ready money had passed into the purses of his acquaintances, and with it bills to a large amount. Fitzgerald, a constant visitor at mess, and one of the largest winners, held some of the bills to the nominal value of £8,000.

Walker's guardians now interposed. Removing their charge from the regiment, and indeed from fashionable society for the remainder of his minority, they compounded for his debts of all sorts, Fitzgerald receiving £500 for his share. Our punctilious gentleman took the money, but not as Walker's guardians intended. In his eyes debts of honour were not to be compounded for like rascally trade debts; and he held himself ready to claim the residue of his account whenever the Daisy should furnish him with an occasion. This was all very French; and our hero was intensely French in most respects.

Walker chafed a good deal under the restraint imposed by his guardians, and the moment it was removed hurried back to his old haunts and habits. Fitzgerald kept him well in view, but made no move until he happened to surprise the Daisy making a heavy bet on a forthcoming race. No sooner had Walker booked his wager than Fitzgerald—following the august example of the Count d' Artois—met him with a claim for £2,500. Walker refused to pay, and for the next six months was made supremely uncomfortable by the persecutions of Fitzgerald.

The Daisy was not remarkable for valour, and did his best to avoid Fitzgerald, who, on his part, was equally assiduous in hunting up the Daisy; and a game of hide-and-seek was maintained between the two which furnished the lookers-on with a good deal of amusement. Walker could not keep away from fashionable resorts, but he attended them in fear and trembling—always keeping a sharp eye on the door, and hastening to retreat at the first indication of the approach of his terror. But he could not avoid his fate. The two met at length on Ascot racecourse, and Fitzgerald caned the Daisy, who was now compelled to challenge him. The duel, which had a good many sides, including a ludicrous one, was fought in the Low Countries towards the end of 1774.

Walker, being entitled to first shot, fired and missed; because, just as he pulled trigger, Fitzgerald flung himself into his favourite duelling attitude, and thus greatly diminished his height. It was now Fitzgerald's turn, and Walker prepared himself for the shot with very evident trepidation. Our hero saw what was passing in his mind, and resolved to take advantage of it. Instead of firing, he affected to consider his pistol somewhat out of order, and spent some minutes in hammering the flint with a key. The pistol being adjusted at length, he then turned round and lectured Walker's second concerning his neglect of some of the rules of the duels. The second received the rebuke with due humility, and hastened to rectify his error. All this time, be it observed, the poltroon was waiting to be shot at. At last all was right, and Fitzgerald, taking a very deliberate and ostentatious aim, lowered his pistol and apologised in very graceful terms for having used his cane on Walker. The latter and his second—being evidently unacquainted with the law of the duels, which insisted that a caning was always to be apologised for before the caner could take a shot at the caned one—indulged in a feeling of relief, which was rather premature.

Having made his apology, Fitzgerald resumed his fighting air and demanded his £2,500, or the resumption of the duel at the point where it had been interupted. Walker was much inclined to comply, but his sense of the overwhelming disgrace which must attend submission mastered his terror, and he refused to pay. Levelling his pistol, but lingering on his aim, Fitzgerald offered to bet anybody a thousand guineas that he would hit Walker wherever he pleased, but of course received no reply.

"You won't take the bet?" cried the duellest; "then here goes at the right shoulder!"

The bullet struck the spot indicated, but did not penetrate—thanks to a couple of thick coats which Walker wore. However, it inflicted a contusion which disabled the arm and terminated the duel, though the quarrel itself was kept up much longer.

On his return to town, Fitzgerald reiterated his demand for "his" money or another meeting. Both alternatives being rejected, he attempted to renew the quarrel on other grounds, proclaiming everywhere that Walker had been "padded" on the late occasion, and had thus escaped injury by fraud. This device proving as ineffectual as the others, and society frowning on the system of hunting his victim about which our hero had resumed, the latter published an account of the affair which certainly hit Walker very hard, but which also revolted most people by the cynical frankness of its avowals, gambling sentiments, and duellistic practices which, though common enough on the continent, had not yet obtained currency in England.

In short, the Walker business—displaying as it did so many un-English qualities in our hero—ruined him for ever in London society. Nobody cared to consort with him afterwards. He therefore took an early opportunity of returning to France and to close gambling partnership with an old comrade, Major Baggs—like himself an ex-officer of the 69th, and the original of "Captain Duff Brown" in Charles Lever's novel, "Barrington."

There was then a mania among French fashionables for English horses and horse-racing as it was in England; and Fitzgerald (in addition to his gambling speculations took to supplying his Parisian acquaintances with the one and to initiating them into the practices of the other, making full profit the while out of their sublime ignorance of both. Somehow or other, few people can have much to do with horse transactions without contracting some of the peculiarities of the lowlived horse-dealer, and ere long George Robert became rather too well known for such peculiarities. A bit of sharp practice of this kind enabled him to fasten his acquaintance on another Irish celebrity of that day, Archibald Hamilton Rowan, who happened to be then in Paris.

Rowan who was very unwilling to have anything to do with Fitzgerald, but whose easy good nature would not allow him to repel the other's advances, has left an account of this acquaintance. It is the only notice extant of this portion of Fitzgerald's career, but it is sufficient. A better picture than it gives of our hero as he then was could not be desired. This perfection, however, is not due to any artistic skill on the part of Rowan, but to the fact that Fitzgerald was one of those people whose attitudes are always picturesque in the highest degree, and who interest us in any portrait, however coarsely drawn, which has the merit of fidelity.

Not long before, a Mr. Sandford, a very young man and a stranger in the French capital, was fastened upon by Fitzgerald, who was always on the watch for such victims, and led him to supper at the most dangerous house in the city—that kept by Baggs. Play of the deepest kind succeeded the supper, and Sandford lost a large sum. Then came a dispute between the plunderers respecting the division of the booty; and this developed rapidly into a mortal quarrel, the true cause of which neither cared to avow. Baggs, who considered himself the party aggrieved, found a more decent pretext, asserting that he had lent Fitzgerald much money from time to time, and that the latter refused to acknowledge the debt.

One evening, when Fitzgerald was quitting the theatre with Rowan, he encountered Baggs in the lobby. There was a short but sharp dispute between the gamblers. In the end George Robert drew his glove over Baggs' face—an insult to which Baggs replied by dashing his hat in the other's eyes.

Here the guard appeared and laid hold of the Major, while Fitzgerald slipped out and was driven off by Rowan. Several days passed, Baggs remaining under arrest and Fitzgerald finding shelter in Rowan's hotel. At length the Major was released, and it was arranged that the parties should meet on Austrian territory, in the vicinity of Valenciennes, and fight the quarrel out. Baggs was to be attended by a Captain O' Toole, and his opponent by a Mr. Hodges, and the parties were to leave Paris on the same day.

The day came, and Baggs and his second started as arranged. Hodges did not appear, but sent his principal a note in which he apprised him that he had just been seized by a severe attack of gout, and could not move. A messenger was despatched in the hope of arresting Baggs, but the Major was gone. Fitzgerald now appealed piteously to Rowan to save his honour; and the latter, who had no desire to mix himself with the affair, consented, though reluctantly, to act as second.

Here occurred a difficulty, which, as Rowan significantly remarks, explained the sudden attack of gout which had prostrated Hodges—Fitzgerald had no money, and no means of raising any. He drew a bill for £100, but nobody would cash it until Rowan was induced to endorse it. Ultimately the good-natured second had to pay the money.

The pair set off in pursuit of Baggs and O'Toole, and soon reached Valenciennes. A suitable piece of ground was soon met with, and the distance—eight paces—measured. Baggs knew too well with whom he had to deal to let him have his pet distance, five paces. When the parties were placed in position, Baggs beckoned his second and whispered a few words. The next moment O'Toole drew Rowan aside, and, apologizing for the remark, said he had reason to think that Fitzgerald was plastronnè—a word meaning padded, or plated. What followed was remarkable.

Overhearing the remark, Fitzgerald threw off his coat and vest, "exhibiting himself," writes Rowan, to our great astonishment, with his shirt tied round the body by a broad ribbon, couleur du rose, while two narrower ones closed shirt-sleeves round the upper and lower joints of the arms." George Robert gave an explanation of this which we omit. It did not satisfy Rowan; and it does not satisfy ourselves. The Major was afterwards examined to the same extent, and no further, though he invited Rowan, in his bluff, English way, to "Feel sir; feel." The duel then went on.

"Baggs sank on his quarters," writes Rowan, "something like the Scottish lion in the Royal arms, while Fitzgerald stood as one who has made a lounge in fencing. They fired together, and were in the act of levelling their second pistols, when Baggs fell on his side, saying, "Sir, I am wounded.'

"'But you are not dead?' said Fitzgerald.

"At the same moment he discharged his second pistol at his fallen antagonist.

"Baggs immediately started on his legs and advanced on Fitzgerald, who, throwing the empty pistol at him, quitted his station, and kept a zig-zag course across the field, Baggs following. I saw the flash of Baggs' second pistol, and, at the same moment, Fitzgerald lay stretched on the ground. I was just in time to catch Baggs as he fell, after firing his second shot. He swooned from intense pain, the small bone of his leg being broken. Mr. Fitzgerald now came up, saying—

"'We are both wounded; let us go back to our ground.'"

Such a proposal could not be entertained; and the wounded duellists—for Fitzgerald had been hit in the thigh—were carried off the field.

"I could not help asking him," adds Rowan (meaning George Robert), "how he came to fire his second pistol. His reply was, "I should not have done it to any man but Baggs.'"

Our hero was long confined by his wound, which left him slightly lame for the rest of his life. When he recovered he went straight to Ireland, which he reached towards the end of 1775.

Thanks to his uncle, the Bishop of Derry, with whom he was always a favourite, he was able to make a suitable appearance in Dublin. Here he fixed himself for some years, and met with the greatest success; and here, again, he displayed that capacity for rapid and complete change of character which we have already remarked. In untoward circumstances he had flung aside his nobler qualities and conformed to degradation, until it seemed as if that, and no other, had been his native state; and in success he cast off the baseness which penury had fastened to him, and resumed his old self with the same facility and completeness.

For the next three years he was in most things the superb representative of the haughtiest race on the island. His house in Merrion street was the resort of all that was high-bred in Dublin society. He was the idol of the mob, too; for, in addition to his dash, glitter, and fighting reputation—things alway 1 dear to the Irish—he took impetuously to patriotism, which was then a passion with all that was great and noble in the land, as well as with the masses.

He took the lead wherever he went; outshining all that was brilliant; humiliating all the swaggerers—notably those legal and pugnacious celebrities, Barry Yelverton and Fitzgibbon—two men who remained ever after his mortal enemies; and winning, it is said, no less than a hundred thousand pounds during this short period.

Whatever he might have been elsewhere, he always gambled in princely style in Ireland. His stake was never less than fifty guineas—his sideboard was heaped with rouleaus to that amount; while he seldom stirred abroad without having a hundred of them carried along by a couple of servants in gorgeous liveries.

There was no sharp practice now, but much wild wagering, on which tradition still loves to dwell.

Other traditions tell how he dealt with the "bucks," a plague then infesting the streets of Dublin, and, indeed, the streets of every town in Ireland. These "bucks" were half-bred young fellows of some means and high animal spirits, whose sole occupation consisting in making town-life intolerable to quiet people. Parliament was more than once compelled to frame penal enactments with the view of restraining their peculiar ruffianism; but, as there was no properly-constituted police to enforce them, these statutes were of small effect.

Among the tricks of the Dublin "bucks" was this : One of them would take his stand in the middle of a crossing on a dirty day, and, drawing his sword, thrust everybody who wanted to pass into the mud. It was a common thing to see half-a-dozen or more of these unpleasant sentries lining a leading thoroughfare all ready to afford each other support. Nor were they content with merely obstructing the passage. They knocked off hats, ripped up garments, and pricked the limbs of the wearers with the points of their weapons, and broke ribald jests on them the while—to the vast amusement of the ragamuffins who used to collect in the vicinity. If anybody turned on one of these bullies, the rest would rush up and form a circle round him; then seizing him by the collar and the arms they would prick him about the legs until they considered him punished sufficiently.

Fitzgerald proposed to some of his brother exquisites and fire-eaters that they should clear the streets of the metropolis of these pests. It was just the sort of proposal to suit such daring spirits, and an association was immediately formed to carry it out. After Fitzgerald himself, the most conspicuous members were three Sligo notabities—Mat Ormsby, Abram Fenton, and Pat O'Hara, one of whom, round whose knees the writer often has played, attained the patriarchal age of ninety-seven. Like their leader they were consummate swordsmen, and dandies of the first water—the Dandy being in all essentials the antipodes of the Buck—a distinction which people who write about the Ireland of the past are very apt to forget.

The association set to work most heartily, and in this way : Whenever a fine afternoon followed a showery morning, they would sally forth in knots of four or five, each being followed by a lusty valet carrying an oak sapling. On reaching the haunts of the bucks, the servants kept the rabble off while the exquisites did the work they had undertaken. For a couple of months, few days passed without three or four affrays between the bucks and the dandies, in which the former invariably came off second-best. Ere long the mainstay of the bucks, the mob, turned against them too. This meant that defeat was sure to be followed by hooting and pelting with mud and stones. Then the pleasant pastime of blocking the thoroughfares in broad daylight was abandoned. Oddly enough, the man who had the chief hand in putting down the bucks for the time, is the one who, more than anybody else, is credited with their brutal tricks.

(To be continued.)