to which it had been referred by the king.  Lord Brougham was counsel in the cause, and he publicly expressed his opinion that it was extremely well-founded.  Many of the claimant’s adherents, however, were deterred from proceeding further in the matter by the unfavourable report of two trustworthy commissioners who had been appointed to investigate the affair in Scotland.  On the other hand, Mr. Nugent Bell, Mr. William Kaye, and Sir Frederick Pollock, with a host of eminent legal authorities, predicted certain success.  Thus supported, the pretender assumed the role of Earl of Crawfurd, and actually voted as earl at an election of Scotch peers at Holyrood.  Unfortunately for all parties, the claimant died before a decision could be given either for 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.

In 1830 or 1831 a Cornishman, named John Nichols Thom, suddenly left his home, and made his appearance in Kent as Sir William Courtenay, knight of Malta.  He was a man of tall and commanding appearance, had ready eloquence, and contrived to persuade many of the Kentish people that he was entitled to some of the fairest estates in the county, and that when he inherited his property they should live on it rent free.  This pleasant arrangement agreeing with the views of a large proportion of the agriculturists,