The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-12-16 00:00:00

ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE.

The late Mr. Basil Montagu. Q.C., whose death, at the ad-
vanced age of 82, is recorded to have occurred at Boulogne-,
sur-Mer on the 27th ult., was formerly a Commissioner ig
Bankruptcy, and was so eminent a practitioner in such mat-
ters that for many years he was regarded as an oracle of the
bankrupt laws. So little had been heard of him of late years
that many of his quondam friends laboured under the impreP
sion that he had long ago discharged the debt of nature.

It is not genet ally-ktiown that lids distinguished L;Wier wait
the fourth son of John, fourth Earl of Sandwich, by Miss
Margaret Reay, d celebrated beauty of her day. The melan-
choly fate of this lady inspired the deepest public interest at
the tune? and the whole affair has been justly styled one of the
most romantic and extraordinary love tales ever recorded, ad
much so that it has often struck us with astonishment that, in
these novel-manufacturing and ready-reading days,' one of the
novelists who cater so strangely at times for the public taste'
have seized upon the ample materials this case affords as the-
groundwork for a book of lasting and intense interest.
Miss Margaret Reay, the mother of the late Mr. Basil Mon-
tagu, was th daughter of a stay-maker in Covent-garden, and'
served an apprenticeship to a mantua maker, in George's"
Court, St. John's-lane, Clerkenwell. Having, during her
apprenticeship, attracted the attention of Lord Sandwich, he-
took her under his protection, and treated her from that period'
until her melancholy assassination with the greatest-tendernesil
and affection, which was sincerely returned by Miss Real,
until her introduction by his lordship to a young ensign of the'
68th Regiment, then in command of a recruiting party at
Huntingdon, in the neighbourhood of which stands Hinchell-•
.
brook, the splendid mansion of the noble house of Montagu.
Mr. James Hackman, the wretched but highly gifted hero of
this sad narrative, from the first moment of his introduction,
fell desperately in love with the mistress o' his noble host, and
Dispassion increased with the daily opportunities afforded him
by the invitations he received to his Lordship's table. With
the object of cot tinning his assiduous attentions to this lad!
and the hope of ultimately engaging her affections, he quitted
the army, and taking holy orders obtained the living of Wiver-
ton, in Norfolk, only a few months prior to the commission
of that crime which brought him to the scaffold. That Miss
"Reay had given some encouragement to his fiery passion can-
not be denied ; the tenor of their correspondence clearly
proves it, but gratitude towards the earl and prudential motives
respecting the welfare of her children induced her afterwards
to refuse the offer of the rev. gentleman's hand, and to intimate
the necessity which existed for discontinuing his visits for their-
mutual interests and their peace of mind. Stung to the quick
by this sudden and unexpected termination of his longcherished
and most ardent passion, no doubt can exist in the minds of
those who have carefully perused the highly interesting cor-
respondence between the parties, published many years ago by
Mr. Hubert Croft, in a volume entitled Love and Madnessi
that Mr. Hackman's mind became un- ettled, and without me-
ditating a crime which properly speaking could scarcely be
fairly classed in the category of murder, there is no doubt that
he became weary of his own life; and finally, though without
distinct premeditation, determined that she whom he loved so
passionately should share his fate.
At this time the Rev. Mr. Hackman was lodging in Duke's-
codrt, St. Martin's-lane, and on the fatal day, the 7th of April,
1779, was occupied all the morning in reading Blair's Sermons;
but in the evening, as he was walking towards the Admiralty,
he saw Miss Reay pass in her coach, accompanied by Signora
Galli. He followed, and discovered that she alighted at Covent-
garden Theatre, whither she went to witness the performance
of Love in a Village.
Mr. Hackman returned to his lodgings, and arminghimself
with a brace of pistols, went back to the theatre, and when the
performance was over, as Miss Reay was stepping into her
coach, he took a pistol in each hand, one of which he discharged
at her and killed her on the spot, and the other at himself,
which did not, however, take eff-'ct. He then beat himself
about the head with the butt-end of the pistol in order to
destroy himself, but was eventurlly, after a dreadful struggle,
secured and carried • efore Sir John Fielding, who committed
him to Tothill fields Bridewell, and afterwards to Newgate,
where he was narrowly watched to prevent his committing
suicide.

He was shortly after tried at the Old Bailey, before the cele-
brated Justice Blackstone, author of the Commentaries, found
guilty, and sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn on the 19th of
the month, where he suffered the last penalty of the law with all
the firmness becoming a gentleman and a Christian who felt that
he had commitied :in irreparable injury, and that his life was,
justly forfeited to the outraged laws of his country, although
he persisted to the last that the idea of murdering the woman
he so fondly loved originated in the frenzy of the moment, and
never was or could have been premeditated.

One circumstance in this slfght narrative which redounds so
highly to the honour of the party most aggrieved in this sad
affair must not be omitted. Lord Sandwich, with a noble-
mindedness rarely exemplified in such extreme cases of injury
to the pride and sensibility of man, wrote to Mr. Hackman
after sentence of death was passed upon him

_ .
" 7th April, 1779.
" If the murderer of Miss wishes to live, the man he
has most injured will use all his interest to procure his life."
The prisoner replied the same day:—

" Condemned Cell in Newgate,

" The murderer of her whom he preferred, far preferred, to
life, suspects the hand from which he has just received such
an offer as he neither desires nor deserves. His wishes are for
death, not for life. One wish he has—could he be pardoned in
this world by the man he has most injured—oh, my lord, when
I meet her in another world, enable me to tell her—if departed
spirits are not ignorant of earthly things—that you forgive us
both, and that you will be a father to her dear children."
It is almost needless to observe that the noble earl did faith-
fully comply with the dying wishes of the wretched man, and
was a good and generous father to all the children of this con-
nexion, of whom the learned gentleman just deceased was one•
—Morning Post.

MISCELLANEOUS' NEWS.

The Athenfflum says, that Lord Cockburn is writing a
life of the late Lord Jeffrey.
Thg demand for agricultural labour in Yorkshire is
greater than it has been for some years past, and higher
wages are asked and claimed.
The fire-engines were kept in constant operation from
ten o'clock on Monday nlizlit until past three on Tuesday
morning, there being during that period not fewer than
nine calls received at the different stations in London.

At a recent inquest upon the body of a butler. Mr.
Wakley, the coroner, stated it as " a remarkable fact,"
that more butlers destroy themselves than any other class
of men.

It is reported that Mr. Peacock, Q.C., is to have
the appointment of legal member of the Superior Council
of India, vacant by the decease of Mr. Drinkwater
Bethune.

The Mining Journal says, " A scientific suggestion,
commending itself to financial reformers, has been made,
that £lOO,OOO per annum might he saved by substituting
' electric' for aristocratic ambassadors."
We hear that all the Commissioners of Customs hare
tendered their resignations, but Lord John Russell will
not accept them till after an inquiry into their conduct.—•°
Morning Herald.
The Newcastle Journal, of Saturday. contains advertise-
ments of forty-six farms to be let in Northumberland and
the adjacent counties, amounting in the aggregate to
nearly 12,000 acres.

Incendiary fires have become so frequent in Cambridge.
shire and the Isle of Ely that the Earl of llardwicke hag
issued a circular letter to every parish in the county and
isle, seeking a return of every fire since the year 1839,
order that he may lay the same before parliament.
It is understood that the government have excepted the
tender of Mr. Walton for a mail to Australia every alter-
nate month, via the Cape of Good Hope, at an annual eal-
ment of £26,000. The ports to be visited are the Cape'
King George's Sound, Adelaide, Port Philip, and Sydney
Thomas Greenhow, a spirit-dealer and rectifier, of
Clerkenwell, has been fined £6OO for frauds upon the in:
land revenue department, and a quantity of spirits seize"'
were declared forfeited. He was not long since convicted,
in penalties amounting to £l4OO, which were mitigated'
on his contrite petition, to £250.
Nearly 1000 hares were sent by one of the Scottish
Midland Scottish Central trains, one day last week, for
the London market. A steady trade is still maintained
betwixt Perth and Manchester and Liverpool,in potatoes+
dead meat, poultry, and eggs, the two latter chiefly col-
lected in the highlands.
A mercantile clerk in Bristol, who is accustomed to
make himself a cup of tea in the afternoon, was horrified
last week on discovering that he had been living 0
stewed mouse for several days. Ile had noticed an nu"
struction in the spout of the kettle, and on making cies?
investigation, he drew forth, amidst the laughter of hi
fellow-clerks, the body of a mouse, boiled almost to a ieli/r.