PART I

[Illustration: Lady Hester Stanhope from a drawing by R. J. Hamerton]

There are few true stories that are distinguished by a well-marked moral. If we study human chronicles we generally find the ungodly flourishing permanently like a green bay-tree, and the righteous apparently forsaken and begging his bread. But it occasionally happens that a human life illustrates some moral lesson with the triteness and crudity of a Sunday-school book, and of such is the career of Lady Hester Stanhope, a Pitt on the mother's side, and more of a Pitt in temper and disposition than her grandfather, the great Commoner himself. Her story contains the useful but conventional lesson that pride goeth before a fall, and that all earthly glory is but vanity, together with a warning against the ambition that o'erleaps itself, and ends in failure and humiliation. That humanity will profit by such a lesson, whether true or invented for didactic purposes, is doubtful, but at least Nature has done her best for once to usurp the seat of the preacher, 'to point a moral and adorn a tale.' Lady Hester, who was born on March 12,1776, was the eldest daughter of Charles, third Earl of Stanhope, by his first wife Hester, daughter of the great Lord Chatham. Lord Stanhope seems to have been an uncomfortable person, who combined scientific research with democratic principles, and contrived to quarrel with most of his family. In order to live up to his theories he laid down his carriage and horses, effaced the armorial bearings from his plate, and removed from his walls some famous tapestry, because it was 'so d----d aristocratical.' If one of his daughters happened to look better than usual in a becoming hat or frock, he had the garment laid away, and something coarse put in its place. The children were left almost entirely to the care of governesses and tutors, their step-mother, the second Lady Stanhope (a Grenville by birth) being a fashionable fine lady, who devoted her whole time to her social duties, while Lord Stanhope was absorbed by his scientific pursuits. The home was not a happy one, either for the three girls of the first marriage, or for the three sons of the second. In 1796 Rachel, the youngest daughter, eloped with a Sevenoaks apothecary named Taylor, and was cast off by her family; and in 1800 Griselda, the second daughter, married a Mr. Tekell, of Hampshire. In this year Hester left her home, which George III used to call Democracy Hall, and went to live with her grandmother, the Dowager Lady Stanhope.

On the death of Lady Stanhope in 1803, Lady Hester was offered a home by her uncle, William Pitt, with whom she remained until his death in 1806. Pitt became deeply attached to his handsome, high-spirited niece. He believed in her sincerity and affection for himself, admired her courage and cleverness, laughed at her temper, and encouraged her pride. She seems to have gained a considerable influence over her uncle, and contrived to have a finger in most of the ministerial pies. When reproached for allowing her such unreserved liberty of action in state affairs, Pitt was accustomed to reply, 'I let her do as she pleases; for if she were resolved to cheat the devil himself, she would do it.' 'And so I would,' Lady Hester used to add, when she told the story. If we may believe her own account, Pitt told her that she was fit to sit between Augustus and Mæcenas, and assured her that 'I have plenty of good diplomatists, but they are none of them military men; and I have plenty of good officers, but not one of them is worth sixpence in the cabinet. If you were a man, Hester, I would send you on the Continent with 60,000 men, and give you _carte blanche_, and I am sure that not one of my plans would fail, and not one soldier would go with his boots unblacked.' This admiration, according to the same authority, was shared by George III, who one day on the Terrace at Windsor informed Mr. Pitt that he had got a new and superior minister in his room, and one, moreover, who was a good general. 'There is my new minister,' he added, pointing at Lady Hester. 'There is not a man in my kingdom who is a better politician, and there is not a woman who better adorns her sex. And let me say, Mr. Pitt, you have not reason to be proud you are a minister, for there have been many before you, and will be many after you; but you have reason to be proud of her, who unites everything that is great in man and woman.'

All this must, of course, be taken with grains of salt, but it is certain that Lady Hester occupied a position of almost unparalleled supremacy for a woman, that she dispensed patronage, lectured ministers, and snubbed princes. On one occasion Lord Mulgrave, who had just been appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, found a broken egg-spoon on the breakfast-table at Walmer, and asked, 'How can Mr. Pitt have such a spoon as this?' 'Don't you know,' retorted Lady Hester, 'that Mr. Pitt sometimes uses very slight and weak instruments wherewith to effect his ends?' Again, when Mr. Addington wished to take the title of Lord Raleigh, Lady Hester determined to prevent what she regarded as a desecration of a great name. She professed to have seen a caricature, which she minutely described, representing Mr. Addington as Sir Walter Raleigh, and the King as Queen Elizabeth. Mr. Pitt, believing the story, repeated it to Addington and others, with the result that messengers were despatched to all the print-shops to buy up the whole impression. Of course no such caricature was to be found, but the prospective peer had received a fright, and chose the inoffensive title of Lord Sidmouth. Lady Hester despised Lord Liverpool for a well-meaning blunderer, but she hated and distrusted Canning, whom she was accustomed to describe as a fiery, red-headed Irish politician, who was never staunch to any person or any party; and she declared that by her scoldings she had often made him blubber like a schoolboy. It cannot be supposed that her ladyship was popular with the numerous persons, high and low, who came under the ban of her displeasure, or suffered from her pride; but she was young, handsome, and witty, her position was unassailable, and as long as her uncle chose to laugh at her insolence and her eccentricities, no lesser power presumed to frown.

For her beauty in youth we must again take her own account on trust, since she never consented to sit for her portrait, and in old age her recollection of her vanished charms may have been coloured by some pardonable exaggeration. 'At twenty,' she told a chronicler, 'my complexion was like alabaster, and at five paces distant the sharpest eyes could not discover my pearl necklace from my skin. My lips were of such a beautiful carnation that, without vanity, I can assure you, very few women had the like. A dark-blue shade under the eyes, and the blue veins that were observable through the transparent skin, heightened the brilliancy of my features. Nor were the roses wanting in my cheeks; and to all this was added a permanency in my looks that no sort of fatigue could impair.' She was fond of relating an anecdote of a flattering impertinence on the part of Beau Brummell, who, meeting her at a ball, coolly took the earrings out of her ears, telling her that she should not wear such things, as they hid the fine turn of her cheek, and the set of head upon her neck. Lady Hester frankly admitted, however, that it was her brilliant colouring that made her beauty, and once observed, in reply to a compliment on her appearance: 'If you were to take every feature in my face, and lay them one by one on the table, there is not a single one that would bear examination. The only thing is that, put together and lighted up, they look well enough. It is homogeneous ugliness, and nothing more.'

With Pitt's death in January, 1806, as by the stroke of a magic wand, all the power, all the glory, and all the grandeur came to a sudden end, and the great minister's favourite niece fell to the level of a private lady, with a moderate income, no influence, and a host of enemies. On his deathbed, Pitt had asked that an annuity of £1500 might be granted to Lady Hester, but in the end only £1200 was awarded to her, a trifling income for one with such exalted ideas of her own importance. A house was taken in Montagu Square, where Lady Hester entertained her half-brothers, Charles and James Stanhope, when their military duties allowed of their being in town. Here she led but a melancholy life, for her means would not allow of her keeping a carriage, and she fancied that it was incompatible with her dignity to drive in a hackney-coach, or to walk out attended by a servant. In 1809 Charles Stanhope, like his chief, Sir John Moore, fell at Corunna. Charles was Lady Hester's favourite brother, and tradition says that Sir John Moore was her lover. Be that as it may, she broke up her establishment in town at this time, and retired to a lonely cottage in Wales, where she amused herself in superintending her dairy and physicking the poor. But she suffered in health and spirits, the contrast of the present with the past was too bitter to be endured in solitude, and in 1810 she decided to go abroad, and spend a year or two in the south. A young medical man, Dr. Meryon, [Footnote: Afterwards Lady Hester's chronicler.] was engaged to accompany her as her travelling physician, and the party further consisted of her brother, James Stanhope, and a friend, Mr. Nassau Sutton, together with two or three servants. Lady Hester was only thirty when her uncle died, but it does not seem to have been considered that she required any chaperonage, either at home or on her travels, nor does it appear that Lord Stanhope (who lived till 1816) took any further interest in her proceedings.

On February 10, 1810, the travellers sailed for the Mediterranean on board the frigate _Jason_. It is not necessary to follow them over the now familiar ground of the early part of their tour. Gibraltar (whence Captain Stanhope left to join his regiment at Cadiz), Malta, Athens, Constantinople, these were the first stopping-places, and in each Lady Hester was treated with great respect by the authorities, and went her own way in defiance of all native customs and prejudices. At Athens her party was joined by Lord Sligo, who was making some excavations in the neighbourhood, and by Lord Byron, who had just won fresh laurels by swimming the Hellespont. Lady Hester formed but a poor opinion of the poet, whose affectations she used to mimic with considerable effect. 'I think Lord Byron was a strange character,' she said, many years later. 'His generosity was for a motive, his avarice was for a motive; one time he was mopish, and nobody was to speak to him; another, he was for being jocular with everybody.... At Athens I saw nothing in him but a well-bred man, like many others: for as for poetry, it is easy enough to write verses; and as for the thoughts, who knows where he got them? Many a one picks up some old book that nobody knows anything about, and gets his ideas out of it. He had a great deal of vice in his looks--his eyes set close together, and a contracted brow. O Lord! I am sure he was not a liberal man, whatever else he might be. The only good thing about his looks was this part [drawing her hand under her cheek, and down the front of her neck], and the curl on his forehead.'

The winter of 1810 was passed at Constantinople, and the early part of 1811 at the Baths of Brusa. As Lady Hester had decided to spend the following winter in Egypt, a Greek vessel was hired for herself and her party, which now consisted of two gentlemen, Mr. Bruce and Mr. Pearce, besides her usual retinue, and on October 23 the travellers set sail for Alexandria. After experiencing contrary winds for two or three weeks, the ship sprang a leak, and the cry of 'All hands to the pumps' showed that danger was imminent. Lady Hester took the announcement of the misfortune with the greatest calmness, dressed herself, and ordered her maid to pack a small box with a few necessaries. It soon became evident that the ship could not keep afloat much longer, and that the passengers and crew must take to the long-boat if they wished to escape with their lives. They contrived, in spite of the high sea that was running, to steer their boat into a little creek on a rock off the island of Rhodes, and here, without either food or water, they remained for thirty hours before they were rescued, and taken ashore. Even then their state was hardly less pitiable, for they were wet through, had no change of clothes, and possessed hardly enough money for their immediate necessities. Lady Hester described her adventure in the following letter, dated Rhodes, December, 1811:--

'I write one line by a ship which came in here for a few hours, just to tell you we are safe and well. Starving thirty hours on a bare rock, without even fresh water, being half naked and drenched with wet, having traversed an almost trackless country over dreadful rocks and mountains, laid me up at a village for a few days, but I have since crossed the island on an ass, going for six hours a day, which proves I am pretty well, now, at least.... My locket, and the valuable snuff-box Lord Sligo gave me, and two pelisses, are all I have saved--all the travelling-equipage for Smyrna is gone; the servants naked and unarmed; but the great loss of all is the medicine-chest, which saved the lives of so many travellers in Greece.'

As they had lost nearly all their clothes, and knew that it would be impossible to procure a European refit in these regions, the travellers decided to adopt Turkish costumes. Dr. Meryon made a journey to Smyrna, where he raised money, and bought necessary articles for the shipwrecked party at Rhodes. On his return, laden with purchases, after an absence of five weeks, 'the packing-cases were opened [to quote his own description], and we assumed our new dresses. Ignorant at that time of the distinctions of dress which prevail in Turkey, every one flattered himself that he was habited becomingly. Lady Hester and Mr. Bruce little suspected, what proved to be the case, that their exterior was that of small gentry, and Mr. Pearce and myself thought we were far from looking like _Chaôoshes_ with our yatagans stuck in our girdles.' Lady Hester, it may be noted, had determined to adopt the dress of a Turkish gentleman, in order that she might travel unveiled, a proceeding that would have been impossible in female costume.

The offer of a passage on a British frigate from Rhodes to Alexandria was gladly accepted by Lady Hester and her friends, and on February 14, 1812, they got their first glimpse of the Egyptian coast. After a fortnight spent in Alexandria, they proceeded to Cairo, where the pasha, who had never seen an Englishwoman of rank before, desired the honour of a visit from Lady Hester. In order to dazzle the eyes of her host, she arrayed herself in a magnificent Tunisian costume of purple velvet, elaborately embroidered in gold. For her turban and girdle she bought two cashmere shawls that cost £50 each, her pantaloons cost £40, her pelisse and waistcoat £50, her sabre £20, and her saddle £35, while other articles necessary for the completion of the costume cost a hundred pounds more. The pasha sent five horses to convey herself and her friends to the palace, and much honour was shown her in the number of silver sticks that walked before her, and in the privilege accorded to her of dismounting at the inner gate. After the interview, the pasha reviewed his troops before his distinguished visitor, and presented her with a charger, magnificently caparisoned, which she sent to England as a present to the Duke of York, her favourite among all the royal princes.

The next move was to Jaffa, where preparations were made for the regulation pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In her youth Lady Hester had been told by Samuel Brothers, the Prophet, that she was to visit Jerusalem, to pass seven years in the desert, to become the Queen of the Jews, and to lead forth a chosen people. Now, as she journeyed towards the Holy City with her cavalcade of eleven camels and thirteen horses, she saw the first part of the prophecy fulfilled, and laughingly avowed that she expected to see its final accomplishment. Lady Hester had now replaced her gorgeous Tunisian dress by a travelling Mameluke's costume, consisting of a satin vest, a red cloth jacket shaped like a spencer, and trimmed with gold lace, and loose, full trousers of the same cloth. Over this she wore a flowing white burnous, whose folds formed a becoming drapery to her majestic figure. In this costume she was generally mistaken by the natives for a young Bey with his moustaches not yet grown, but we are told that her assumption of male dress was severely criticised by the English residents in the Levant.

From Jerusalem the party made a leisurely tour through Syria, visiting Cæsarea, Acre, Nazareth, Sayda, where Lady Hester was entertained by her future enemy, the Emir Beshyr, prince of the Drûzes, and on September 1, 1812, arrived at Damascus, where a lengthened stay was made. Lady Hester had been warned that it would be dangerous for a woman, unveiled and in man's dress, to enter Damascus, which was then one of the most fanatical towns in all the Turkish dominions. But the granddaughter of Pitt feared neither Turk nor Christian, and rode through the streets daily with uncovered face, and though crowds assembled to see her start, she received honours instead of the expected insults. 'A grave yet pleasing look,' writes her chronicler, 'an unembarrassed yet commanding demeanour, met the ideas of the Turks, whose manners are of this caste.... When it is considered how fanatical the people of Damascus were, and in what great abhorrence they held infidels; that native Christians could only inhabit a

## particular quarter of the town; and that no one of these could ride on

horseback within the walls, or wear as part of his dress any coloured cloth or showy turban, it will be a matter for surprise how completely these prejudices were set aside in favour of Lady Hester, and of those persons who were with her. She rode out every day, and according to the custom of the country, coffee was poured on the ground before her horse to do her honour. It was said that, in going through a bazaar, all the people rose up as she passed, an honour never paid but to a pasha, or to the mufti.'

From the moment of her arrival at Damascus, Lady Hester had busied herself in arranging for a journey to the ruins of Palmyra. The expedition was considered not only difficult but dangerous, and she was assured that a large body of troops would be necessary to protect her from the robber tribes of the desert. While the practicability of the enterprise was still being anxiously discussed by her Turkish advisers, Lady Hester received a visit from a certain Nasar, son of Mahannah, Emir of the Anizys [Footnote: Dr. Meryon's somewhat erratic spelling of Oriental names is followed throughout this memoir.] (the collective name given to several of the Bedouin tribes ranging that part of the desert), who told her that he had heard of her proposed expedition, and that he came to warn her against attempting to cross the desert under military escort, since in that case she would be treated as an enemy by the tribes. But, he added, if she would place herself under the protection of the Arabs, and rely upon their honour, they would pledge themselves to conduct her from Hamah to Palmyra and back again in safety. The result of this interview was that Lady Hester declined the pasha's offer of troops, and leaving the doctor to wind up affairs at Damascus she departed alone, ostensibly for Hamah, a city on the highroad to Aleppo. But having secretly arranged a meeting with the Emir Mahannah in the desert, she rode straight to his camp, accompanied by Monsieur and Madame Lascaris, who were living in the neighbourhood, and by a Bedouin guide. In a letter to General Oakes, dated January 25, 1813, she gives the following account of her first experiment upon the good faith of the Arabs:--

'I went with the great chief, Mahannah el Fadel (who commands 40,000 men), into the desert for a week, and marched for three days with their camp. I was treated with the greatest respect and hospitality, and it was the most curious sight I ever saw; horses and mares fed upon camel's milk; Arabs living upon little else except rice; the space around me covered with living things; 1600 camels coming to water from one tribe only; the old poets from the banks of the Euphrates singing the praises of the ancient heroes; women with lips dyed bright blue, and nails red, and hands all over flowers and different designs; a chief who is obeyed like a great king; starvation and pride so mixed that really I could not have had an idea of it.... However, I have every reason to be perfectly contented with their conduct towards me, and I am the Queen with them all.'

The preparations for the journey occupied nearly two months, the cavalcade being on a magnificent scale. Twenty-two camels were to carry the baggage, twenty-five horsemen formed the retinue, in addition to the Bedouin escort, led by Nasar, the Emir's son. Still the risk was great, for Lady Hester carried with her many articles of value, and of course was wholly at the mercy of her conductors, who got their living by plunder. But she sought the remains of Zenobia as well as the ruins of Palmyra, and had set her heart upon seeing the city which had been governed by one of her own sex, and owed its chief magnificence to her genius. Mr. Bruce, writing to General Oakes just before the start, observes: 'If Lady Hester succeeds in this undertaking, she will at least have the merit of being the first European female who has ever visited this once celebrated city. Who knows but she may prove another Zenobia, and be destined to restore it to its ancient splendour?'

The cavalcade set out on March 20, a sum of about £50 being paid over to the Emir for his escort, with the promise of twice as much more on the safe return of the party. The journey seems to have been uneventful save for the occasional sulks of the Bedouin leader, and the petty thefts of his followers. The inhabitants of Palmyra had been warned of the approach of the 'great white queen,' who rode a mare worth forty purses, and had in her possession a book which instructed her where to find treasure, and a bag of herbs with which she could transmute stones into gold. By way of welcome a body of about two hundred men, armed with matchlocks, went out to meet her, and displayed for her amusement a mock attack on, and defence of, a caravan. The guides led the cavalcade up through the long colonnade, which is terminated by a triumphal arch, the shaft of each of the pillars having a projecting pedestal, or console, on which a statue once stood. 'What was our surprise,' writes Dr. Meryon, 'to see, as we rode up the avenue, that several beautiful girls had been placed on these pedestals in the most graceful postures, and with garlands in their hands.... On each side of the arch other girls stood by threes, while a row of six was arranged across the gate of the arch with thyrsi in their hands. While Lady Hester advanced, these living statues remained immovable on their pedestals; but when she had passed, they leaped to the ground, and joined in a dance by her side. On reaching the triumphal arch, the whole in groups, both men and girls, danced round her. Here some bearded elders chanted verses in her praise, and all the spectators joined in the chorus. Lady Hester herself seemed to partake of the emotions to which her presence in this remote spot had given rise. Nor was the wonder of the Palmyrenes less than our own. They beheld with amazement a woman who had ventured thousands of miles from her own country, and crossed a waste where hunger and thirst were the least of the perils to be dreaded.' It may be observed that the people of Syria, excited by the achievements of Sir Sydney Smith, had begun to imagine that their land might be occupied by the English, and perhaps regarded Lady Hester as an English princess who had come to prepare the way, if not to take possession.

The travellers were only allowed a week in which to examine the ruins of Palmyra, being hurried away by Prince Nasar on the plea that an attack was expected from a hostile tribe. After resting for a time at Hamah, and taking an affectionate farewell of their friendly Bedouins (Lady Hester was enrolled as an Anizy Arab of the tribe of Melken), they journeyed to Laodicea, which was believed to be free from the plague that was raging in other parts of Syria, and here the summer months were spent. In October Mr. Bruce received letters which obliged him to return at once to England, and, as Dr. Meryon observes, 'he therefore reluctantly prepared to quit a lady in whose society he had so long travelled, and from whose conversation and experience of the world so much useful knowledge was to be acquired.' Lady Hester had now renounced the idea of returning to Europe, at any rate for the present. She had some thoughts of taking a journey overland to Bussora, and had also entered into a correspondence with the chief of the Wahabys, with a view to travelling across the desert to visit him in his capital of Deráych; but she finally decided on remaining for some months longer in Syria. She had heard of a house, once a monastery, at Mar Elias, near Sayda (the ancient Sidon), which could be hired for a small rent. The house was taken, the luggage shipped to Sayda, and Lady Hester and her doctor were preparing to follow, when both fell ill of a malignant fever, which they believed to be a species of plague. For some time Lady Hester's life was despaired of, but thanks to her splendid constitution, she pulled through, though she was not strong enough to leave Laodicea until January, 1814.

Lady Hester had now become a sojourner instead of a traveller in the East, and, abandoning European customs altogether, she conformed entirely to the mode of life of the Orientals. Mar Elias, which was situated on a spur of Mount Lebanon, in a barren and rocky region, consisted of a one-storied stone building with flat roofs, enclosing a small paved court. 'Since her illness,' writes Dr. Meryon, 'Lady Hester's character seemed to have changed. She became simple in her habits, almost to cynicism. Scanning men and things with a wonderful intelligence, she commented upon them as if the motives of human

## action were laid open to her inspection.' The plague having again

broken out in the neighbourhood, the party at Mar Elias were insulated upon their rock, and during the early days of their tenancy were in much the same position as the crew of a well-victualled ship at sea, having abundance of fresh provisions, but no books, no newspapers, and no intercourse with the outer world.

In the autumn an expedition to the ruins of Baalbec was undertaken, and at Beyrout, on the way home, a servant brought the news that a Zâym, or Capugi Bashi, [Footnote: Nominally a door-keeper, according to Dr. Meryon, but actually a Turkish official of high rank.] was at that town on his road to Sayda, and was reported to be going to capture Lady Hester, and carry her to Constantinople. Her ladyship received the announcement with her usual composure, and it turned out that she had long expected the Capugi Bashi, and knew the object of his visit. Scarcely had the travellers arrived at Mar Elias than a message came to Lady Hester, requesting her to meet the Zâym at the house of the governor of Sayda, since it was not customary for a Turkish official to go to a Christian's house. But in this case the haughty Moslem had reckoned without his host. Lady Hester returned so spirited an answer that the Zâym at once ordered his horses, and galloped over to Mar Elias. The doctor and the secretary, knowing nothing of the mission, felt considerable doubt of his intentions, and put loaded pistols in their girdles, determined that if he had a bowstring under his robes, no use should be made of it while they had a bullet at his disposal. In the Turkish dominions, it must be understood, a Capugi Bashi seldom comes into the provinces unless for some affair of strangling, beheading, confiscation, or imprisonment, and his presence is the more dreaded, as it is never known on whose head the blow will fall.

In this case, fortunately, the Capugi's visit had no sinister motive. The fact was now divulged that Lady Hester had been given a manuscript, said to have been copied by a monk from the records of a Frank monastery in Syria, which disclosed the hiding-places of immense hoards of money buried in certain specified spots in the cities of Ascalon and Sayda. Lady Hester, having convinced herself of the genuineness of the manuscript, had written to the Sultan through Mr., afterwards Sir Robert, Liston, for permission to make the necessary excavations, at the same time offering to forego all pecuniary benefit that might accrue from her labours. The custom of burying money in times of danger is so common in the East that credence was easily lent to the story, while the fact that treasure might lie for centuries untouched, even though the secret of its existence was known to several persons, was possible in a country where digging among ruins always excites dangerous suspicions in the minds of the authorities, and where the discovery of a jar of coins almost invariably leads to the ruin of the finder, who is supposed to keep back more than he reveals.

The Sultan evidently believed that the matter was worth examination, for he had sent the Capugi from Constantinople to invest Lady Hester with greater authority over the Turks than had ever been granted even to a European ambassador. It was arranged that the first excavations should be made at Ascalon, and though Lady Hester, having only just returned from Baalbec, felt disinclined to set out at once on another long journey, the Zâym urged her to lose no time, and himself went on to Acre to make the necessary preparations. As her income barely sufficed for her own expenditure, she resolved to ask the English Government to pay the cost of her search, holding that the honour which would thereby accrue to the English name was a sufficient justification for her demand.

'I shall beg of you,' she said to Dr. Meryon, 'to keep a regular account of every article, and will then send in my bill to Government by Mr. Liston; when, if they refuse to pay me, I shall put it in the newspapers, and expose them. And this I shall let them know very plainly, as I consider it my right, and not as a favour; for if Sir A. Paget put down the cost of his servants' liveries after his embassy to Vienna, and made Mr. Pitt pay him, £70,000 for four years, I cannot see why I should not do the same.'

On February 15, 1815, Lady Hester left Mar Elias on horseback, followed by her usual retinue, and on arriving at Acre spent about three weeks in preparing for the work at Ascalon. In compliance with the firmans sent by the Porte to all the governors of Syria, she was treated with distinctions usually paid to no one under princely rank. 'Whenever she went out,' writes Dr. Meryon, 'she was followed by a crowd of spectators; and the curiosity and admiration which she had very generally excited throughout Syria were now increased by her supposed influence in the affairs of Government, in having a Capugi Bashi at her command.... No Turk now paid her a visit without wearing his mantle of ceremony, and every circumstance showed the ascendency she had gained in public opinion.' In addition to her own six tents, twenty more were furnished for her suite, besides twenty-two tent-pitchers, twelve mules to carry the baggage, and twelve camels to carry the tents. To Lady Hester's use was appropriated a gorgeous tilted palanquin or litter, covered with crimson cloth, and ornamented with gilded balls. In case she preferred riding, her mare and her favourite black ass were led in front of the litter. A hundred men of the Hawàry cavalry escorted the procession, which left Acre on March 18, and arrived at Jaffa ten days later. Here a short halt was made, and on the last day of March they set off for Ascalon, their animals laden with shovels, pickaxes, and baskets. On arriving at their destination the tents were pitched in the midst of the ruins, while a cottage was fitted up for Lady Hester without the walls. Orders were at once despatched to the neighbouring villages for relays of labourers to work at the excavations. These men received no pay, being requisitioned by Government, but they were well fed and humanely treated by their English employer. The excavations were carried on for about a fortnight on the site indicated in the mysterious paper. During the first three days nothing was found except bones, fragments of pillars, and a few vases and bottles; but on the fourth day a fine, though mutilated, colossal statue was discovered, which apparently represented a deified king. Dr. Meryon made a sketch of the marble, and pointed out to Lady Hester that her labours had at least brought to light a treasure that would be valuable in the eyes of lovers of art, and that the ruins would be memorable for the enterprise of a woman who had rescued the remains of antiquity from oblivion. To his astonishment and dismay she replied, 'It is my intention to break up the statue, and have it thrown into the sea, precisely in order that such a report may not get abroad, and I lose with the Porte all the merit of my disinterestedness.' In vain Dr. Meryon represented that such an act would be an unpardonable vandalism, and was the less excusable since the Turks had neither claimed the statue, nor protested against its preservation. Her only answer was: 'Malicious people may say I came to search for antiquities for my country, and not for treasures for the Porte. So, go this instant, take with you half-a-dozen stout fellows, and break it into a thousand pieces.' Michaud, in his account of the affair, says that the Turks clamoured for the destruction of the statue, believing that the trunk was full of gold, and that Lady Hester had it broken up in order to prove to them their error. Be this as it may, reports were afterwards circulated in Ascalon that the statue had actually contained treasure, half of which was handed over to the Porte, and half kept by Lady Hester.

On the sixth day two large stone troughs were discovered, upon which lay four granite pillars. This sight revived the hopes of the searchers, for it was thought that the mass of granite could not have fallen into such a position accidentally, but must have been placed there to conceal something of value. Great was the disappointment of all concerned when, on removing the pillars, the troughs were found to be empty. The excavations of the next four days having produced nothing of any value, the work was brought to an end, by Lady Hester's desire, on April 14. She had come to the conclusion that when Gezzar Pasha embellished the city of Acre by digging for marble among the ruins of Ascalon, he had been fortunate enough to discover the treasure, and she believed that his apparent mania for building was only a cloak to conceal his real motives for excavating. The officials and soldiers were handsomely rewarded for their trouble, and Lady Hester set out on her homeward journey, minus her tents, palanquin, military escort, and other emblems of grandeur, but with no loss of dignity or serenity.

On returning to Mar Elias, she caused some excavations to be made near Sayda, but with no better success, and after a few days the work was abandoned. Lady Hester had been obliged to borrow a sum of money for her expenses from Mr. Barker, the British consul at Aleppo, and now, observes Dr. Meryon, 'as she had throughout proposed to herself no advantage but the celebrity which success would bring on her own name and that of the English nation, and as she had acted with the cognisance of our minister at Constantinople, she fancied that she had a claim upon the English Government for her expenses. Accordingly, she sent our ambassador an account of her proceedings, and after showing that all she had done was for the credit of her country, she asserted her right to be reimbursed. She was unsuccessful, however, in her application, and the expenses weighed heavily upon her means. Yet hitherto she had never been in debt, and by great care and economy she still contrived to keep out of it.'

Lady Hester having apparently decided to spend the remainder of her days in Syria, Dr. Meryon informed her that he was anxious to return to his own country, but that he would not leave her until a substitute had been engaged. Accordingly, Giorgio, the Greek interpreter, was despatched to England to engage the doctor's successor, and to execute a number of commissions for his mistress. During the autumn Lady Hester was actively employed in stirring up the authorities to avenge the death of a French traveller, Colonel Boutin, who had been murdered by the Ansarys on the road between Hamah and Laodicea. As the pasha of the district had made no effort to trace or punish the murderers, she had taken the matter into her own hands, holding that the common cause of travellers demanded that such a crime should not go unpunished. Dr. Meryon vainly tried to dissuade her from this course of action, urging that the French consuls were bound to sift the affair, and that she, in taking so active a part, was exposing herself to the vengeance of the mountain tribes. As usual, the only effect of remonstrance was to make her more determined to persevere in the course she had marked out for herself. In the result, she succeeded in inducing the pasha to send a punitive expedition into the mountains, and herself directed the commandant, by information secretly obtained, where the criminals were to be found. Mustafa Aga Berber, governor of the district, led the expedition, and carried fire and sword into the Ansary country. It was reported that he burnt the villages of the assassins, and sent several heads to the pasha as tokens of his victories. Lady Hester received a vote of thanks from the French Chamber of Deputies, after a speech by Comte Delaborde, explaining the services she had rendered.

News of the great events that were taking place in France had now reached Sayda, and Lady Hester, whose foible it was to think that the successors of Pitt could do no right, was highly displeased at the

## action of the British Government. She gave vent to her sentiments in

the following letter, dated April 1816, to her cousin the Marquis (afterwards Duke) of Buckingham:--

'You cannot doubt that a woman of my character and (I presume to say) understanding must have held in contempt and aversion all the statesmen of the present day, whose unbounded ignorance and duplicity have brought ruin on France, have spread their own shame through all Europe, and have exposed themselves not only to ridicule, but to the curses of present and future generations. One great mind, one single, enlightened statesman, whose virtues had equalled his talents, was all that was wanting to effect, at this unexampled period, the welfare of all Europe, by taking advantage of events the most extraordinary that have occurred in any era.... Cease therefore to torment me. I will not live in Europe, even were I, in flying from it, compelled to beg my bread. Once only will I go to France, to see you and James, but only that once. I will not be a martyr for nothing. The granddaughter of Chatham, the niece of the illustrious Pitt, feels herself blush that she was born in England--that England who has made her accursed gold the counterpoise to justice; that England who puts weeping humanity in irons, who has employed the valour of her troops, destined for the defence of her national honour, as the instrument to enslave a freeborn people; and who has exposed to ridicule and humiliation a monarch [Louis XVIII.] who might have gained the goodwill of his subjects if those intriguing English had left him to stand or fall upon his own merits.'

The announcement of the arrival of the Princess of Wales at Acre, and the possibility that she might extend her journey to Sayda, induced Lady Hester to embark for Antioch, where she professed to have business with the British consul. It was considered an act of great daring on her part to go into a district inhabited entirely by the Ansárys, on whom she had lately wrought so signal a vengeance. But the Ansárys had apparently no desire to bring upon themselves a second punitive expedition, and though Lady Hester spent most of her time in a retired cottage outside the town, in defiance of the warning that her life was in danger, the tribes forbore to molest her. In September she returned to Mar Elias; and, a few weeks later, Giorgio returned from England, bringing with him an English surgeon and twenty-seven packing-cases filled with presents, to be distributed among Lady Hester's Turkish friends and acquaintances. On January 18, 1817, Dr. Meryon, having initiated his successor into Eastern manners and customs, took leave of his employer, and sailed for Europe, little thinking that he would ever set foot in Syria again.

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