the Christians of the Isle of Wight trace their origin to William Christian (Hliam Dhoan), born April, 1608, and died January, 1662-63. William, who was Receiver-General of the Isle of Man, was the third son of Deemster Ewan Christian of Milntown, who presented him with the property of Ronaldsway, of which in 1643 he accepted a lease of three lives from James, Earl of Derby, on condition of surrender of the 'ancient tenure of the straw.' By his wife Elizabeth he had eight sons and one daughter. It is only the descendants of the seventh son, Thomas (born 1646, died 1700), of whom can be found any trace to the present day. He seems to have had charge of the family property in Lancashire, and to have carried on a merchant's business in Liverpool. He married Mary, who was the daughter of the well-known Colonel Birch, who was Governor of Liverpool under the Commonwealth, and had issue Hugh. Hugh (born 1679, died 1729) was captain and owner of a merchant vessel. His son (born 1716, died 1752) was a captain of the Royal Navy. Mr. Hepworth Dixon, in his History of the Tower, mentions that he took out letters of marque, and captured several Spanish galleons.

At this point the thread of the family story is taken up in an interesting book, entitled Romantic Annals of a Naval Family, London, 1875, by Mrs. Arthur Traherne of Glen-y-dur, Crickhowell, daughter of Rear-Admiral Hood Hannay Christian. From this lady's narrative it may be inferred that Thomas Christian had so improved his fortunes on the Spanish main that he had purchased the manor house and estate of Hook Norton, near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, where, having married a Welsh gentlewoman of the name of Hughes, he resided. Tired with want of employment, he had gone up to London to ask for a ship. Here he was lured into a gambling-house, where he lost not only a large sum of money but also his life, having been killed in a broil, stabbed to death by one of the gamblers. Hogarth has, in the seventh act of his ghastly drama of the 'Rake's Progress,' described one of these dens of iniquity in a picture which is artistically one of the best compositions of the famous painter. A drunken lord hugs a bully, who steals from him his silver-hilted sword. Another man of

fashion, sumptuously attired, is borrowing money of an ancient usurer in rags. Of all the dreadful company the money-lender alone is sober, cool, and collected. One man has gone to sleep. Another, an old gamester, stupefied by his reverses, cannot hear the waiter, who brings him a glass of liquor, bawling in his ear for payment. In some such squalid hell upon earth perished Thomas Christian. Mrs. Traherne says that the incidents of his tragic death were related to her by her father, who firmly believed them.

Thomas Christian had been a messmate of Admiral Byron, who was called by the sailors 'Foul-weather Jack,' from the fact of his always encountering a gale of adverse wind when first starting on his many voyages. The Admiral took a kindly interest in Christian's widow and only boy, Hugh (born 1747, died 1798). Admiral Byron, after taking young Hugh Christian to pass his examination at Portsmouth Dockyard, entered him as a midshipman on his own flag ship. The young man passed as lieutenant in 1767, in less than ten years after entering the service. He was present at the siege of Pondicherry, at the capture of Manilla and St. Eustatia, and was frequently wounded slightly. In 1773 he was lieutenant on board the Marlborough, seventy-four guns, commanded by Sir Samuel Hood. In 1775 Hugh was acting commander on a sloop of war while lying off Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight, where he came, saw, and was conquered by one of the fair maids of the Island. This lady, who is described as being both accomplished and graceful, was the daughter of Barnabas Leigh, Esq., Thorleigh, a member of the old Isle of Wight family of the Leighs of Northcourt. Her mother was daughter of Dr. Troughear, vicar of Carisbrooke, and sister of Leonard Troughear, curate to his father at Carisbrooke, who on inheriting the estates of his maternal uncle became eventually Lord Holmes.

The fair Anne Leigh made Hugh Christian a good wife. The young couple took a small house at Clatterford, under the walls of Carisbrooke Castle. Scarcely had they been married a month when, such is the sailor's lot, the sloop was ordered with dispatches to the Leeward Islands. At the Leeward Islands he met Captain Andrew Hamond, whose home was also in the Isle of Wight. On his return to

England with Lord Howe, Hugh Christian obtained post rank. Finding that Clatterford was not near enough to Portsmouth and Spithead, he purchased West Hill, Cowes, and settled there his wife and children. During one of his cruises in the West Indies in the Suffolk (74), bearing the broad pennant of Commodore (afterwards Sir Joseph) Rowley, he made the acquaintance of H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence, afterward William IV, who paid his friend Christian a visit at West Hill, Cowes. The exploits of RearAdmiral Sir Hugh Christian, as he became, are chronicled in the various naval biographies. Early in 1798 he was commander-in-chief at the Cape of Good Hope, where he died suddenly in the November of the same year. He had been offered a baronetcy, which he declined; but Mr. Pitt, who was then in office, had formed so high an opinion of him that it had been determined that a peerage should be conferred upon him with the title 'Ronaldsway,' the original residence in the Isle of Man of Sir Hugh Christian's branch of the Christian family. This mark of the approbation of the Government for his great services never reached him. His wife died before him in the same year, and is buried in the family vault in Northwood churchyard. She left her husband with three daughters and two sons. The correspondence with his wife and elder daughter, specimens of which are given in Mrs. Traherne's book, furnish evidence of the same good sense and deep feeling as that which characterizes the private correspondence of another famous sailor, Admiral Lord Collingwood. Some persons derive their impressions of the seafaring men of a past generation from the coarse caricatures of the novels of Smollett, who had been a surgeon on a man-of-war-Commodore Trunnian and the like. Nothing can be more unjust and untrue. The Royal Navy of England has always been an aristocratic service and its officers gentlemen. Sir Hugh Christian was an excellent specimen of a cultivated, highly educated English gentleman. He was an able and sagacious administrator, as well as a bold sailor and intrepid combatant at sea. daughter Ann, who inherited her father's ability of writing a charming letter, was married to Major-General Frederick Baron Hompesch, whom she met at a ball at Newport, he

His

being then in command of a regiment of dragoons quartered at Parkhurst Barracks. Another daughter, Mary, was married to Count Bylandt, a Dutch nobleman, and Joanna, the youngest, was married to the Rev. R. Robinson. The eldest of the sons, Hord Hanway (born 1784, died 1849), went into the Royal Navy and was made a commander at the early age of sixteen for the gallant way in which he commanded a division of boats at the memorable siege of Genoa, so vividly described by Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, in his lectures as Professor of History at Oxford in 1842. In 1809 Hord Hanway Christian took part in the ill-fated Walcheren Expedition, after which he never saw service. Rear-Admiral Hord Hanway Christian, who married an Isle of Wight lady, Miss Shute of Fern Hill, Wootton, for some time resided at Bowcombe Cottage, now the property of Miss Gibbs. He is still remembered by some of the older people in Carisbrooke. He had four sons and three daughters, of whom the only survivor is Mrs. Arthur Traherne of Brecknockshire, to whose book I am under many obligations. Sir Hugh Christian's younger son, Hugh George (born 1789, died 1861), was a very able East Indian civilian. Whilst in India he held many high appointments. His two surviving sons, Major Hugh Henry Christian, J.P., Provost of Portobello, N.B., and the Rev. Frederick Christian, Vicar of Wingfield, Derbyshire, have issue.

The Isle of Wight, that once knew this distinguished family so well, knows them no more. Various letters which I have received from correspondents in answer to my inquiries for information respecting the Christian family in the Isle of Wight have proved that a strong interest in them still survives.

A branch of the Christians was settled at Ewanrigg Hall in Cumberland, of whom John Christian, marrying his cousin Isabella, daughter and heiress of Henry Curwen of Workington Hall, took her name. Mr. Curwen, whose life has been written by Dr. Lonsdale in a series called Cumberland Worthies, twice refused a peerage which was offered to him by two Premiers. He died in 1822, and the present Mr. Curwen of Workington Hall is his descendant.

May 7, 1892.

THE CHRISTIAN' FAMILY OF THE ISLE OF MAN AND CUMBERLAND.

AN account of the Christian family of the Isle of Wight appeared in the columns of the Isle of Wight County Press of May 7, 1892. In that article it was mentioned that an elder branch of the old ancestral stem of the Manx family of Christian, from whom the Christians of the Isle of Wight were descended, had also settled in Cumberland. By the kindness of my cousin, Mr. Hodgson, late of Houghton House, Cumberland, but now of Richmond House, Redhill, Surrey, I have been enabled to consult a pedigree of the Christians of Cumberland, which has been most carefully and fully drawn up from that given in Hutchinson's History of Cumberland, Carlisle, 1797, and from later family records and documents.

The family tree begins with William McChristian of the Isle of Man, who was member of the House of Keys in 1422. The early history of the Isle of Man is very obscure. It was originally a possession of the Norwegian kings till 1264, when Magnus, finding himself unable to possess the western isles, sold them to Alexander III, King of Scotland. William de Montacute (whose arms as Earl of Salisbury are still to be seen on the buttress of the walls of the custodian's apartments at Carisbrooke Castle) with an English force drove out the Scots, who under Robert Bruce recovered it. In the reign of Edward III the Isle of Man again became the property of the English Crown. Henry IV granted the island to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, after whose attainder in 1403 it was bestowed on William Stanley and his heirs, Earls of Derby. About this period the first known. member of the ancient house of McChristian, as it was then called, came to the light as a member of the House of Keys, which, like the original English Parliament, had a judicial and legislative character. As a member of such a legislature it may be inferred that the founder of the Christian family