The fellow was in reality a great scamp.  A short time after he got the money he set out for London, purchased a carriage, frequented the most famous coffee-houses, and represented himself to be a near relation of the Rutland family, and the possessor of large estates in Yorkshire.  The marriage portion was soon exhausted, and when he had borrowed from every person who would lend him money he disappeared from the fashionable world as abruptly as he had entered it.  Little was heard of his movements for several years, when he suddenly turned up again as boastful, if not as resplendent, as ever.  By this time his wife had borne three daughters to him; but he regarded both her and them as hateful encumbrances, and deserted them, leaving them to be supported by the precarious charity of her relations.  The poor woman did not long survive his ill-usage and neglect, and died in 1782.  Hatfield himself found great difficulty in raising money, and was, at last, thrown into the King’s Bench prison for a debt of L160.  Here he was very miserable, and was in such absolute destitution that he excited the pity of some of his former associates and victims who had retained sufficient to pay their jail expenses, and they often invited him to dinner and supplied him with food.  He never lost his assurance; and, although he was perfectly well aware that his real character was known, still continued to boast of his kennels, of his Yorkshire park, and of his estate in Rutlandshire, which he asserted was settled upon his wife; and usually wound up his complaint by observing how annoying it was that a gentleman who at that very time had thirty men engaged in beautifying his Yorkshire property should be locked up in a filthy jail, by a miserable tradesman, for a paltry debt.

Among others to whom he told this cock-and-bull story was a clergyman who came to the prison to visit Valentine Morris, the ex-governor of St. Vincent, who was then one of the inmates; and he succeeded in persuading the unsuspecting divine to visit the Duke of Rutland, and lay his case before him as that of a near relative.  Of course the duke repudiated all connection with him, and all recollection of him; but a day or two later, when he remembered that he was the man who had married the natural daughter of Lord Robert Manners, he sent L200 and had him released.

Such a benefactor was not to be lost sight of.  The duke was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in 1784, and had scarcely landed in Dublin when Hatfield followed him to that city.  On his arrival he engaged a splendid suite of apartments in a first-rate hotel, fared sumptuously, and represented himself as nearly allied to the viceroy; but said that he could not appear at the castle until his horses, carriages, and servants arrived from England.  The Yorkshire park, the Rutlandshire estate, and the thirty industrious labourers were all impressed into his service once more, and the landlord allowed him to have what he