During his servitude in Australia, John Lindsay Crawfurd contrived to ingratiate himself with MacQuarrie, the governor of New South Wales, and got part of his punishment remitted, returning to England in 1820. He immediately recommenced proceedings for the recovery of the Crawfurd honours; and, as his unexpected return seemed to imply that he had been unjustly transported, his friends took encouragement from this circumstance, and again came forward with subscriptions and advances. Many noblemen and gentlemen, believing him to be injured, contributed liberally to his support and to the cost of the proceedings which he had begun. At last the case came,--and came under the best guidance--before the Lords Committee of Privileges, 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