"While forcibly detained in the plantations, Annesley suffered many severe hardships and privations, particularly in his frequent unsuccessful attempts to escape. Among other incidents which befell him, he incurred the deadly hatred of one master, in consequence of a suspected intrigue with his wife--a {p.306} charge from which he was afterwards honorably acquitted. The daughter of a second master became affectionately attached to him; but it does not appear that this regard was reciprocal. And finally, in effecting his escape, he fell into the hands of some hostile negroes, who stabbed him severely in various places; from the effects of which cruelty he did not recover for several months. "At the end of thirteen years, Annesley, who had now attained the age of twenty-five, succeeded in reaching Jamaica in a merchant vessel, and he immediately volunteered himself as a private sailor on board a man-of-war. Here he was at once identified by several officers; and Admiral Vernon, who was then in command of the British West India fleet, wrote home an account of the case to the Duke of Newcastle (the Premier), and, 'in the mean time, supplied him with clothes and money, and treated him with the respect and attention which his rank demanded.' "The Earl of Anglesey no sooner heard of these transactions on board the fleet, than he used every effort to keep possession of his usurped title and property, and 'the most eminent lawyers within the English and Irish bars were retained to defend a cause, the prosecution of which was not as yet even threatened.' "On Annesley's arrival in Dublin, 'several servants who had lived with his father came from the country to see him. They knew him at first sight, and some of them fell on their knees to thank heaven for his preservation,--embraced his legs, and shed tears of joy for his return.' "Lord Anglesey became so much alarmed at the probable result of the now threatened trial, that he expressed his intention to make a compromise with the claimant, renounce the title, and retire into France; and with this view he commenced learning the French language. But this resolution was given up, in consequence of an occurrence which encouraged the flattering hope that his opponent would be speedily and most effectually disposed of.