The Board of Ordnance ultimately provided for O'Brien, and the player and his aristocratic wife were away between seven and eight heavy years beyond the Atlantic. Weary of their banishment they returned to England, without leave asked of the Board. O'Brien was not the only officer in England without leave. In the _Last Journals of Horace Walpole_, which I edited in 1858, the Journalist says:--"General Conway was labouring to reform that department (the Board of Ordnance), and had ordered all the officers under it to repair to their posts, those in America particularly, who had abandoned their duty. O'Brien received orders, among the rest, to return, but he refused. Conway declared they would dismiss him. Lord and Lady Holland interposed; but Conway was firm, and he turned out O'Brien." Lord Ilchester, albeit ashamed of his son-in-law, was not ashamed to write to Lord North, soliciting a place for O'Brien; but Lord North did not even reply to the letter. It is just possible that the player was a proximate cause of Fox's withdrawal from the administration, and his becoming in permanent opposition to the Court. Fox had spoken against Lord North, and the latter endeavoured to conciliate him. "He weakly and timidly called him aside, and asked him if he had seen Maclean, who had got the post which had been asked for O'Brien, and who would make O'Brien his deputy; but this Fox received with contempt." Let me remark here, that in "blood," young O'Brien was the equal of Lady Susan. In the days of Charles I., Stephen Fox, her ancestor, was bailiff to Sir Edward Nicolas, the king's secretary, at Winterbourne, Wilts; where Stephen (not yet _Sir_ Stephen) occasionally officiated as clerk of the parish. At that time the direct ancestor of our lucky actor was a member of that ancient family of those O'Briens, who generally contrived to take opposite sides in every quarrel. William O'Brien's grandfather was faithful to the cause of James II., and on the capitulation of Limerick, made his way to France, where he served in the Irish brigade, under O'Brien, Viscount Clare. That brigade, many of whose members "took to the road" in France, in order to support themselves, turned out first-rate fencing-masters, who lived by teaching. Such was the father of our O'Brien, and such was the family history of the actor; and surely the descendant of King Brien of the Tributes was of as good blood as the daughter of a house, the first worthy, that is to say unfortunate, member, of which was parish clerk in a Wiltshire village.