The London Theatres at that time not feeming te promise an advantageous engagement, it was thought most advisable that my mother should go over to Ireland; where there was great reason to expect that · she would meet with fome fupport from Lord Tyrawley's friends, many of whom had been introduced to her whilft fhe refided at Somerfet-Houfe. This then the determined on; and leaving the son she had lately brought into the world to the care of her mother, undertook an expedition, which, even when attended with every convenience is not over agreeable, alone, friendless, unprotected, and almost broken-hearted.

When fhe arrived at Dublin, fhe was received with confiderable applause. But her fuccefs feems to have been more owing to the people of that kingdom not being then accustomed to capital performers, than to the brilliancy of my mother's theatrical powers. She, however, continued there for several years, performing the first characters, with some degree of reputation; but a difagreement arifing, at length, between the proprietors of the theatre and herself, she determined to leave that city.

After deliberating fome time upon the course she fhould now steer, fhe on a fudden formed the strange and unaccountable refolution of embarking for Por tugal, in order to renew her affectionate intimacy,

with Lord Tyrawley. His Lordfhip, during her refidence in Ireland, had repeatedly wrote to her, inviting her in the warmest terms, and conjuring her by that tenderness which had once mutually fubfifted between them, to come to him: but finding his folicitations ineffectual, he had long fince forborne them. In this dilemma, however, they occured to my mother in their full force, awakened that love which had only lain dormant in her bofom, and pointed out the course she should pursue.

Notwithstanding my mother's juft refufal of Lord Tyrawley's repeated invitations, and notwithstanding her betraying him to the Earl of Bleffington, had been the sole cause of his lordship's long absence from his native country; yet she was received by him, on her arrival at Lifbon, with the warmeft tranfports. But unluckily a circumftance had happened which made her presence much less agreeable now, than it would have been at the time he preffed her fo fervently to come over to him. Disappointed in his hopes of of renewing his connections with her, he had entered into one with a Portuguese lady, named Donna Anna; whom he had feduced from her patroness, the lady of the unfortunate Comte d'Olivarez. This being now his lordship's fituation, and of which, on account of the violence of my mother's temper, he did not care to inform her; he placed her in the family

of

of an English Merchant, where she was treated with the greatest civility and respect.

Here fhe remained for fome time in a state of per fect tranquility, nothing transpiring relative to his lordship's new flame to disturb her peace of mind. But as I have before observed, the wheel of fortune is continually revolving; and my mother's happiness was not to be permanent. An English gentleman, by name Bellamy, came one day to pay a visit to the merchant in whose house she was placed; when struck with her charms, and unacquainted with her fituation, the Captain became fo enamoured with her, that he folicited her to accept of his hand. This fhe repeatedly refused, without difcovering her reafons for fo doing.

As the offer was far from a disadvantageous one, Captain Bellamy concluded that fome other attachment could alone prevent its being accepted; and as jealousy is eagle-eyed, he fixed on Lord Tyrawley, whom he had obferved to come fometimes to his friend's house, as the obftacle to his fuccefs. Not, indeed, that he could fuppofe that any thing more than an allowed friendship subsisted between his lordship and my mother, his visits being neither long nor frequent. Captain Bellamy could not, however, forbear hinting his apprehenfions; which brought on a conversation, in which he discovered to her his

lordship's

lordship's connections with Donna Anna, and as an unpleafing appendix, informed her that the lady was then lying in with her second child by him.

Rage and resentment against Lord Tyrawley once more took poffeffion of my mother's bofom; and effected what Captain Bellamy's most strenuous folicitations were not equal to. Without allowing herself a moment's reflection, fhe confented to give her hand to him; and as foon as the nuptial benediction was pronounced, fet off with him for Ireland, to which kingdom the fhip he commanded was bound, and then ready to fail. All this was executed with fo much expedition and fecrecy, that his lordship, though in fuch a public capacity, was not made acquainted with it till they had left Lisbon.

In a few months after the arrival of Captain Bellamy and his new married lady at the place of their destination, to the inexpreffible astonishment and diffatisfaction of the former, I made my appearance on this habitable globe. My mother had fo carefully concealed her pergnancy, and her connection with Lord Tyrawly, from her husband, that he had not entertained the leaft fufpicion of her incontinence. My birth, however, difcovered the whole; and fo exasperated was the Captain at her duplicity that he immediately left the kingdom, and never after either faw or correfponded with her.

Having now informed you with how little applause I made my first entrance on the stage of life, I fhall defer any further account of my subsequent appearances till I write again, which I purpose doing in a few days. Till then I remain, Madam, &c. G. A. B.

LETTER IV.

October 2, 17

I

WAS born on St. George's day, 1731*, fome months too foon for Captain Bellamy to claim any degree of confanguinity with me. As foon as Lord Tyrawley had gained intelligence, after my mother's departure from Lisbon, of the place of her destina

*In the former editions the date of the year of my birth flood 1733; this having been pointed out in one of the monthly publications as a mistake, I procured a certificate of my age, from which it appears that I was born in the year 1731. By the fame certificate, of which the underneath is a copy, it likewife appears, that I was chriftened by the name of GEORGE ANNE BELLAMY, infteed of GEORGIANE, by which I. ufually had gone.

"Declaration of GEORGE ANNE BELLAMY's Regi"fter; that the faid GEORGE ANNE BELLAMY, is of the age of thirty three years, and was born at Fingal, in the kingdom of Ireland, upon the twenty third day of April, in the year One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty One."