Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/599

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s. i. JUNE is, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


495


Barhampur in 1855 and 1856, I visited Kasimbazar, and saw in the grounds adjacent to the factory the tomb of Mrs. Hastings. The memorial stone was upright, and the inscription clear and legible. I regret that I did not copy it; but I do remember that neither her maiden name nor the name of her first husband was inscribed : merely her Christian name, "wife of Warren Hastings, Esq." JAMES WATSON.

Folkestone.

I remember seeing in 1881, in an old Christian graveyard at or near Kasimbazar, -close to the city of Murshidabad, a brick tomb, which was said to cover the grave of this lady. There was no sign of any inscription, and nothing to identify the tomb, and except local tradition (conveyed to me by -an old sepoy officer who acted as my guide, who said that he was over ninety years of age, -and that his father had fought at Plassey and had known " Hasteen Sahib") I was unable to discover any evidence in corrobora- tion of the statement. F. DE H. L.

AUDYN OR AUDIN FAMILY (10 th S. i. 148).

I can find no reference in the Dorset county historian Hutchins to any arms such as those mentioned by MR. AUDEN belonging to any family of Audyn or Audin, described by Ouillim as of Dorchester, in that county. Indeed, there is but one instance of the name occurring at all in the last edition of the 4 History of Dorset,' and that is to be found in vol. ii. p. 226, where the Rev. John Audain is recorded as having been instituted rector of Pillesd-ou in 1783, a small parish in the present western division of the county. Hutchins devotes a special note to this divine, and states that, according to Roberts (' History of Lyrne Regis '), he was quite a hero of romance :

" For his versatility as an auctioneer, paid rreacher to Episcopalians, Methodists, andCatholics, &c., in the same day, privateer, &c., see Coleridge's 'Six Months in the West Indies,' and "also the

  • West India Sketch-Book.' In the latter work is

.an account of his leaving the pulpit to go to sea in his privateer in chase of an enemy's vessel, which he carried by boarding before a frigate that was in chase canie up," &c.

It is stated that at the time of his death he was residing in the West Indies.

The late Randolph Caldecott, in his inimitable sketches, has made us familiar with the spectacle of the country parson of that period rushing off from his church to join in a fox - hunt that happened to be within distance, and the name of " Jack Russell " is still a household word in the West Country; but I do not think that it


has been recognized that the parson of that district could also have been a buccaneer, think, therefore, that MR. AUDEN should look for the Dorset rector's ancestors amongst the sea-dogs of the Elizabethan period.

Since I wrote the above, the reference in Hutchins's 'Dorset' to the West Indies has induced me to make some local inquiries, and I find that in the notes to the pedigree of the Woodley family, of Nevis and St. Kitts, con- tained in vol. iii. of Vere Oliver's 'History of the Island of Antigua' (1899), at pp. 61-2, occurs the name of John Audain, of St. Kitts, surgeon, who, in October, 1762, purchased from the Woodley family an estate in that colony for 7,100Z., which included fifty-six negro and other slaves, fcc., on the planta- tion. One of the witnesses to the indenture was Abraham Audain.

It is possible that the St. Kitts surgeon of 1762 may have blossomed into the versatile rector of Pillesdon of 1783 (who does not appear to have been a university man), or may, perhaps, have been his father, the family evidently being one of substance in the West Indies, which would account for that interesting member of the Church militant returning to his old home, and to a better field, perhaps, for indulging his pri- vateering proclivities. It would also account for the paucity of reference to the name in Hutchins as a Dorset one, but makes b-uillim s statement seem more extraordinary.

I have also been informed that coloured^ descendants of the same name exist, or did exist until a little while ago, in Dominica, which island, from being much more French in character and race than the other presi- dencies of the Leeward Islands group, might more fittingly, perhaps, bespeak the original home of this family in the West Indies.

I know of no work relating to bt. JUCW families similar to that of Dr. Oliver which MR. AUDEN might consult ; but may I express a hope that that author may some day do tor the families of St. Kitts what he has done for those of Antigua? 1 feel certain that he must have abundance of material for that purpose, some of which he recently kindly placed at my disposal in the pages of the Somerset and Dorset Notesand Queries in the endeavour to unravel a question I had there raised as to the convicts of the Monmouth Rebellion transported to the West Indies^

J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.

Antigua, W.I.

PAMELA (9 th S. xii. 141, 330 ; 10* S. i. 52, 135, 433). Is not Pamela intended tor an Italian name 1 As all cultured English people