Republican Herald

Miscellaneous.

LONG LOST HEIR.

A Dublin correspondent of a London paper gives, under date of 16th January, the following somewhat incredible story of a long lost heir. Whether true or not, the story is well told, and it furnishes ample materials for a romance:

Intelligence from Ennis announces the arrival of a gentleman in that town on Friday last, whose return from Jamaica cannot have proved very agreeable to two families of distinction in the county of Clare, Sir Edward O'Brien and Mr. Arthur. The romance of the history which follows is no less singular than, as I am led to believe, is true. Twenty-four years since, as the statement of the family of the stranger runs, he, then a boy of 11 years, was at a school in England, where he had been placed by his father, Mr. Smith, of Clare, (the father of Lady O'Brien, Mrs. Bran and Mrs. Arthur, also.) He was there told that all his relatives were no more, and that he was left destitute, and was urged to seek his fortune in the West Indies, under the assumed name of Crosby. There he struggled on in comparative poverty until an advertisement from Mrs. Bran, long continued in the journals of Europe and the colonies attracted his observation. It is understood that his death was stated to have taken place at the English school alluded to, and to have been followed by a mock funeral.—Mrs. Bran, heard that the stranger in Jamaica, on reading her advertisement, remembered enough of his earlier days to enable him almost unequivocally to declare that he was the individual sought for as Tom Smith, whose father, far from leaving him destitute, had bequeathed to him property worth about 35,000, which on his disappearance fell to the families of Arthur and O'Brien. The present Member for the county of Limerick, Mr. Smith O'Brien, was to have enjoyed a great part of the property left to Tom Smith, on the demise of his mother, Lady O'Brien, in whose possession it now is. Mr. Arthur, a gentleman who lives also in the world of fashion, has possession of another portion. Mrs. Bran, having satisfied herself that her alleged brother was indeed alive furnished him with money, and he arrived in Limerick on Thursday last. As he drove into Ennis, he pointed out localities on the road which he named accurately. Conducted to the woman who had nursed the long lost heir, she, having examined his features, declared that he was no imposter. Subsequent examinations by the family and connections of Mrs. Bran so clearly convinced them that he was the long lost Tom Smith, that doubt after doubt vanished, and every reliance was placed on the calm, connected detail of the interesting stranger. Mr. Bran, long sceptical on the subject of the strongly-perceived belief of his wife in the existence of her brother, at length satisfied, warmly welcomed him to his house, where he is now residing previously to the commencement of those proceedings which are at once either to thwart all his hopes, or fully restore him to a distinguished place in society and an elegant independence. It will be naturally asked, who could have carried into effect the horrid act of banishing the son of a respectable gentleman, depriving him of family and fortune? but that will appear on the trial, should he be driven to that extremity.—The high character of Mr. Arthur forbids all doubt in that quarter. Sir Edward and Lady O'Brien are also far above suspicion; so that the matter remains at present as much enveloped in mystery as the past years of him were who toiled up to the age of thirty-five in a tropical climate, for a precarious existence. The manner and personal appearance of Mr. Smith are in his favor. He is intelligent, if not well educated; simple and unpretending in his conversation, he appears to regard truth in every respect, having never varied from the unostentatious simplicity of the original statement, the clearness and well linked nature of which, induced Mrs. Bran to welcome to Ireland, as her long-lost relative, the Tom Crosby of the island of Jamaica.