of the Grammar School, Chairman of Feoffees, Churchwarden, everything
in short but Mayor--an office which he left to the tradesmen, while
taking care to speak of it always with respect, and indeed to see it
properly filled. The part of County Magistrate--to which he had been
born--he played to perfection, and with a full sense of its dignified
amenity. (It was whispered that the Lord Lieutenant himself stood in
some awe of him.) His favourite character, however, was that of plain
citizen of his native town. "I'm an Axcester man," he would declare in
his public speeches, and in his own way he loved and served the little
borough. For its good he held its Parliamentary representation in the
hollow of his hand; and, as Overseer of the Poor, had dared public
displeasure by revising the Voters' List and defying a mandamus of the
Court of King's Bench rather than allow Axcester to fail in its duty
of returning two members to support Mr. Percevall's Ministry. In 1800,
when the price of wheat rose to 184s a quarter, a poor woman dropped
dead in the market place of starvation. At once a mob collected,
hoisted a quartern-loaf on a pole with the label--"We will have Bread
or Blood," and started to pillage the shop's in High Street. It was
Endymion Westcote who rode up single-handed, (they, were carrying the
only constable on their shoulders) and faced and dispersed the rioters.
It was he who headed the subscription list, prevailed on the purchase a
wagon-load of potatoes and persuaded the people to plant them--for
even the seed potatoes had been eaten, and the gardens lay undigged.
It was he who met the immediate famine by importing large quantities of
rice. Finally, it was he, through his influence with the county, who
brought back prosperity by getting the French prisoners sent to Axcester.

We shall talk of these French prisoners by and by. To conclude this
portrait of Endymion Westcote. He was a handsome, fresh-complexioned
man, over six feet in height, and past his forty-fifth year; a bachelor