1834 his son Thomas became his heir. A workhouse was built on his estate during the Irish famine. Although the workhouse was an apparent pledge to help the poor suffering from starvation, it is agreed that Thomas and his family did little to help and approximately 150,000 people died on their land during this period from starvation and fever. Most of Martin's estate (approx. 200,000 acres) was in the west of Ireland and this area had one of the highest death tolls during the Famine. Unseating and escape After the election of 1826, Martin (now a heavy gambler) lost his parliamentary seat because of a petition which accused him of illegal intimidation during the election. He had to flee into hasty exile to Boulogne, France, because he could no longer enjoy a parliamentary immunity to arrest for debt. He died there peacefully in the presence of his second wife and their three daughters on 6 January 1834. Family Martin's first wife was the Honourable Elizabeth Vesey, a daughter of Lord Trimlestown. They had nine children, of whom only three survived childhood. His daughter, Mary, was born in 1783. Her brothers were Thomas B. Martin (1786–1847) and St. George (died 1805). Following the revelation of her affair with a Mr. Petrie in Paris, Martin sued Petrie for criminal conversation in 1791 and was awarded £10,000. He had this distributed to the poor by throwing it out the windows of his coach on the long journey back from London to Galway. In 1793, he married the novelist Harriet Evans Martin in Nenagh, and had by her four surviving children, including Rev. Richard Martin (1797–1878) and the writer Harriet Letitia Martin (1801–1891). The former emigrated to Canada in 1834 and had descendants who included D'Arcy Argue Counsell Martin (c. 1899–1992). During the period of the family's exile in Boulogne they became well acquainted with the poet Sarah Burdett (herself a relative of Baroness Burdett-Coutts 1814–1906) and she wrote a poem on 12 April 1834 expressing admiration and blessings on Mary Jane Martin (Richard's daughter born in 1810). Burdett was an early supporter of the RSPCA and had her views published in 1839 in The Rights of Animals. Notes References Rob Boddice, "A History of Attitudes and Behaviours Toward Animals in Eighteenth- And Nineteenth-Century Britain: Anthropocentrism and the Emergence of Animals" (Lewiston, New York; Queenston, Ontario; Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008). Edward G.