Volume I Part 5 (1/2)
These are all who have resigned.
APPOINTED Lord Shelburne _Treasury._ Mr. T. Grenville | Mr. Jackson |_Ditto._ Mr. Elliott _| Mr. Pitt _Chancellor of the Exchequer._ Mr. T. Townshend _Secretary of State, Home Department._ Lord Grantham _Ditto, Foreign Department._ Sir G. Yonge _Secretary-at-War._ Mr. Aubrey | |_Admiralty._ Mr. Pratt _| Lord C. Spencer _Vice-Treasurer._ Colonel Barre _Paymaster._ Vacant _Treasurer of the Navy._ Ditto _Solicitor-General._ Duke of Richmond | Duke of Grafton | Lord Camden |_Continue in their offices._ Lord Keppell | General Conway _|
Mr. Sheridan's name should be included in the above list of resignations. The vacancies of the Treasurers.h.i.+p of the Navy and the Solicitor-Generals.h.i.+p were respectively filled by Mr. Dundas, afterwards Viscount Melville, and Mr. Pepper Arden, afterwards Lord Alvanley.
MR. FOX TO MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE.
Dear Grenville,
I am exceedingly obliged to you for your kind letter; and indeed, if political transactions put one out of humour with _many_, they make one love the _few_ who do act and think right so much better that it is some compensation. I understand a messenger is just going, by whom I send this letter; he will bring you others, from whence you will learn that your brother is going Lord-Lieutenant to Ireland. If you go with him as Secretary, I hope you will be so good as to endeavour to serve my friend d.i.c.kson, who by this change has for the third time missed a Bishopric.
I called upon your brother yesterday, and left with him the letters that pa.s.sed between you and me, explaining that it was at your desire that I did so. I was very glad to have your authority for this step, for to tell you the truth, I was very much inclined to take it even of my own when it was supposed he was to be my successor; now that he knows the whole of the narration, if he still chooses (as I fear he will) to go into this den of thieves neither you nor I have anything to answer for. If this transaction had been withheld from him, he might have had reason to complain of me, but much more of you. I have not heard from him since he has been _au fait_. His expressions, both to me personally and to the party, were so kind, that I am far from considering him as lost; but whether he is or not, and whatever part your situation may make it right for you to take in politics, I shall always depend upon your friends.h.i.+p and kindness to me as perfectly unalterable; and I do a.s.sure you that this consideration is one of the things that most contributes to keep up my spirits in this very trying situation.
Yours affectionately, C. J. Fox.
Grafton Street, July 13th, 1782.
Lord Temple entered upon the Government of Ireland at a crisis of serious agitation. A short time before, under the Duke of Portland's Administration, a Bill had pa.s.sed the Imperial Parliament, recognizing in full and in the most explicit manner the sole and exclusive right of the Parliament of Ireland to make laws for Ireland--establis.h.i.+ng and affirming, in fact, the perfect independence of Ireland, legislative, judicial and commercial. This Bill had given complete satisfaction to the popular leaders. Even the Volunteers declared themselves appeased, and adopted final resolutions to that effect. But the factious and jealous spirit of the Irish was subsequently disturbed by indications on the part of the English Legislature of a disposition to depart in some particulars from this settlement, and by the unfortunate incident of some Irish appeals which lay over for judgment in England, the authority to adjudicate them having been relinquished, or disavowed, by the measure alluded to. The whole matter turned upon distinctions, but they were sufficient to influence the distrust of the turbulent, who were ready to seize upon any excuse for expressing their impatience of English authority. The introduction of a singular Bill by Lord Abingdon, having for its object the a.s.sertion of the sole and exclusive right of Great Britain to regulate her external commerce, and that of all countries under her sovereignty, and repealing so much of the former Bill as took that power out of the Parliament of Great Britain and vested it in the Parliament of Ireland, had the effect of affording an abundant pretext to the uneasiness which was now beginning to grow up in Ireland, and which Mr. Grattan exerted his utmost influence to dispel.
Want of confidence, also, in the sincerity of Lord Shelburne's Ministry yielded an additional ground for national discontent. ”Things were never more unsettled than they are at present,” Mr. Perry writes to Mr.
Grattan, in October, 1782; ”some of the Ministry here are at open enmity with each other, and everybody seems to distrust the head.” Such was the state of their affairs when Mr. William Wyndham Grenville came over to London to communicate confidentially with the Government on the part of his brother, the Lord-Lieutenant. The correspondence in which he details from day to day the results of his interviews with Ministers, and his observations upon the net-work of small difficulties in which he was involved by the want of unity in the Cabinet--especially between Mr.
Townshend and Lord Shelburne on the Irish questions--is minute and voluminous; and only a few letters have been selected from the ma.s.s to show the course of ministerial diplomacy in reference to the equivocal relations subsisting at that period between the two countries. They form a running commentary upon a curious pa.s.sage in Irish history; and although the circ.u.mstances to which they relate have long been completely disposed of, the Union having obliterated all the matters in dispute, the insight which they give us into the detail of Cabinet discussions, the occasional traits they bring to light of the characters of public men, and the calm and luminous views they develope of the distracting politics of Ireland, confer a permanent interest upon them.
Two facts, by no means unimportant, are established in these letters--namely, the lively and judicious anxiety Lord Temple and his brother uniformly felt in their endeavours to restore the tranquillity of Ireland, and the impediments they met in their strenuous efforts to preserve the faith and honour of England in her transactions with that country.
MR. W. WYNDHAM GRENVILLE TO LORD TEMPLE.
Pall Mall, Nov. 27th, 1782.
My dear Brother,
I saw Townshend on the evening of my arrival here, which was Sunday. Lord Shelburne was then out of town, so that I was of course obliged to state what I had to say to Townshend alone.
This I did very fully, in a conversation which lasted near two hours, and in which, to say truth, Townshend bore a less part than I expected and could have wished. What he did say was, however, very fair and explicit. He expressed a strong determination in the King's servants to give you every possible support. He had found _no_ opportunity (as I understood him) of convening a Cabinet on the affairs of Ireland, but had talked separately with all the Ministers upon the subject, and found in them no difference of opinion, except perhaps in General Conway, whom he thought ”a little influenced by his nephew's pamphlet, and by his own natural temper, to look towards further concession.” He saw little difficulty in what you wished; thought you best able to judge of the propriety of the moment for such a measure; and said it was the King's opinion, as well as his own, ”that where there was not some marked difference of opinion, the Lord-Lieutenant should be _left to himself_, without however being _abandoned_.” I stated to him pretty strongly the effect of the ideas of changes of men and opinions in this country. On that point, as far as related to men, I could get little or nothing from him, although I recurred to it more than once. At last he said that the same effects were felt here, and would be so till Government should show a sufficient strength and consistency in Parliament. Scarce anything more pa.s.sed on his side, except strong expressions of personal regard to you, and a warm encomium on the Duke of Portland, and the language held by him on your subject, and on that of the state of Ireland.
He gave me hopes of seeing Lord Shelburne the next day; but the great man was at his recess at Streatham, and was not visible till yesterday. When I went to him, he began with unbounded expressions of a determination to support you as long as he had anything to do here. He understood that you went in great measure at his request, and therefore he considered it as common cause. He begged that his silence might never be construed into indolence or timidity: the subject was never off his mind. As a proof, he mentioned his former silence, at which you was alarmed, and its being followed by the most explicit declarations, in which you had professed yourself fully satisfied. After a great deal more of such verbiage, I stated your wish as to the dissolution. He objected strongly to the taking so capital a step till something was decided about the negotiation at Paris. If the war should continue, it would be necessary to determine on some plan suited to such an event. But if we had peace, the advantages to Government in Ireland would be great and almost infinite. Such an event would throw the Volunteers upon their backs, would bring back the army to that country and to this, and would also bring the fleet into the Channel. He dwelt very much on the great advantage of not being obliged to meet the Parliament till October, and when I hinted at the possible necessity of a contrary resolution, he argued strongly, and I think satisfactorily, against such a measure. He then concluded the conversation, expressing a perfect readiness to hear me again more at large on the subject. Seeing that he would not hear any more at that time, I ended with saying that I was not commissioned to state decisively your sentiments on this very unexpected event, but that I was sure you would feel much disappointed if a measure which you thought so necessary was postponed without the most serious consideration and the most urgent reasons. His answer was, that you might depend upon it that whatever determination was made on the subject would be most seriously weighed, and taken on the best grounds. He then told me that a Cabinet should be held to-day, to take the business into consideration.
To-day I dined with him, and saw both him and Townshend after dinner. They both stated in the strongest manner the inconvenience of so decisive a measure whilst a subject was in agitation, and must be decided in a very few days, on which the whole line and plan of your Government will have to depend. For these reasons, they said it had been judged most proper to postpone the Cabinet till something arrived from Paris. I ended my conversation with Lord Shelburne by saying, that in the event of war, I did not see how, after this delay, it would be possible to resist; and that in that light it was my duty to discharge my commission from you, and to state my own sentiments as far as they could have any weight, that a few days might do more mischief in Ireland than many years would be able to repair. _Liberari animans meam._ To this he replied, that I had done my part fairly, and that _he would be answerable for the event_.
After all this detail, you will possibly wish to know my sentiments upon the subject. From the whole of Lord Shelburne's manner, I think that he is inclined to deal very fairly by you, for his own sake. I have no doubt, from the style of his conversation, that he is determined, in the present situation of things, to stand the ground against concessions, and this both from his own opinions and those of the King. But he certainly either does not see, or affects not to see, the situation of Ireland in that very alarming light in which it must be viewed by every man acquainted with it.
As to the measure of the dissolution, I think you will agree with him, that if we were sure of the favourable event, the delay would not prove near so prejudicial on the one hand, as it would be advantageous on the other. And from the language he holds, I am persuaded, and Jemmy agrees with me in opinion, that he is convinced that they will have their peace. On the other hand, I cannot but say, that if the war continues, we shall be in an awkward situation. The whole depends on the greater or less probability of peace, to which we are neither of us competent to decide; and I have thrown, if not the disagreeable consequences, at least the responsibility of the measure on him.
In this situation of things, I thought you would rather choose that I should remain here to give you the very first moment of news, and to press then a Cabinet upon the affairs of Ireland in general, than that I should run back to you in our present uncertainty. You will observe, that although I have rather expressed myself to you satisfied with the affair, I have taken infinite pains not to let it appear to them; but on the contrary, have left Lord Shelburne in no small uneasiness about the manner in which you may take it; so that if you should be dissatisfied, I have by no means pledged you. If you think with me, the whole merit of it will lay at your door.
I desired Townshend to state to the King that I was ready to obey His Majesty's commands, if he wished to ask me any questions. He told me to-day that the King expressed himself perfectly ready to give me an audience _if I wished for one_.
This I thought was better declined. I shall go to the levee on Friday, and shall be very impatient for your answer to this long detail.
Whatever your opinion may be of the line of conduct which I have held, I trust you will do justice to my zeal for your interests and honour, inseparably connected as they are, and I hope will ever remain, with my own, and to the sincere affection with which I am,