Volume I Part 25 (1/2)

I cannot too frequently return my thanks to your Lords.h.i.+p for the very kind and friendly intentions you have of affording me every communication in your power, and of allowing me to derive every a.s.sistance I can from your Lords.h.i.+p's great knowledge of the country, its interests, and the view of its parties and leading men. It will be with the greatest pleasure I shall ever receive any instance of your Lords.h.i.+p's regard, and I am sure none can be more agreeable, or of more importance to me, than this will be.

With regard to the articles of domestic accommodation, I shall reserve the discussion of them to Sir Willoughby Acton and Mr.

Fremantle. Sir Willoughby proposes to set out for Dublin on Monday next, and is so obliging as to undertake this trouble for me. He will have the honour of paying his respects to your Excellency, if you will give him leave.

I have the honour to be, my dear Lord, Your most obedient and faithful humble servant, Northington.

LORD NORTH TO LORD TEMPLE.

Whitehall, May 17th, 1783.

My Lord,

Upon the receipt of your Excellency's letters of the 9th and 10th of this month, I took immediately every step in my power that might forward your Excellency's wishes, and have now the satisfaction of informing your Excellency that Lord Northington will not fail to be at Holyhead on the 1st day of next month; and I am commanded by His Majesty to express to your Excellency his wish, that you will not quit the Government of Ireland before the arrival of Lord Northington. Although your Excellency will, according to this arrangement, be detained a few days longer than the 25th of the present month, yet I hope that the time fixed by Lord Northington is not so remote as to cause any public or private inconvenience.

By my letter of the 9th instant, I flatter myself that I have removed the uneasiness which your Excellency has expressed more than once, because His Majesty's approbation of your Excellency's Government has not been notified in a manner the most agreeable to your Excellency. I am sure that when you read that letter, your Excellency was convinced that your former complaint was ill-founded; that His Majesty's gracious approbation of your Excellency's conduct has been substantially conveyed to your Excellency; and that there is nothing in the whole tenor of my letters which can justify your Excellency's opinion, that a total change of system is to be adopted both with regard to the Chief Governor, and the measures of Government in Ireland.

I have the honour to be, with the greatest respect, My Lord, Your Excellency's most obedient humble servant, North.

P.S.--The messenger carries three letters from Lord Northington--one to your Excellency, one to Lieutenant-General Burgoyne, and another to General Baugh.

His Excellency the Earl Temple, &c., &c., &c.

LORD NORTHINGTON TO LORD TEMPLE.

St. James's Place, May 25th, 1783.

My dear Lord,

Your Excellency has not been able to remove those unpleasant and mortifying ideas I entertain at the thoughts of being obliged to pay either no attention to a day, to which all honour and respect is due, or to do it in a manner unbecoming, and not suitable to the occasion. Indeed, my information by numerous Irish gentlemen now here, tells me that, although it may not be expected that I should give (what your Lords.h.i.+p says) _a dinner_ on the occasion, it will be expected I shall hold a Court, and that I shall give a ball. Then I understand likewise, from your letters, as you declare your positive and fixed resolution not to hold a _Court_ on that day in the despatch, the last but one which I had the honour to receive, and that from strong reasons of delicacy, both public and private, which, as your Excellency does not explain, at this distance and in my state of ignorance at present I am at a loss to conceive.

I have the honour to be, my dear Lord, Your faithful and obedient humble servant, Northington.

Lord Temple's administration was too brief to enable him to develop the plans he had laid down for the benefit of Ireland; but the most conclusive testimony that can be adduced in favour of his policy is the a.s.surance he received from Lord North, that no intention of deviating from it was entertained by the new Ministers. Although, however, Lord Northington did not openly deviate from the main points of his policy, he followed it up with a luke-warmness and insincerity that rendered it to a great extent inoperative. His Lords.h.i.+p appears to have betrayed, not only in his measures, but in the spirit and tone in which they were brought forward, an unworthy desire to discredit the influence and reputation of his predecessor, who pursued a line of conduct after he left Ireland which--putting aside all obligations to the public--ent.i.tled him at least to protection against such sinister attempts to undermine the confidence his zealous services had acquired.

Having resigned the Government into the hands of Lord Northington, to whom he frankly offered all the a.s.sistance and information his experience enabled him to bestow, he strictly avoided all interference in Irish affairs that might be likely--even remotely--to embarra.s.s his successor. Numerous applications were made to him on a variety of subjects; individuals and parties sought his advice and interposition; but he made the same answer to all--referring them at once to the established authority, and declining to use any influence, upon the most trifling occasions, which in his position he might have legitimately exercised. His magnanimity was thrown away upon a thankless soil. The situation he had filled with so much honour and advantage, was now occupied by a n.o.bleman who could neither appreciate nor imitate his lofty example.

The princ.i.p.al objects to which Lord Temple had directed his attention were the Bill of Renunciation, and a wise economy in the public expenditure. The former he carried; the latter it was impossible to consolidate in the short term of six months. In his indefatigable labours for the good of Ireland he never stooped to conciliate faction at the cost of duty, or the sacrifice of principle. He administered his high office to promote the interests, and not to pander to the pa.s.sions of the people. The Bill of Renunciation was said to have been a scheme of Mr. Flood's; but by taking charge of it himself, Lord Temple deprived it of the mischievous _prestige_ it might have acquired under such dangerous auspices. The Bill, however, was not Mr. Flood's. Whatever merit, or demerit attaches to it, belongs exclusively to Lord Temple.

Lord Northington, overlooking the fact that this Bill was simply a confirmation of the settlement of 1782, and that it really granted nothing new, endeavoured to make it a fulcrum for working further changes and more extensive concessions--not, it may be presumed, without an indirect view to the improvement of his own popularity. The mode in which he thus proposed to carry out Lord Temple's policy provoked the Government, at last, to remonstrate with him. Even Mr. Fox, who could not be suspected of any disinclination to give a patient hearing to Irish demands, seeing the part he had already taken on such questions, felt it necessary to check his exuberant zeal on behalf of the particular party, whose views and opinions he had so injudiciously adopted. On the 8th of November, he wrote to Lord Northington an admonis.h.i.+ng letter upon a variety of points connected with Irish affairs, towards the conclusion of which he observed:

I hope, my dear Northington, you will not consider this long letter as meant to blame your conduct; but I think I owe it as much to my friends.h.i.+p for you as to the public, to give you fairly my opinion and advice in your most arduous situation; and I will fairly own there is one principle which seems to run through your different _despatches_, which a little alarms me: it is this--you seem to think as if it were absolutely necessary at the outset of your Government, to do something that may appear to be obtaining _boons_, however trifling, to Ireland; and what I confess I like still less, is to see that this is, in some degree, grounded upon the ampleness of former concessions.

Now I see this in quite a different light, and reason that, because these concessions were so ample, no further ones are necessary. If, because the Duke of Portland gave much, are you to give something? Consider how this reasoning will apply to your successor. I repeat it again, the account must be considered as closed in 1782.[1]

[Footnote 1: Extracted from a letter published in the Life of Mr.

Grattan.]