Volume I Part 32 (1/2)

The candour with which I met your Excellency on your arrival in this kingdom, received, I hope, your entire approbation. Under that idea, I hold myself obliged to the continuance of it.

Since my arrival in town, I have not been so happy as to make such an impression on Counsellor Curran as I wished to do, and in justice to your Excellency's Administration, he ought to have received. After many exertions, in order to induce him to act as I intended to do, I received the enclosed letter. For my own satisfaction, and to continue the same candid confidence to your Excellency, I beg leave to submit it to your perusal. My heart claims this trouble from you, as my own justification. My head may err, but not intentionally. In reply, I have rejected the offer of the seat, begged to retain his personal regards, and left him to decide entirely on his political conduct as he should think proper.

As to Mr. Heatly, he is no longer my friend and pensioner: he ranges under Lord Shannon.

All I can now say is, that Major Vewell, Colonel Longfield and myself are ever ready to repose the utmost confidence in your Excellency's Government: we will support your measures with firmness and decision, during your Administration in this kingdom.

I have the honour to be, With the highest respect and esteem, Your Excellency's most devoted and obedient humble servant, Rd. Longfield.

MR. CURRAN TO MR. LONGFIELD.

Jan. 18th, 1788.

Dear Sir,

I sit down in compliance with your wish that I might explain my sentiments on the subject of our conversation yesterday, more fully than our situation would then permit.

When you first did me the honour of proposing to return me into Parliament, I thought myself bound to be explicit on the occasion, and I was so. I stated to you that the general acceptance of such an offer, might naturally be considered to imply a condition, on the person accepting it, of conforming in his Parliamentary conduct with yours. I also stated to you at large the reasons why I could not sit in the House of Commons under the slightest implication of any such restraint, and I was happy in finding you concur with me on that point, of which I was perfectly satisfied by the warmth with which you disclaimed any idea of your intending or wis.h.i.+ng to restrain my freedom by any condition whatsoever. The motives you were pleased to a.s.sign for a conduct so very flattering and honourable to me, were an additional incentive to my wis.h.i.+ng rather to decline the intended favour. I thought it beyond my merit, and I urged you to confer it upon some other gentleman. These same sentiments I repeated in many conversations I had with you on the subject; but your friendly partiality persevered and prevailed. I do not dwell on these facts from any supposition that you have forgotten them, which could not be consistent with the very honourable solicitude with which I know you have always borne testimony to them, and to my independence. But I recal them to show you that I also remember them, as forming the princ.i.p.al ground of the obligation to you, which I uniformly felt, and professed.

From that period to the present, we have concurred in sentiments and acted together. I now understand from you that you have engaged to support the present Administration. From what I have heard of His Excellency, and what I know of you, I cannot doubt that you have acted consistently with the public interest, and your own honour; but being an utter stranger to the principles or the measures which Administration may adopt, I feel that I could not, without hazarding the sacrifice of my principles or my character, follow your example in that point, however I respect it. I see clearly, that while we remain as at present, we shall both of us be exposed to that calumny, which you find has even already been put into motion against us. Were I to go to the House and vote as you may--for on any ordinary occasion I could not forget my regards for you so much as to vote against you--it would be relinquis.h.i.+ng that independence which I have always a.s.serted. If I stayed away totally, I should be accused by my enemies, of violating an engagement that never existed, or I should be said by yours to cast upon you, and for such causes as they would not fail to invent, the heaviest of all censures, the tacit condemnation of a friend. And, however anxious each would be to do justice to the other, calumny would drown our voices, or malignity affect not to believe us. Thus circ.u.mstanced, I should, were that practicable, request you to rea.s.sume that seat, which I could no longer fill with honour to you, or safety to myself. Though this cannot be done directly, yet we may obtain the same end by an expedient tantamount in effect, and which I mentioned to you yesterday, that is by your permitting me to procure a return for a friend of yours for the remainder of this Parliament, or to give him such a sum as may enable him to procure it, when there shall be an opportunity.

Let me a.s.sure you, I am infinitely obliged by your manner of receiving this proposal, as it shows me that you are too well persuaded of my regard and respect for you to suppose it made with any, the remotest view of putting an end to our intimacy or friends.h.i.+p. On the contrary, I ask it as a favour, from that very friends.h.i.+p, and because I am anxious to preserve it inviolate. Neither am I afraid of being thought uneasy under a sense of obligation, or desirous of being freed from it by the paltry expedient of a partial compensation. I think you know me too well to suspect me of so sordid an idea, and on your vindication of me as to that, will I cordially rely. I cannot but add that I am happy in making this proposition at a time when the popularity of the Administration you have acceded to, must evince to you and to everybody, that my object is perfectly disinterested. The funds of opposition, if in fact such a thing exists, you will allow are too low at present to have much temptation for a purchaser.

Believe me, my dear Sir, with great truth and regard, your much obliged and affectionate humble servant,

John P. Curran.

THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM TO MR. LONGFIELD.

Dublin Castle, Jan. 23rd, 1788.

Sir,

Your letter, enclosing one from Mr. Curran, reached me at a moment when my attention was taken up with other business, else I should have immediately answered it.

I am very sensible of the candour with which you have declared your intentions of supporting me, and of your exertions to induce Counsellor Curran to act with you in that line of conduct. The offer of the seat, on his part, is handsome; as is likewise your refusal of it.

I am much honoured by the confidence which you have shown me on this occasion, and have the honour to be,

Sir, Your very obedient and faithful humble servant, N.B.

Richard Longfield, Esq.

The arrangement for the establishment of Arthur Wellesley as one of the aide-de-camps to Lord Buckingham, alluded to in a recent letter from Lord Mornington, suffered an interruption on the threshold from a proposal made by Sir George Yonge, then Secretary at War, for reducing the gentlemen holding those appointments to half-pay. Lord Mornington, who was still in England, resented the proposal indignantly, and brought the affair under the notice of the Lord-Lieutenant. He writes on the 8th of January,

Sir George Yonge had retreated into Devons.h.i.+re before I received your letter; but I have ventured to disturb his retirement by an epistle of four sides of paper, to which I could not yet have received an answer. I cannot conceive what he can mean by this man[oe]uvre, because I cannot see any advantage to him in the reduction of any, or of all your aide-de-camps to half-pay; and I am clearly of opinion, that there is no argument which can be drawn in favour of the reduction of any, which will not equally apply to all. I do not exactly understand, by the papers which I received from you, what was the nature of his proposal with respect to the 9th and 10th companies. I have threatened, that my brother shall join his regiment in India. This business is now very unfortunate to Arthur, as his men are now all raised, and he has concluded an agreement for an exchange, which only waits the mighty fiat of the Secretary at War. I fear he must wait for the decision of that great character; for I think under the present circ.u.mstances he cannot safely leave England.