Volume I Part 38 (2/2)

It is generally understood that future elections in Westminster are to be regulated by a new statute, the heads of which are to be: parochial polls, churchwardens and overseers, and inspectors, and parish rate-books conclusive, if against any voter--that is to say, if his name is not there.

Our second dinner of the Const.i.tutional Club, on Wednesday, went off exceedingly well, and may prove a good political net to catch young men just launching into the world from College. Such use hath been made of the Whig Club, and something was wanting to counteract. Other good effects, not merely confined to a Westminster election, may too have place. In short, the late business seems to have awakened us all to our good cause and just political interests, as well as to have drilled us against the period of our being called out to the general election.

I shall not leave town till the 1st of September, and ere I quit it shall again make my remittance of such news as occurs.

My last boy is a fine fellow, and my wife is as well as possible. She desires in the best manner to be kindly remembered to the Marchioness, with, my dear Lord, your ever affectionately faithful, and obliged friend and servant,

W. Young.

If we did not know that matters of higher import engaged the attention of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, it might almost appear that his chief business consisted in controlling the pretensions of a variety of persons to every office that fell vacant, and of keeping a host of disappointed expectants in check and good-humour, so large a s.p.a.ce does this matter of patronage occupy in the semi-official correspondence of the period. Amongst the most urgent of them was the appointment of Fitzgibbon (afterwards Earl of Clare) to the Chancellors.h.i.+p of Ireland, which Lord Lifford was daily expected to resign.

Lord Lifford seems to have been a man of limited capacity and singular simplicity of character, formal and credulous, and tedious in his intercourse with the world. His letters to Lord Buckingham, written in a great clerkly hand, are full of solemn plat.i.tudes and ceremonious civilities; and whatever other excellent qualities he possessed, it cannot be inferred that he was a man of much mental reach or vigour.

Obsolete in manners and ideas, and living in the modes of a past age, he was respected for the sincerity of his disposition and the rect.i.tude of his character, rather than for the strength or activity of his intellect. In his seventy-fourth year he came over to London to resign the Seals to His Majesty, laden with the burden of years and hypochondriacal infirmities; yet, up to the last, vacillating in his resolution. Lord Mornington, who met him at dinner at Pitt's during this visit, says: ”I met old Lifford at dinner at Pitt's, and never saw him look in better health or spirits; he is, as you may well believe, most generally _quizzed_ in London.” The letter in which he announces to Lord Buckingham his intention of resigning of the Seals, after many misgivings before he could make up his mind to it, is thoroughly characteristic.

LORD LIFFORD TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Royal Hotel, Pall Mall,

Sat.u.r.day, August 30th, 1788.

My very good Lord,

My complaints at times to your Excellency, and my apprehensions expressed to you that bodily weakness and the infirmities of old age were coming upon me apace, will prevent your Excellency from being much surprised when I tell you that my journey hither, which at first I thought would have relieved me, hath served only to confirm me in the apprehensions I had conceived that the hour of infirmity, which is an enemy to all exertion, and first weakens and slackens the course of business, and soon afterwards disables, was not far off.

I now grow so clumsy and weak in my limbs, and so soon grow tired and fatigued to a degree painful to me, that although my mind seems as well as ever, yet I am sure that I cannot long do my duty, and there is nothing I dread so much as sitting upon a great seat of justice as a kind of ruin, and in a state of decay. In my seventy-fourth year, I am not sure that avarice may not lay hold of me, and tempt me to stay where I am, until I feel or am made to feel, by being told that I have stayed too long; and that peevishness too, an attendant upon old age, may not put an end to that command of temper, which I have ever endeavoured to preserve; and that, with such enemies to fair fame, I may soon impair and sully the character and esteem which I may at present have.

Under these impressions, my wishes to retire become divided, which they were not until within these few days past. I should have been happy in first declaring this to you, wis.h.i.+ng in everything to do that which but expresses my sincere attachment to and regard for your Excellency. But being going into the royal presence, I resolved to lay myself at His Majesty's feet, and express to him my apprehensions and my wishes to retire, if I could do so in a manner honourable and convenient to myself, when His Majesty's service would admit of it. Accordingly, yesterday, in the closet, I did as I had resolved. His Majesty's kindness and goodness to me was beyond what I can express.

Retirement, before decay actually comes on, meets his ideas perfectly; and I have every reason to think that I am lucky in the choice I have made of the present opportunity.

I have also communicated my wishes to Mr. Pitt, who received me with attention and kindness. He said he would confer with His Majesty upon the subject, and forthwith communicate the matter to you, without whose partic.i.p.ation and concurrence I cannot be at ease and happy. Upon a measure of such importance as this is to me, I exceedingly wish that you should be possessed of the motives and principles upon which I act; and I will state them to you without reserve. But permit me first to say, that I hope and think that avarice cannot be imputed to me; for, parting with 10,000 per annum, for what must be greatly below it, excludes the imputation. Ambition must be equally out of the question, for I want no advancement in the Peerage.

Now, as to my motives and principles at this time. I am in my seventy-fourth year, and although my mind, a.s.sisted by experience for a number of years, that makes few things new to me, may be as good as ever, yet the weakness of my limbs, my inability to go through any bodily fatigue, and many other monitions that tell me the day of great infirmity is at hand, ought not to be unattended to by any man who hath sound sense or any religion about him.

I stand well, as I flatter myself, with the people of Ireland, to whom I have administered justice for more than twenty years, with both Houses of Parliament, and with the Bar of Ireland; with all of whom I have lived without a quarrel with any man, but I hope without forgetting what belonged to me to be mindful of.

The country of Ireland quiet beyond what I have known it at any time: a circ.u.mstance corresponding and consisting with my declarations, at all times, that I would not ever be found to act like a man who leaves the s.h.i.+p in a storm. And to these I hope I may add that I have friends in Administration; that, in particular, I have a friend in your Excellency; and that, although in one of our last conversations you concluded your expressions of great kindness with something that threatened reluctance to my retirement, yet it was done with a countenance and in a manner that flattered me with hopes that there was a friends.h.i.+p under it, that would afford me your a.s.sistance whenever the occasion should direct me to look up to and solicit your Excellency for it.

All these circ.u.mstances concurring (and so many concurring together I cannot, according to a reasonable calculation of human affairs, much expect), determined me to do as I have done.

I have struggled to overcome my pa.s.sion for my office in Ireland; but I submit, because I am worn out, or rather am as near being worn out as, I think, a man who wishes to preserve a dignity of character should approach to. I have exceedingly wished to afford your Excellency every a.s.sistance in my power during your Administration; and if I retire from the Great Seal, I shall most certainly retain that wish, and display it by such proof as you can desire, and as I can with the warmest attachment afford you. Your Excellency will be a gainer by a change, as you will have the exertions of a younger and more vigorous man, and my best help added to it.

I did not come out of the King's closet until between six and seven yesterday evening, and I was then so fatigued that I could not set pen to paper.

I have not said anything upon this subject to anybody here, save only to the King and Mr. Pitt.

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