vernment produced upon the greatest part of the Irish nation, was the flattering expectation, of soon seeing an end to the administration, which they considered systematicaily inimical to their welfare. To a change of ministers, they naturally attached a dissolution of parliament. As early, therefore, as in the month of November, 1788, meetings were had throughout the kingdom, and associations formed preparatory to the expected election for a new parliament; and a common test was very generally agreed upon to be tendered, and sworn to by every candidate before he should be entitled to propose himself as a representative of either county or borough: the associated electors bound themselves to each other (generally by oath), to vote for no man who should refuse to subscribe, and swear to their test: the purport of which was: 1stly. To vote for a per centage tax upon the property of all absentees. 2dly. For a settlement or commutation of tithes. 3dly. For the restoration of the sail cloth manufacture. 4thly. For a bill to limit the pension list, (with a N. B. that it then exceeded that of England by 8000%) 5thly. For a reform in the popular representation in parliament. 6thly. For protecting duties.

On the other hand, the most unlimited discretion and imperative instructions, were received at the Castle from England, to procure from Ireland a formal recognition, that whomever Great Britain should appoint as regent, should, ipso facto, be received in Ireland with all the restrictions and limitations imposed upon the regent in Great Britain; with peremptory orders to convene the parliament the instant his excellency could answer for a majority for carrying such recognition. Unusual exertions to gain over the members to that point were used by all the means, which the Castle influence, aided at that time by the British treasury, could command. Threats also were circulated, and generally credited, (not rashly, as experience afterwards proved), that, whoever possessing place or pension, should vote against the minister, would forfeit, or be deprived. Yet inasmuch as the Leinster, the Shannon, the Tyrone, and most other independent interests in Ireland, violently opposed Mr. Pitt's plan of regency, the canvass of the Castle proved unsuccessful; and it was previously known, that government would be left in a minority on the question: they therefore deferred the evil day as long as possible, and convened the parliament only on the 5th of February, after the whole plan had been settled, and submitted to by the Prince in England. On an emergency so pressing, the lord lieutenant, who at no time had been popular, now found himself importuned and harassed beyond bearing the deaths of Sir William Montgomery and Lord Clifden, who held lucrative places under government, brought upon his excellency a host of besiegers, rather than beseechers,

who imposed their extortionary demands with an arrogance in proportion to the value now known to be set on a single vote at the Castle.

A singular measure was about this time carried with a high hand, which Lord Townshend had once carried, though he were forced immediately after to abandon it: this was the division of the revenue and excise board: preparatory to which his excellency appointed one of the Beresford family to be second council to the commissioners. About this time also his excellency found it necessary to restore to the officers in barracks their wonted allowances of firing, which in a former fit of subaltern economy he had stopped from them: this pitiful stoppage had been laid on to the great discontent of the army; and being very ungraciously removed, the alleviation was received without gratitude. The very creatures of the Castle decried the parsimonious system pursued within its walls, and contrasted it against the days of Lord Townshend, who had done more by table attachments, than his command of the treasury. Amongst other economical arrangements, the Marquis of Buckingham about this time appointed an additional commissioner to the stamp office; which the people considered as a new and unnecessary creature, and in defiance of a statute, which had already appointed a given number of commissioners. The opposition to the Marquis of Buckingham's administration, feeling their own strength, and anxious to lose no part of it, from want of concert and harmony, met on the 3d of February, 1789, at Lord Charlemont's house in Rutland-square, in order to arrange their plan of operation for the meeting of the parliament.

The session was opened by the Marquis of Buckingham on the 5th of February, 1789, who, in his speech* from the throne, 13 Journ. Com.

68 MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,

"WITH the deepest concern I find myself obliged, "on opening the present session of parliament, to communicate to you that "his majesty has been for some time afflicted by a severe malady, in consequence of which he has not honoured me with his commands upon the mea"sures to be recommended to his parliament.

"I have directed such documents as I have received respecting his ma"jesty's health, to be laid before you; and I shall also communicate to you as soon as I shall be enabled, such further information as may assist your "deliberations on that melancholy subject."

"GENTLEMEN OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS,

" DEEMING it at all times my indispensable duty "to call your attention to the security of the public credit, and to the mainte"nance of the civil and military establishments, I have ordered the public ac"counts to be laid before you.

"MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,

"IT is unnecessary for me to express to you my as earnest wishes for the welfare and prosperity of Ireland, which, in every

informed the two houses of the severe indisposition with which the king had been inflicted, and apprized them, that he had directed all the documents respecting his majesty's health, which could assist their deliberations, to be laid before them. On the next day, some objections to the address to the lord lieutenant, were made, that brought on a very long and interesting conversation: for as it was the common belief, that the government of the Marquis of Buckingham would now be of very short duration,* opinions were delivered of his excellency with

"situation, I shall always be anxious to promote. Nor need I declare my "confidence in that affectionate attachment to his majesty, and in that zealous "concern for the united interests of both kingdoms, which have manifested "themselves in all your proceedings."

* The reason of submitting to the reader some of these severe censures upon the Marquis of Buckingham is, that they are the strongest vouchers that can be procured of several important facts, necessary to be known to those, who take an interest in the genuine history of Ireland: and it appears, that such of those facts asserted or referred to on this occasion, as were not contradicted by any of the gentlemen, whose disposition, interest, and duty called upon them to deny them, (if false), must be admitted as true. 9 Parl. Debates. Mr. Brown, of the college, said, that he came into the house extremely well. disposed to dilacerate the public character of the viceroy; but really it was now left in so miserable and mangled a condition, that it would be ungenerous, and unmanly, to attack the small fragment that remained. He could only now talk of what he intended to have done, which had been already anticipated by other assailants. He might have painted the acclamations, with which his administration began; the disgrace, with which it terminated; the declarations against jobbing; the actual jobbing that succeeded; jobbing in the closet; coercion in the offices. A little gnawing, corroding, venemous scrutiny, which eats its way into the hearts of some poor men, who had not strength of body to bear violent accusation, or strength of mind enough to retort on greater offenders; which seemed to look out for crimes and forfeitures, as objects of prey, not of correction. He might have painted an economy, which instead of applying itself to great objects, such as the pension list, police establishment, or sinecure offices, fell upon a few miserable military taylors; and by depriving them of their little fire, in reality increased, instead of diminishing, the expence of clothing the army. He might have dwelt on a prorogation of parliament, prejudicial to the public business, and unnecessary, except for the purposes of a faction.

Mr. Grattan wished that the lord lieutenant had not been introduced into the address: he said, the expences of the Marquis of Buckingham were accompanied with the most extraordinary professions of economy and censures on the conduct of the administration, that immediately preceded him; he had exclaimed against the pensions of the Duke of Rutland, a man accessible undoubtedly to applications, but the most disinterested man on earth, and one whose noble nature demanded some, but received no indulgence from the rigid principles or professions of the Marquis of Buckingham. He exclaimed against his pensions, and he confirmed them: he resisted motions made to disallow some of them; and he finally agreed to a pension for Mr. Orde, the secretary of the Duke of Portland's administration, whose extravagance was at once the object of his invective, and of his bounty: he resisted his pension, if report says true: and having shewn that it was against his conscience, be submitted. Mr. Orde can never forgive the Marquis the charges made against the man he thought proper to reward: the public will never forgive the pension given to a man the Marquis thought proper to condemn. The pension list, said he, whose increase the Marquis condemned, he had an oppo

out any reserve or tenderness to his character or situation: and by the turn of the debate, the ministers seemed thoroughly con

tunity to restrain. A bill limiting the amount of pensions was proposed by an honourable friend of his, and was resisted by the Marquis of Buckingham; his secretary was the person to oppose that bill, and to give a signal to the servants of the crown to resist it. He assigned his reason, viz. because he thought his excellency was entitled to the same confidence which had been reposed in the other viceroys, that is, the confidence, which the Marquis of Buckingham pathetically declared had been grossly abused. The police was another theme of his excellency's indignation; he had exclaimed, or had been said to have exclaimed, against the expence of that establishment. A committee was appointed to examine into its utility; and after a long and minute investigation, discovered that the turbulence and corruption of the police-men, were at least equal to the extravagance of the establishment. With that two-fold know. ledge of its prodigality and its licentiousness, he defended the police establishment, and resisted a measure to repeal that bill; defending in parliament every measure, against which he was supposed to have exhausted his time in invective and investigation.

The park establishment was supposed also to have excited his indignation. A motion was made to disallow some of those charges, and resisted by all the strength of his government. He was on these subjects satisfied with a minute examination, a poor and passionate exclamation, and a miserable acquiescence. Some of these expences must have stopped, because they were for furniture and improvement, and were not annual expences; but the principle remained; the country was open to the repetition of the charge: and the Marquis had only to take credit for the ceasing of charges, which must for a time have stopped of themselves, but which, by his influence and resistance in parliament to motions disallowing them, might be renewed; but he not only continued the evils he found; he introduced a number; on the expences of his predecessor he introduced jobs of his own. He increased salaries in the departments, which he proposed, and was said to reform. He made by that increase certain places parliamentary objects, which before had not come into the sphere of what is called parliamentary corruption; and greatly increased the influence of the crown at the time he affected to reduce the expences of the nation. The disposition he made of some of those offices, was in favour of very worthy men. He would not say that one of them was not yet underplaced, but he did say, that his office ought not to have been raised to his merits, for his merits were his own, and of course during life; but the increase was perpetual; and the increase of salary would never want a pretence if this argument were admitted. You will easily have that species of œconomy, which does at least as much mischief as good, checks peculation, and promotes undue influence. He did not confine himself to the increase of salaries; he projected, if fame says true, a number of new offices to be created for the accommodation of friends, at the public expence, by dividing and splitting offices or boards, under that worst species of profusion, the mask of economy, laying the foundation of new salaries hereafter, and increasing undue influence for the present. But there was one of his projects he had actually carried into execution, the revival of an obsolete office, the second counsel to the commissioners that office was the remnant of a wretched job, attempted eighteen years ago, and put down because impracticable and improper. The division of the boards of custom and excise, for extending the undue influence of the crown; that measure was put down; but the second counsel, a wretched remnant, was suffered for a time; and when the then counsel, Mr. Maunsel, died, his place also was discontinued. It thus remained on the establishment an obsolete unoccupied office, until it had been revived by the Marquis of Buckingham, no doubt, it will be said, for the purpose of saving. The office was to be a great saving to the public; he was to feed like the first counsel in the revenue. You are to have two counsel instead of one, to give opinions, and to receive fees in all revenue proceedings: but this was to be a great

scious of commanding no longer that docile majority, which they had so long kept steady in their ranks, and by a look or

saving. He was not at present to be consulted in the framing of the money bills; but this was a private transaction; and this was a saving, on the duration of which little dependance was to be had. He had stated particular instances of the expensive genius of the Marquis of Buckingham in the management of the public money and in the course of one year, the year, in which even prodigal lord-lieutenants impose on themselves a reserve. But these particular instances were principles, bad principles: the attempt to increase the number of offices, was an attempt to increase corruption: the man guilty of that attempt was not pure. The revival of an obsolete useless office for a friend, was a bad principle; and if accompanied with extraordinary profession of public parsimony, was a detestable principle: hyprocrisy, added to extravagance! His great objection to the Marquis of Buckingham, was not merely that he had been a jobber, but a jobber in a mask! his objection was not merely, that his administration had been expensive, but that his expences were accompanied with hyprocrisy: it was the affectation of economy, attended with a great deal of good, comfortable, substantial jobbing for himself and his friends. That led to another measure of the Marquis of Bucking. ham, which was the least ceremonious, and the most sordid and scandalous act of self-interest, attended with the sacrifice of all public decorum; he meant the disposal of the reversion of the place of the chief remembrancer to his brother, one of the best, if not the very best office in the kingdom, given in reversion to an absentee, with a great patronage and a compensation annexed. That most sordid and shameless act was committed exactly about the time when that kingdom was charged with great pensions for the bringing home, as it was termed, absentee employments. That bringing home absentee omployments was a monstrous job; the kingdom paid the value of the employment, and perhaps more; she paid the value of the tax also. The pensioner so paid was then suffered to sell both to a resident, who was free from the tax: he was then permitted to substitute new and young lives in the place of his own, and then permitted to make a new account against the country, and to receive a further compensation, which he was suffered in the same manner to dispose of. In excuse for that sort of traffic they were told, that they were not buying places, but principles: the principle of confining the great employments of that country to residents; a principle invaluable, they were told, to her pride and her interest. While they were thus buying back principles, and while the Marquis of Buckingham was protesting a disinterested regard for the prosperity of Ireland, in opposition to the principles and the professions, he disposed of the best reversion in Ireland to his own family; the only family in the world that could not, with decency, receive it, as he was the man in the world, that could not dispose of it to them. After that, Lord Buckingham was not to be called disinterested; call him any thing else; give him any appellation you please of ability or activity, but do not call him a public reformer; do not ridicule him by calling him a disinterested man.

Gentlemen had spoken about public inconstancy, and had dwelled on the rapid turn of the public mind, in despising now what a year ago it seemed to idolize; but let those gentlemen reflect a little. When a man in a high situation professed to be a reformer; when he exclaimed against the profusion and memory of his predecessor; when he taught the people to deceive themselves; enfeoffed himself in popularity; shook hands with the populace; when such a man agreed to no one constitutional or œconomic bill; on the contrary, resisted motions for disallowing extravagance, and bills tending to secure the country against future extravagance, and set up his own temporary regulations, his own contingent savings, and casual fractions of economy, in the place of laws; such a man must speedily forfeit the opinion of the public; but when the same man shall, to the crime of omission, add that of commission, shall increase the expences, of which he complained, on the principle which