BOOK IV. from Irish connexions,' 'might deserve consideration in a subsidiary, conciliable, and healing disposition of 1758 spirits.' 'In a temper of national resentment and growing exasperation,' it might only increase the Dissolution or prorogation he thought 'wholly unadvisable and dangerous.'1 mischief. That Bedford should go to England, and see Pitt in private, was made absolutely necessary by a betrayal of their correspondence on both sides of the water. The Viceroy's letters were the property of the political leaders within a few hours of their being written. Each of them knew his embarrassments. Each feared to be left at the mercy of his rivals, and all alike to have the spoils of office stolen from them, by the appointment as deputy of some impartial Englishman. The The money having been voted for the usual two years, the concluding weeks of the session of 1758 were smoothed by mutual compromises. The struggle was suspended till Parliament should again meet, while the Viceroy worked in private to make a temporary arrangement during his absence. The first plan was to combine all parties, and leave three lords justices. The Primate offered to serve with Kildare and Ponsonby. But Kildare declined. hate of parties to each other in public affairs,' wrote Bedford, for in private I see less of it than in most other countries,' is 'so great, that I cannot conciliate them; and to leave the sword to either would be fatal.'2 Kildare, however, was not the only powerful nobleman in Ireland. The Primate and Ponsonby were willing to work together. Lord Shannon, 2 Bedford to Pitt, February 9.' Ibid. 1 'Pitt to Bedford, February 2, 1758.' MSS. Record Office. II. 1759 having won his earldom and his pension, was not CHAP. unwilling to earn future favours. In a letter, 'most secret and particular,' the Duke informed Pitt that he had at last formed a combination which would answer during a short absence. The Primate promised to be faithful in future, if his late conduct was not remembered against him. The Viceroy undertook, in return, that he should have his share in public patronage.1 The sore question of the Pension List was allowed to lie over for the present, and Bedford sailed in the yacht' for England, at the beginning of May. The curtain rises again in the autumn of 1759. A matter had occurred meanwhile which, if in Ireland it created no astonishment, was regarded in England with indignant surprise. The Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Antony Malone, and Mr. Clements, one of the Tellers, both members of the Privy Council, established a private bank in Dublin, fell into difficulties, and created a confusion in the public accounts. That they had traded with the public money they loudly denied; and their delinquency, if it had extended so far, was condoned by the Irish Parliament. By their own confession, however, vast sums of money, public or private, or both together, had passed through their hands. They had paid off the mortgages on their estates, and had largely added to them. They failed to meet their engagements, and were forced to suspend payment; and though their debts were ultimately cleared, and Irish sentiment dealt with them leniently, the opinion in London was severely unfavourable. 1 Bedford to Pitt, February 10, 1758. MSS. Record Office. 2 33 George II. cap. 4. BOOK IV. 1759 By this time to private scandal and Parliamentary faction there was added a public danger. The French war was at its height, and it was expected that a blow was to be aimed at England through the vulnerable side. A squadron of five ships, under M. Thurot, sailed from Dunkirk in October, to cruise in the Irish seas, while a powerful fleet collected at Brest-which, rumour said, was to land an army in Munster, in the middle of the winter. The relations between France and Ireland were manifold and intimate. The smuggling commerce was enormous; the Irish brigade corresponded regularly with their families at home. Officers had passed to and fro in disguise; and the air was full, as usual, of rumours of insurrection. Fifty thousand Catholics were reported ready to rise in arms to meet their deliverers, and their disposition to rebel was believed in Paris to be a practical fact. Many anxious conversations on the state of Ireland had passed meanwhile between Pitt and Bedford. The Duke had told Pitt, that, after eight months' experience, he considered Ireland as a country where laws had lost all energy, magistracy all anthority, and even Parliament itself all reverence; and that nothing but military force could restrain the subject within due obedience.'1 Pitt's replies are unrecorded. Obviously however, from his subsequent language, it was to the Protestants and to Protestantism that he looked for recuperative force there, not to any relaxation of Catholic disabilities; that he regarded the discontent of Protestants in the midst of a hostile population as 1 'Bedford to Pitt, reminding him of a conversation in the spring, December 25, 1759. II. 1759 too strange a phenomenon to be accounted for by CHAP. mere factiousness. For the moment the war was allabsorbing. Early in the autumn Bedford returned to Dublin. The French were daily looked for. The army was concentrated at Clonmel, ready to turn in whatever direction the enemy might appear. Limerick was the point of danger. If the landing was at Limerick, the city, it was thought, could not be saved. There was no force available but the regular troops. In 1715, every able-bodied Protestant had pressed into the militia, and the whole country was an armed camp. In 1759, the city of London alone raised a larger force than the whole of Ireland. The lords and gentlemen had been profuse in professions and promises; but the inefficacy of their zeal, their supineness after so strong and frequent warnings of dangers, could not but,' to Pitt's troubled mind, ‘administer just ground of wonder and alarm.'1 The spirit of the seventeenth century was dead. Protestantism had spent its force, or survived only among the Presbyterians, whose bitterness over their prolonged disabilities was stronger than their loyalty. Public spirit, pride in the glorious empire of which they were permitted to be a part, had no longer an existence in the minds of the Irish colonists; or, if they recognized that they possessed a country, it was 'to thank God that they had a country to sell.' English courage arrested the invasion. The French fleet, after sailing from Brest, was met by Hawke at Quiberon, and smashed in pieces. Thurot and his squadron descended on Carrickfergus, took the castle, plundered the town and threatened Belfast. 1 'Pitt to Bedford, November 2, 1759.' MSS. Record Office. Had BOOK IV. Belfast been attacked it could not have been saved, 'not so much as a single firelock,' so Pitt wrote in1760 dignantly, 'having been put into the hands of any Protestant in that part of Ireland since the commencement of the war;'1 and Belfast was the only town in Ireland, except Dublin, of which the pillage would have been worth the risk of the adventure. Happily, before Thurot had time to learn with what ease he might make the capture, the English were upon him. Three frigates lay in harbour at Kingsale, the Eolus, the Pallas, and the Brilliant, Captain Elliott, in the Eolus, commanding. Thurot's five ships had been reduced to three also, of almost equal force with Elliott's. Already before the attack on Carrickfergus, they had been heard of on the coast, and the English squadron was on its way to look for them. Thurot was found still at anchor in Carrickfergus Bay. The wind was blowing hard off shore. The English could not close; and, under cover of night, Thurot slipped out into the channel. But Elliott was after him with daylight, and came up with him on the morning of the 28th February, between the Mull of Galloway and the Isle of Man. After a sharp engagement of an hour and a half, in which the French admiral was killed, the three ships struck and were towed as prizes into Ramsay harbour, and the French descent on Ireland was at an end.2 The Dublin populace, meanwhile, had taken the opportunity of displaying the change of temper which had come over them since 1703, when Ireland. 1 Pitt to Bedford, March 13, of Bedford, February 24, and 29, 1760.' Ibid. |