they had passed the limits of forbearance. On the 23rd the Viceroy wrote for permission to remove Lord Shannon, the Speaker, and five other lords and gentlemen from the Privy Council, and from the offices which they held under the Crown.1 A' most secret' letter of the same date reiterates his reasons for requesting it. 'Mr. Ponsonby must be displaced from the head of the Revenue Board. I need not dwell upon his conduct while the marks are so recent and decisive. The authority of the Crown in this country can never be maintained while this gentleman holds his present powers. If we dissolve Parliament he will canvass for the chair of the next, with the whole power and authority of his office, and we must see to prevent him. Lord Lanesborough's friends have gone against us, and he was under the gravest obligations to the Crown. Mr. Champneys was placed on the establishment for 1,000l. a year, to open a seat for his lordship at the Revenue Board. To make the revenue produce what it ought, one or two members of the board must be Englishmen, always resident, regularly bred in the revenue of England, men of sense, spirit, and honour, who could be depended on to do their duty themselves and prevent others from abusing theirs. Lord Shannon must be removed from the Ordnance, and the inferior board must be changed also. The principal share of the power and influence of those parties which have so long embarrassed Government was owing to the favour as well as forbearance of the Crown under which they have been cherished; while by a constant private understanding 1 The Earls of Louth and Lanesborough, Sir William Mayne, Sir Hercules Langford Rowley, CHAP. II. 1769. BOOK V. 1769. with its declared opponents, they have distressed one Lord-Lieutenant, compromised with another, always gaining something for themselves, and paring away the authority and reputation of the English Government until it has scarce ground left to stand upon. Members of the House of Commons have been watching to see where the power would finally reside. I earnestly recommend these changes, and such a regulation of the revenue as shall tend to its improvement and the support of the Government. Lose no time. The same cabals, the same demands, intrigues, and pretended patriotism will revive. Government must begin from this moment to extricate itself from this dilemma or must submit.' ' The Parliament was allowed one more opportunity of repentance. Half alarmed at their own audacity, the factious members had consented after all to the augmentation of the army. Part of the supplies had been voted under forms not included in the bill which they had thrown out. The necessary business was wound up at Christmas, and the royal assent was given to the Acts which had already been passed. The Viceroy, on the 26th, addressed the two Houses. He told them with painful plainness the light in which he regarded them and their doings; and then, as Lord Sydney had done, and as he had given notice that he himself intended to do, he submitted a distinct protest against the claims which they had advanced, and required them to enter it on the Journals. The Peers consented, five only objecting and recording the grounds of their disagreement. The Commons, too proud to yield further, and aware, like the Viceroy, 1 Townshend to Weymouth, December 23.' Abridged. 2 Louth, Charlemont, Powerscourt, Longford, and Mountmorris. II. 1769. that it was a crisis in the constitution, when to give CHAP. way was to allow themselves defeated, positively refused. Townshend, on his side, was firm. Had they complied, they would have separated for the fortnight's recess and have re-assembled in January. They were prorogued nominally till the 20th of March, but in fact, as they all knew, for an indefinite time. BOOK V. 1770. SECTION III. Two courses were now open to the Cabinet, and two only. The behaviour of the House of Commons, notoriously consequent as it was on the rejection of the first overtures of Lord Shannon and Mr. Ponsonby to the Viceroy, must have satisfied the most obstinate believer in Parliamentary Government that Ireland in the existing circumstances was not fit for it. Free constitutions presuppose in the leading citizens of a country at least some degree of probity and patriotism. When the ambition of individuals never reaches beyond personal interest, when their consciences recognise no obligation beyond duty to themselves and their friends, the forms of liberty are travestied, and the sooner the truth is recognised and acted on the better for all parties concerned. Townshend had been sent to Ireland to put an end to jobbery, to clear away the scandals of generations, and to begin a new era. He had been foiled by the inveterate dishonesty of the principal Irish politicians, nor was there the slightest hope of finding in the Irish representatives the materials of an honourable party on whose support he could rely. The facts of the case being undeniably thus, the Viceroy might have been left to select a council from the many honest and loyal men who had held aloof hitherto from the unwholesome atmosphere of Parliament; and with their help, and with economic management of the hereditary revenue, he might have enforced order, punished fraud and swindling, and II. 1770. opened the way by a just administration towards CHAP. a future union with Great Britain. The honest course would in the end have proved the safest. It would have involved sacrifices, however, on the part of England. If integrity and justice were to be the rule of Government, precept would have to be attended by example. The Cabinet could not any longer abuse Irish patronage to purchase Parliamentary support at home, or quarter favourites on the Irish establishment whom elsewhere they dared not recommend. The English statesmen of the eighteenth century, the Graftons, the Weymouths, the Norths, the Shelburnes, had learnt in official routine to regard these resources as indispensable for the public service. They were incapable, perhaps, from habit and training, of breaking in upon established precedent. There was another way of governing Ireland it was also possible to fall in with the national ideas, and to maintain the Parliament as a form; but since corrupt it was, to manage it through and by the corruptions which it loved; to dissolve the old parties, and to form instead a new combination which should be held together by dependence upon the Castle. : Of the alternative policies this unhappily was the one on which the Cabinet resolved, and Townshend remained in Ireland to become the most unwilling instrument in carrying it out. He set himself to the work of seduction with all the arts which he possessed. The Dublin tradesmen had suffered by the premature dispersion of the Lords and Commons. The Viceroy restored them to good humour by the magnificence of the Castle hospitalities. He gave masquerades ; he gave fancy balls, in which the costumes, with a skilful compliment to Ireland, were made only of |