of the House of Commons, please Lord Shannon, and greatly strengthen the Administration.1

The Viceroy was well contented. He discovered that "the situation of a university in the metropolis required more experience and knowledge of the world than was to be found in a clergyman." The parties interested were communicated with, and all were satisfied except one, the person in whose behalf the changes were professedly to be made. Flood could not conceal his indignant disappointment. That he, the first orator in Ireland, who had blazed for ten years as a star of the first magnitude, should be put off with the place of Alnager, shorn too of half its profits, approached to insult. Lord Frederick Campbell had trifled with him. De Blaquiere had promised him, he said, "the first great office that should be vacant," and was now trifling with him also. He, too, had set his heart on the Provostship of Trinity. He, not Hutchinson, ought to have it. Harcourt, to whom he poured out his complaints, pointed out to him that Hutchinson was resigning two important offices in exchange.

"And have I resigned nothing?" whimpered Flood with pretty naïveté. "Have not I made as great or a greater sacrifice, my popularity and reputation, which I have risked in support of a Government that now treats me with contempt?" He flung away in He would have no more to do with the Castle, he said. His treatment would be a lesson to everybody. But for him Lord Harcourt would have been as badly treated as his predecessors. "For himself, he was now reduced to a most humiliating and perplexed state, either to become a humble suppliant

a rage.

1 "Lord Harcourt to Lord Rochford, June 19, 1774."

for favor, or give up all hopes of it, and submit tamely to every species of ridicule and contempt."

For a politician to sell his services was not contemptible, it appeared, but to sell them and be cheated of the price. The Provostship was a situation for life. The object was to find something for Flood which could be taken away if he fell off, something which would be a security for his good behavior. "To have made Mr. Flood Provost of Trinity," Harcourt said, "would have placed him in a station of independence that might have made him extremely troublesome and formidable." Prudence, however, required that he should not be flung back into opposition. The Viceroy inquired what his own views were. Flood intimated, as a matter of favor, that he would consent to accept a Vice-Treasurership. The three Vice-Treasurerships were sinecure offices with salaries attached to them of 3,500l. a year. They were reserved in general for special favorites; unfortunately, for persons out of Ireland. Harcourt mildly remonstrated. Mr. Flood might be contented to begin at a lower level. Finding Flood immovable, he consented at last to recommend him. "It may be better," he said, in reporting the conversation, “to secure Mr. Flood almost at any expense than risk an opposition which may be most dangerous and mischievous." 1

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Lord North would have been willing, but he had England to care for as well as Ireland. My objection,” he replied, "to Mr. Flood's having a ViceTreasurership is that I fear much blame here, and no small difficulty in carrying on the King's business, if I consent to part with the disposal of these 1 "To Lord North, July 8. Most private and confidential."

offices, which have been so long and uniformly bestowed on members of the British Parliament. I acknowledge the Irish members had a right to complain when two gentlemen who had no permanent connection with Ireland were appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer and Master of the Rolls for life, but In short, Harcourt was not to think of it. The Cabinet had great respect for Mr. Flood, but it could not be done.1

As a possible alternative Lord North suggested reviving the old office of President of Munster, with a salary of 2,000l. a year. Harcourt objected that if the Presidency was made a reality it would give Flood too much consequence. To revive it as a sinecure would be a job too gross even for Ireland. It would be less objectionable to raise the salary of some insignificant place already subsisting, or to give Flood a handsome pension. Mr. Flood denounced the pension system generally, but would doubtless accept one for himself. A provision of one kind or another must be made for him "on mere grounds of economy." "Was it worth while to hazard the stamp and other duties so lately effected, and put an able and active man at the head of a numerous opposition to save a thousand a year for one life, and that perhaps not a good one, besides the other mischief which a desperate and disappointed man might devise?" 2

After much deliberation, the Cabinet at length consented that Flood should have his Vice-Treasurership; but now a difficulty rose with Flood himself. The Vice-Treasurership was held "during pleasure." Flood said he made no doubt of Lord Harcourt's good

1 "Lord North to the Earl of Harcourt, July 23."

2 "To Lord North, September 3."

disposition towards him but Harcourt could not answer for his successor, who might dismiss him without ceremony from an office of precarious tenure. He had been promised "the first great employment that should be vacant. He ought to have succeeded to the Provostship or to some situation which would have placed him on an equal footing with the great officers of the Crown."

The Viceroy said that Flood had himself named the Vice-Treasurership. He had done his best to oblige him, but he would go no further. Flood must accept what was now offered, "or the Castle would hold itself discharged of its promises."

"When he saw that his arts and his arguments made no impression, he said that out of his consideration for Lord Harcourt he would waive his claims to a more desirable situation." He would accept a Vice-Treasurership, provided it involved no charge on Ireland; provided, i. e., his salary was paid from the English Exchequer.

This was too much. The Viceroy said he could not ask Lord North to relieve the Establishment at the expense of Great Britain. The negotiation was suspended. "Mr. Flood had so high an opinion of his Parliamentary abilities that he thought England must submit to anything." The vacant office was hung up as a prize for good behavior to keep the patriots in order for the next year. The Viceroy particularly begged that it might not be given away, “because it would deprive him of the means of making arrangements that would remove any material difficulty that could arise in the ensuing session of Parliament." 1

1 "To Lord North, September 3."

Months now were allowed to pass, Flood believing that as the time of danger approached nearer the Viceroy would give way. It would have been a proud position for him could he have told his countrymen that he had compelled England to engage his services without entailing fresh burdens upon them. Finding the Castle gave no sign, he reopened the correspondence himself, and intimated his willingness to accept. He did not want money, but he was sensitive of ridicule. He had offended his patriot allies by the course which he had already taken. It must not be said of him that he had been duped out of his reward. He consented to take his place when Parliament next opened among the avowed "servants of the Crown." He had been so late in yielding, however, that the session had begun before the King's letter arrived confirming his appointment, and during the first few days he was obliged to be absent from his seat. "Till the letter arrives, in fact," Lord Harcourt said, "his situation is awkward enough. Since I was born I never had to deal with so difficult a man, owing principally to his high-strained ideas of his own influence and popularity." 1

As the dispute with America threatened to take a violent form, it was watched in Ireland with increasing eagerness, and when the attempt at coercion was followed by the news of Lexington and Bunker's Hill, domestic differences were suspended in the passionate anxiety with which the evolution of the drama was observed. The question in both countries was substantially the same whether the Mother Country had a right to utilize her dependencies for her own interests irrespective of their own consent? The

1 "Harcourt to North, October 9, 1775."