in the chair. An address was resolved on to his excellency, Earl Fitzwilliam, full of affection; and resolutions, strong as they could be, in countenance of the catholic claims. He would ask them, was the British minister to controul all the interest, talents, and inclinations in this country? He protested to God, that in all the history he had read, he had never met with a parallel of such ominous infatuation as that by which he appeared to be led. Let him persevere, and you must increase your army to myriads; every man must have five or six dragoons in his house. The horror of the calamity- -Mr. Marcus Beresford moved, that the gallery be cleared.

After a short pause, Sir Laurence resumed, and declared he would speak no longer on the catholic question. He then proceeded to the other objects in contemplation, and attempted to persuade the house to take measures to secure their accomplishment. What will you say, said he, to your constituents? You have voted additional taxes, to the amount of £250,000 a year, and what did you get? Nothing. We have been duped, and we cannot tell by whom. He concluded by moving, "that the words in the moneybill, the 25th of March 1796, be expunged, and the words, 25th of May 1795, be inserted in their room." Mr. Tighe, jun. seconded the motion. After a long debate this was rejected. They, however, resolved, that his excellency had merited the thanks of the house, and the confidence of the people.

The commencement, conduct, and fatal termination of this administration, were soon disclosed by the letters of earl Fitzwilliam to the earl of Carlisle. In these his lordship states, that the catholic question was not the cause of his recal; and that in the whole proceedings relative to it, he acted agreeable to the original outline settled with his majesty's ministers, previous to his departure from London. Being decidedly of opinion, says this enlightened statesman, that the catholics should be removed from every remaining disqualification; an opinion in which the duke of Portland concurred; I found the cabinet, with Mr. Pitt at their head, strongly impressed with the same conviction. Had I found it otherwise, I never would have undertaken the government. I then proposed that the additional indulgences should be offerred from the throne. This was objected to, and it was agreed that the catholic question should not be brought forward by government; but, that should it be pressed by the catholics, lord Fitzwilliam should support it. This the catholics did; and the British ministers were made acquainted with the opinion of lord Fitzwilliam, that the measure of catholic emancipation ought no longer to be deferred, in a fortnight after his arrival. The regular correspondence was continued, in which the dismissals and appointments of the viceroy were discussed; though the catholic question was not glanced at. But after leave was given for bringing in the bill for the relief of the catholics, came a letter from the secretary of state, touching at length

on this important subject, and bringing it, for the first time, into play, as a question of any doubt or difficulty with the British cabinet: then, as if the question had been started for the first moment between us, as if it never had been the subject of any former consultation, plan, or arrangement whatever, he writes, of enabling the king's ministers to form their judgment, as to the policy, expediency, safety and necessity of that measure: then, as if he had never before heard from me on the subject, he cautions against committing myself by engagements, or even by encouraging language, (so minute is his grace) to give my countenance to the immediate adoption of this measure Then, for the first time, it appears to have been discovered, that the deferring it would be not merely an expediency, or a thing to be desired for the present, but "the means of doing a greater service to the British empire, than it has been capable of receiving since the revolution, or at least since the union." All former opinions, all former discussions, all former agreements, the leading principle of our being all convinced of the necessity, as well as fitness of the measure taking place at no distant period, of which I reminded the ministers in my letter of the 15th of January, all were forgotten; and he feels it his duty, for the first time, in consequence of the discussion in the cabinet the day. before, to exhort me to use those efforts which I had expressed an intention of trying; efforts, of the efficacy of which I had expressed the strongest doubts, on the 8th of January, when I first men

tioned my intention of trying them; efforts, every hope from which I had relinquished on the 15th, when I warned them of the necessity of immediately giving way, when I earnestly called upon them for peremptory instructions, which if I should not receive I should acquiesce. Efforts, which they knew from the whole series of my correspondence, it was impossible ever to attempt, without evident and certain danger.'

His excellency immediately wrote to the duke of Portland, expressing his surprise, that, after such an interval, when the various details were transmitted to him, advising him of the hourly necessity of bringing forward the catholic question, and the impolicy and danger of resisting it, he should now be pressed, for the first time, to defer the question till some future occasion. He refused to be the person to run the risk of such a determination; he refused to be the person to raise a flame in the country, that nothing short of arms could be able to extinguish. This was accompanied by a letter to Mr. Pitt, containing a justification of his dismissals, which concluded with his determination to persist in them, and left to Mr. Pitt a choice between his excellency and Mr. Beresford. Shortly afterwards, he received two official letters from the duke of Portland, entering into a detail of the catholic question, and a private letter of his own, in which his grace dwelt particularly on the necessity of information on this measure, and a detailed plan

* Letter to Lord Carlisle.

of all the advantages intended to be conceded to the catholics. He further observed, "that if the consideration of this great question could be deferred till peace was established, he should have no doubt but that it would be attended with advantages, which, perhaps, are not to be hoped for in any other supposeable cause;" but, he added, "that it was surely going too far, to infer from any thing that he said, that I was desired to undertake the task of deferring it to that period. If the cabinet were to accede, what they desired was, to be justified in that accession by a free and impartial investigation of facts, of circumstances and of opinions; among which, as of reason, mine would have the most decisive weight; and as I had expressed a wish to have the mode considered in England, whilst it was still within my reach to have it limited or modified, before the bill was introduced, and before the plan was known to the catholics, he wished to have this plan and the heads of the bill transmitted for consideration."

At the moment of his writing this letter, there was not a fact, a circumstance, or an opinion, that could be transmitted to him, of which his grace was not in possession. He had acknowledged, and frequently referred to his excellency's letter of the 10th of February, in which the plan, wherein every thing that regarded the constitution, the ecclesiastical establisment, and the settlement of property was stated. He had the primate's opinion on some ideas that his grace had suggested; and still more ample details were im