CHAPTER IV 1783-1786 Returned to Parliament-Life in Ireland-Tedium-The Con- T was in the summer of 1783, a few months IT after his return to Ireland, that Lord Edward's political career may be said to have been formally inaugurated, by his finding himself a member of the new Parliament, returned to it by his brother the Duke as member for Athy. In its ultimate consequences the event was of the last importance, turning, as in course of time it must necessarily have done, his attention to the condition. of the country and its relations to England. But at the present moment it was another aspect of the affair by which he was principally affected. Life in Ireland, in Parliament or out of it, presented a violent contrast to that which he had lately led. Lord Edward frankly confessed that he found the tedium of that life intolerable. It was no wonder. It does not appear that he formed any close friendships, at least as yet, among the men who were to be his associates at a later date; nor, though he was punctual in his attendance at the House, and from the first consistent in his adherence to the popular side, was he likely at twenty-one to find politics sufficiently engrossing to compensate for the absence of the excitement of the last two years. It is more probable that he regarded them chiefly in the light of an interruption to the serious business of life, represented by the art of killing, and, in case of necessity, being killed, after the most approved method of military science. Possibly, as he felt himself insensibly drawn into the current of the interests of those by whom he was surrounded, the distaste with which he regarded his new environment may have been modified; but at the outset his sentiments were plainly enough expressed. can "I have made fifty attempts to write to you," he tells his mother, just then in England, in a letter dated from his brother's house, "but have as often failed, from want of subject. Really a man must be a clever fellow who, after being a week at Carton and seeing nobody but Mr. and Mrs. B write a letter. If you insist on letters, I must write you an account of my American campaigns over again, as that is the only thing I remember. I am just now interrupted by the horrid parson, and he can find nothing to do but to sit at my elbow." For once, it is clear, Lord Edward's sweet temper was ruffled. The only thing which he thoroughly approved, as we find from a letter a month later, was of his mother's intention of giving up going abroad in order to bear him company in Ireland. Her presence, he told her, was the only thing that could make him happy there. When she was absent he found home life very insipid. Yet the situation in Ireland, in Parliament and out of it, was one which might have been expected to vary the monotony of existence, and to impart to it some flavour of excitement, especially to one who might look to have a hand in the direction of affairs. During the previous year Parliamentary independence had been won. But to be effective, as events too clearly proved, it should have been accompanied by reform. A situation under which the members of the Upper House returned, for their pocket boroughs, a majority of those of the Lower, was a travesty of Parliamentary government. Opinions, however, differed as to the next step to be taken. Within the walls of the House itself party spirit was running so high that only by the interposition of Parliament was a duel between Flood and Grattan, the two great popular leaders, averted. The country at large was in a condition of ferment and agitation, alike constitutional and the reverse; and in some parts was so given over to lawlessness that, to cite one instance alone, it had been possible for the notorious George Robert FitzGerald-a connection by marriage of the Duke of Leinster's-to keep his father, with whom he had had |