1805. Defection of Mr. Pitt's friends. was delivered by the Chancellor; it drily expres sed his Majesty's thanks to both Houses, for the proofs they had given of their constant regard for the honour of the Crown and the interest of his dominions and particularly alluded to the augmentation of the disposeable military force of the kingdom. It gratefully acknowedged the zeal and liberality, with which the Commons had granted the large supplies, which the necessity of the public service had required. It was impossible to communicate the results of the negociations then pending with the powers of the continent; but they might rest secure, that on the part of his Majesty no step would be omitted to promote general tranquillity, and to repel with vigour the encroachments of the French government upon the general liberties and independence of Europe. It cannot be too strongly impressed upon the public, that the fundamental and pervading principles of Lord Hardwick's mission, first under Mr. Addington, and then under Mr. Pitt, were to oppose generally, but efficiently, the two leading and vital points for Ireland, Catholic emancipation and Parliamentary reform. Proportionate latitude of discretion and power was allowed him in other matters, provided he could persuade or restrain the people from bringing forward either of those two important questions.. Lord Hard with his friend, Mr. Alderman James from Dublin, to present a petition to the Imperial parliament for redress, on the ground of his having been dismissed from office, merely for having opposed the Catholic claims. wicke, who had found by four year's experience, that with the abatement of the ferocity of the ter-torists, the unaccountable immolation of one Protestant victim (J. Giffard) and the ostentation of favour and kindness to some of the Catholic body, he reconciled them to his government, and disposed many to hold back their claims and wishes upon the two ruling and proscribed points, affected to assume personal consequence upon some matters of state, and dared to differ from Mr. Pitt. Whether the alteration of that minister's temper or conduct were ascribable to corporal ailments or political disappointments, may be uncertain; yet at no time of his life had he so disagreed with the persons acting under him. His formér dictatorial power seemed to have left him. Not only had Lord Sidmouth and his partizans twice deserted him, but his old trusty tool in the coercion and monopoly of power in Ireland, Mr. Foster, had risen against him, and Lord Hardwicke had found his mandates to the Irish government out of the range of the two pledged cases, so unwarrantable and overbearing, that his Excellency had resolved to tender his resignation. In forcing the Union upon. Ireland, Mr. Pitt had further views than to weaken and degrade the country. Aware of the danger of continuing the political power of the country in the hands of native monopolizers, who might treacherously rise upon him, as Mr. Foster had in the matter of Union, his object, thenceforth, was to secure, under the 1805. 1805. Mr. Foster nanced. master key of the British minister, that fund of power, the direction and controul of which he had, for so many years, unfortunately let out to the triumvirate, Clare, Beresford and Foster. No man knew better than Mr. Pitt the sagacity discounte and fleetness of Mr. Foster, in putting up and running down his game. The minister had not forgotten his former services, and anxiously wished to restore him to his pack. The mock repentance of mock patriotism was instinctively and instantly confessed and forgotten. But the apostate, in being re-admitted to the grace and favour of the premier, vainly imagined himself reinstated in that quality of arbitrary rule, which under the old firm, he had so long and so successfully exercised. That neither answered the ends of the British minister, nor of his Irish Lieutenant. Mr. Foster presum ing, that by his appointment to the Chancellor, ship of the Irish Exchequer, he had acquired the unlimited controul of the financial concerns of the whole country, displeased Mr. Pitt, and offended Lord Hardwicke. To such a height had the difference between Mr. Pitt and Mr. Foster arisen, about a fortnight before the prorogation of Parliament, that on the 2d of July, Mr. Foster took his seat on the opposite side of the House. So penetrated, however, was the public with the lust of place on one hand, and the want of drudgery of all-work on the other, that they refused credit to the symptom, formerly deemed unequivocal, of a minister's resignation. At no time of Mr. Pitt's administration was the cabinet so divided as at present. This contentious discord arose, not out of any broad difference upon political principles or opinions, but from rival voracity for patronage and place. Mr. Foster had outstretched his own views by so framing some of the financial bills, as to secure to himself a large share of that patronage, which would naturally have fallen into the hands of the Chief Governor, and the First Lord Commissioner of the revenue. As neither Lord Hardwicke nor. Lord Donoughmore had ever concurred in all the politics of Mr. Foster, they quickly resented this attempt to lessen their patronage, and considering the measure sanctioned by Mr. Pitt, into whose confidence Mr. Foster had worked himself, with a view to regain his old dominion over Ireland, their displeasure and opposition to both manifestly appeared. Mr. Pitt, however displeased, was at that moment too closely pressed with desertions and difficulties, to dare openly to resent the insult. The bills were gotten rid of in the Commons, by motions to take them into consideration at distant days. This afforded Mr. Foster the immediate pretext for resignation. Mr. Pitt too highly valued his experience in wielding the political power of Ireland to accept of it. Mr. Foster's feelings and principles had ever an innate aptitude to square with his interests. He had long lost the popularity, which his forced patriotism, in opposing the Union had for a short season procured him. His countrymen beheld him once more co-operating with Mr. Pitt and Lord 1805. 1805. Castlereagh, and considered him, of course, reanimated with all the fierceness of his former proscriptive and oppressive disposition to the country. They rejoiced consequently in the loss of the bills, by which he had sought to alter without improv ing the public boards, to contract the functions of the executive, and depress a justly favoured character, (the Earl of Donoughmore,) of his official patronage. Further de cline of Mr. Pitt's influence. Other causes concurred to render the situation of the viceroy at that time so unpleasant, as to have induced him repeatedly to solicit his own recall. Persons notoriously devoted to the nod of Mr. Pitt were named as likely and proper to succeed him. Mr. Pitt's inordinate pride had never before experienced any thing like resistance from any of his servants, and such he considered every member in every department of his administration. Lord Hardwicke had, throughout his whole government, been punctiliously observant of his original pledge, when he accepted of his mission from Mr. Addington, and continued it under Mr. Pitt, to keep back, smother and resist the two ob noxious questions of Catholic emancipation and Parliamentary reform, by the most soothing means in his power. Out of the operation of that pledge, he was left by the British cabinet, and had generally found himself practically uncontrouled in his administration of the executive in Ireland. He became consequently the more sensible of Mr. Pitt's attempt to narrow his discretion and powers. Reflection awakened him into a new |