hundred and twenty-one. On the 14th of April, Mr. Grattan, with undaunted perseverance, returned once more to the subject of tythes, and submitted to the House at string of resolutions, which he purposed moving regu larly in the course of the session ensuing. Each resolution he followed up with a most impressive comment. Nothing else of importance came before parliament during that session, and it was prorogued on the 14th of April, 1788, to the astonishment of the nation.

The ensuing session was opened by the Marquis of Buckingham, on the 5th of February, 1789, and on the next day some objections to the (usual) address to the lord-lieutenant were made, which brought on a long and interesting conversation, and opinions were delivered of his excel lency, without any reserve or tenderness to his character or situation. Mr. Grattan's speech, from the commencement to the end, is a continued display of all those compounds which render his speeches of invective, so galling and severe, we therefore insert the whole of it. Prior to which, however,

Mr. Brown, of the College, said, "that he came into the House extremely well-disposed to dilacerate the cha racter of the viceroy; but really, it was now left in so miserable and mangled a condition, that it would be un generous and unmanly, to attack the small fragment that remained. He could only now talk of what he intended to have done, which had been already anticipated by other assailants. He might have painted the acclamations, with which his administration began; the disgrace, with which it terminated; the declarations against jobbing; the actual jobbing that succeeded; jobbing in the closet; coercion in the offices. A little gnawing, corroding, venomous scrutiny, which ate its way into the hearts of some poor men, who had not strength of body to bear violent accusation, or strength of mind enough to retort on greater offenders; which seemed to look out for crimes and forfeitures, as objects of prey, not of correction. He might have painted an economy, which, instead of apply

ing itself to great objects, such as the pension list, police establishment, or sinecure offices, fell upon a few miserable military taylors; and, by depriving them of their little fire, in reality increased, instead of diminishing, the expense of clothing the army. He might have dwelt on a prorogation of parliament, prejudicial to the public business, and unnecessary, except for the purposes of a faction."

Mr. Grattan wished "that the lord-lieutenant had not been introduced into the address: he said, the expenses of the Marquis of Buckingham were accompanied with the most extraordinary professions of economy, and censures on the conduct of the administration that immediately preceded him: he had exclaimed against the pensions of the Duke of Rutland; a man accessible undoubtedly to applications, but the most disinterested man on earth, and one whose noble nature demanded some, but received no indulgence from the rigid principles or professions of the Marquis of Buckingham, He exclaimed against his pensions, and he confirmed them: he resisted motions made to disallow some of them, and he finally agreed to a pension for Mr. Orde, the secretary of the Duke of Portland's administration, whose extravagance was at once the object of his invective, and of his bounty: he resisted his pension, if report says true; and having shewn that it was against his conscience, he submitted. Mr. Orde can never forgive the Marquis the charges made against the man he thought proper to reward: the public will never forgive the pension given to a man the Marquis thought proper to condemn. The pension list, whose increase the Marquis condemned, he had an opportunity to restrain. A bill limiting the amount of pensions was proposed by an honourable friend of his, and was resisted by the Marquis of Buckingham; his secretary was the person to oppose that bill, and to give a signal to the servants of the crown to resist it. He assigned his reason, viz. because he thought his excellency was entitled to the same confidence which had been reposed in the other viceroys, that is, the confidence

which the Marquis of Buckingham patriotically declared had been grossly abused. The police was another theme of his excellency's indignation; he had exclaimed, or had been said to have exclaimed, against the expense of that establishment. A committee was appointed, to examine into its utility, and, after a long and minute investigation, discovered, that the turbulence and corruption of the police-men, were at least equal to the extravagance of the establishment. With that two-fold knowledge of its prodigality and its licentiousness, he defended the police establishment, and resisted a measure to repeal that bill; defending in parliament every measure against which he was supposed to have exhausted his time in invective and indignation.

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"The park establishment was also supposed to have excited his indignation. A motion was made to disallow some of those charges, and resisted by all the strength of his government. He was on these subjects satisfied with a minute examination, a poor and passionate exclamation, and a miserable acquiescence. Some of these expenses must have stopped, because they were for furniture and improvement, and were not annual expenses; but the principle remained; the country was open to the repetition of the charge, and the Marquis had only to take credit for the ceasing of charges, which must for a time have stopped of themselves; but which, by his influence and resistance in parliament to motions, disallowing them, might be renewed; but he not only continued the evils he found, he introduced a number; on the expenses. of his predecessor, be introduced jobs of his own. He increased salaries in the departments, which he proposed, and was said to reform. He made by that increase cer tain places parliamentary objects, which before had not come into the sphere of what is called parliamentary cor ruption; and greatly increased the influence of the crown, at the time he affected to reduce the expenses of the nation. The disposition he made of some of those offices, was in favour of very worthy men, He would not say gra

that one of them was not yet underplaced, but he did say, that his office ought not to have been raised to his merits, for his merits were his own, and of course, during life; but the increase was perpetual; and the increase of salary would never want a pretence, if this argument were admitted. You will easily have that species of economy, which does at least as much mischief as good, checks peculation, and promotes undue influence. He did not confine himself to the increase of salaries; he projected, if fame says true, a number of new offices, to be created for the accommodation of friends, at the public expense, by dividing and splitting offices or boards, under that worst species of profusion, the mask of economy; laying the foundation of new salaries hereafter, and increasing undue influence for the present. But there was one of his projects he had actually carried into execution, the revival of an obsolete office, the second counsel to the commissioners that office was the remnant of a wretched job, attempted eighteen years ago, and put down because impracticable and improper. The division of the boards of custom and excise, for extending the undue influence of the crown; that measure was put down; but the second counsel, a wretched remnant, was suffered for a time; and when the then counsel, Mr. Maunsel, died, his place also was discontinued. It thus remained on the establishment an obsolete unoccupied office, until it had been revived by the Marquis of Buckingham, no doubt, it will be said, for the purpose of saving. The office was to be a great saving to the public; he was to be feed like the first counsel in the revenue. You are to have two counsel instead of one, to give opinions, and to receive fees in all revenue proceedings: but this was to be a great saving. He was not at present to be consulted in the framing of the money bills; but this was a private transaction; and this was a saving, on the duration of which little dependance was to be had. He had stated particular instances. of the expensive genius of the Marquis of Buckingham in the management of the public money: and, in the course

of one year, the year in which even prodigal lord-lieutenants impose on themselves à reserve. But these particular instances were principles, bad principles: the attempt to increase the number of offices, was an attempt to increase corruption, the man guilty of that attempt was not pure. The revival of an obsolete useless office for a friend, was a bad principle; and, if accompanied with extraordinary professions of public parsimony, was a detestable principle: hypocrisy, added to extravagance! His great objection to the Marquis of Buckingham, was not merely that he had been a jobber, but a jobber in a mask: his objection was not merely, that his administration had been expensive, but that his expenses were accompanied with hypocrisy: it was the affectation of economy, attended with a great deal of good, comfortable, substantial jobbing for himself and his friends. That led to another measure of the Marquis of Buckingham, which was the least ceremonious, and the sordid and scandalous act of selfinterest, attended with the sacrifice of all public decorum; he meant the disposal of the reversion of the place of the chief remembrancer, to his brother; one of the best, if not the very best office in the kingdom, given in reversion to an absentee, with a great patronage and a compensation annexed. That most sordid and shameless act was committed exactly about the time, when that kingdom was charged with great pensions for the bringing home, as it was termed, absentee employments. That bringing home absentee employments was a monstrous job; the kingdom paid the value of the employment, and perhaps more; she paid the value of the tax also. The pensioner so paid, was then suffered to sell both to a resident, who was free from the tax; he was then permitted to substitute new and young lives in the place of his own; and then permitted to make a new account against the country, and to receive a further compensation, which he was suffered in the same manner to dispose of. In excuse for that sort of traffic, they were told, that they were not buying places, but principles; the principle of confining