may weigh upon the minds of Ministers, my father feels it to be his duty to conform altogether to their suggestions, and he is perfectly sensible of the flattering assurances he has received of having the favour granted hereafter, when circumstances may appear to justify my father or his family in wishing it. We are both fully impressed with the value of a British Peerage, but we are equally impressed with an opinion that no consideration of political risk ought to induce us to press it in opposition to the wish which has been expressed, that it should not, at least for the present, take place. I hope you will be of opinion that we have decided right.

We are proceeding with our business, and shall probably finish in the Commons the end of next week.

how

The continental news is not the most satisfactory to delay you upon; so I conclude, my dear Lord, by assuring you sincerely and affectionately I am, &c.,

Secret.

CASTLEREAGH.

The Duke of Portland to Lord Castlereagh.

London, Thursday, July 3, 1800. My dear Lord-Considering the nature of the letter which you will receive herewith, I judge it necessary to put upon a separate paper the reasons which induced us to alter the intention I signified to you on Tuesday, respecting the Speech, the new Union Flag, and the firing the guns on the passing the Union Act. The nature of the intelligence which has been received from the Continent-I mean, from Italy and Germany (for there is no foundation whatever for that in the French papers respecting a descent at Quiberon) - made us think it advisable not to create, at this moment, any such sensation as would have been the effect of firing the Park and Tower guns; and the same consideration decided us against making a Speech so near the close of the Session, which would have deprived us of availing ourselves of the only event which we have to produce in the King's Speech to counterbalance all

the bad news which we have received, and the consequence of it which we have to expect, not to give us much more agreeable matter for the close of our Parliament. To this, besides, it may have been objected, that the Union was not completed, as the Act had not passed in Ireland, and therefore we were not in the same predicament as when Queen Anne made her Speech in the year 1707; and, as to the new Union Flag, that, though ready, was not hoisted, because we found out that we have no right to use it until the first of next year, when the Union takes place.

I am, very sincerely,

PORTLAND.

Lord Auckland to Lord Castlereagh.

Eden Farm, July 3, 1800.

My dear Lord-I have received your letter, accompanying the Report of the Committee on the state of your Inland Navigations. If the maps referred to in the papers annexed to that Report are in print, I should not have been sorry to have received them also; for, though it may be very true, in the words of the Report, that "the objects of your grants have been as various as the interests and inclinations of the petitioners," and that great sums of public money have from time to time been lavished, without "being attended with corresponding advantage to the public," it is nevertheless certain that, until Ireland shall be so far settled as to have that extent of credit and capital which can be attained only by a general sense of security, your internal improvement will go forward lamely and slowly. I conceive, therefore, that the principle of leaving such enterprises to private interest and private risk, though in general a sound principle, is not yet applicable to your situation and I am glad that you mean to establish a public fund for the purpose, and to subject it to the control of a Board to protect it against abuses, and direct it to the best purposes. Under this impression, I shall have much pleasure

VOL. III.

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in studying the papers which you have sent to me, and I am not without hope that I may soon have an occasion to converse with you upon them; for Mr. Pitt, who passed a quiet day at this place on Sunday, seems to think it likely that you may come over immediately to adjust various details and personal considerations which cannot so well be adjusted by correspondence.

The importance of the great work which you have so gloriously accomplished appears every hour more prominent. I even hope that it may eventually be found almost a compensation in itself for all the expences and risks of the last score years.

These accounts from Italy, after all reasonable deductions for French exaggerations, are sadly sickening. I begin much to fear that we must consider the continent of Europe as lost to itself and to us for the present, and left to the chapter of future chances, or, in graver terms, to the hidden dispensations of Providence. We certainly expect to hear definitively from Vienna before the 10th or 12th of this month; and I presume that means will be found to keep Parliament sitting till we can learn the probable course of the continental arrangements. If we are to consider the continental war as at an end, we seem to find ourselves in the dilemma of either making war without any object of attack, or of purchasing an armed peace by sacrificing what the enemy has no means of taking. Thus far our countrymen seem steady, and to place an unshaken confidence in their Government. In due time, it will be thundered in our ears that we are in a worse comparative situation than when the answers were given to Buonaparte's first overtures: but that charge may easily be answered; and the unforeseen disasters which have taken place are imputable only to the Austrian ministers and generals. On the other hand, we are on very advantageous ground upon the comparison of our present situation with what it was at the Lisle negociation. We have since destroyed the French and Dutch fleets; we

have taken Surinam and Minorca; we have gained the security of our East India possessions; and here again we must not forget the Irish Union. A little time will throw light on this troubled and complicated speculation. After all, it is impossible not to feel great admiration for the energy and ability of Buonaparte. Will he declare himself King of France? Perhaps, under all the circumstances, this is now to be wished. Lady Auckland desires to be kindly mentioned. We have had our married daughters and their husbands assembled with us at this place.

Believe me, &c.,

AUCKLAND.

Lord Grenville to Lord Castlereagh.

Cleveland Row, July 3, 1800.

My dear Lord-Having within these few days received the enclosed, I can of course take no other step upon it than to send it to you, and request to know what answer the LordLieutenant and you wish I should give to it. I guess from its contents that the Duke of Leinster supposes he shall lose the County if he attempts to contest it against a Government candidate, and has fallen upon this expedient to secure his family interest.

The prospect of a general election being somewhat remote, it may, I conclude, be best to refer the decision of the line to be taken by Government on this subject to a period rather nearer to the event in question; but, as there may be some circumstances of which I am unapprized, that might make a more specific answer desirable, I have judged it best to trouble you with this letter on the subject. I cannot conclude it without heartily congratulating you on the final success of your labours, and on the great honour which is universally felt to result to you from them.

I have the honour to be, &c.,

GRENVILLE.

Private.

No. 40, Welbeck Street, June 27, 1800.

My Lord-Reposing the same confidence in your Lordship which I did on a former occasion, when I had the honour of expressing my sentiments to you in regard to the Union, in a letter from Bath, it affords me great satisfaction to be able now to inform your Lordship, that my brother Leinster, although he considers the event in question as fatal to the political consequence of his family in Ireland, bows with due submission to the change, and, actuated solely by the honourable motive of preserving the peace of the County of Kildare at the ensuing election of members to be returned to the United Parliament, has consented, in my favour, to decline a contest which, in a different temper of mind, he conceives himself fully adequate to maintain there, and accordingly promised to lend me his support and interest in obtaining the seat for that County, without annexing any other condition than that of vacating it at any time that a change of ministers and measures may afford him the opportunity of more effectually supporting those with whom he has chiefly been in the habit of acting.

It would be idle in me, my Lord, to make a formal avowal here of my own political sentiments and opinions; they are, I trust, sufficiently known, and, being such as warrant me to entertain the hope that my nomination in the capacity alluded to may not prove unacceptable to Government, I have only to solicit the favour of your Lordship's friendly offices and counsels, in regard to the method fit to be pursued, in order to secure a point so flattering to my feelings as a warm and steady adherent to the present administration, and to dispose the Government of Ireland to countenance my pretensions preferably to those of any other candidate, if circumstances should call me abroad before the elections take place.

I have the honour to remain, &c.,

ROBERT STEPHEN FITZGERALD.