merited the favour of the last Lord-Lieutenant by their services, and on whose conduct no blame or censure had attached, I can only perceive an instance of firmness and of justice; and surely it requires explanation to convince plain and impartial men that such removals, taking the mode, time, and provocation, were not at least a seeming departure from that amicable dealing towards the King's Prime Minister which we at a distance were taught to hope and believe was to mark the junction of your party with Mr. Pitt.

I dwell upon it for another motive which touches me more personally. By the extensive dispersion of your letters, I find myself the conductor of severe animadversion where I cannot agree that it ought to have been directed. To have consented to have been the bearer of such sharp invective to the doors of the Duke of Portland and Mr. Pitt, &c., &c., I must previously have acknowledged the justice of it before I undertook so painful an office: but acknowledging its justice, could I stop there, and continue an independent support of a Minister capable of the monstrous design of risking the condition of Ireland, of flinging it into the greatest probable confusion by trifling with its hopes and expectations, for the purpose of weakening a party of whose strength and importance he confessed the value by invitation and acceptance, and which strength and importance in the public estimation must be as necessary for his purposes at this moment as the first hour you flung your weight into his scale?

Such are the difficulties I allude to in the beginning of my letter in the first place, that of appearing by

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silence to adopt that censure I am made to convey; in the next of submitting my sentiments freely to you, and thus approaching a matter of a most delicate nature, where the public curiosity ought not to be conducted, with any observance of that discretion and secrecy which my education has led me to consider as not to be dispensed with in great transactions of government.

On the great question of the additional indulgences at this time to be extended to the Roman Catholics, I shall say but little. The sentiments of an individual would, in this place, obtrude themselves very clumsily. I shall hope to be believed when I assert that I have toleration, not only upon my lips, but in my heart; and that in my experience I never witnessed anything in the Roman Catholics of Ireland that gave me a moment's doubt of their loyalty and attachment to their Sovereign. That an unfortunate difference on the subject of more indulgences to be granted at this moment has been raised between you and the Cabinet of England, we all know and all deplore. But you are much mistaken if you think that the world, endeavouring with very inadequate means to detect on which side the error or misapprehension lies, even supposing it should be suspected to be with you, has ever aimed any censure at your head which made it necessary for you to appear at the tribunal of the public, and to open a defence in my mind unprovoked by accusation from any quarter, forcing you to advance, upon such tender and delicate ground, to points generally not considered accessible, unless where an attack upon life is meditated, or what I feel is dearer to you, fame and honour.

You allude to a part of my letter where, joining in the general anxiety as to the precipitancy with which your great measures seemed to be brought forth, I confessed that I could not contemplate the innovation without terror. Always being taught to consider the Roman Catholic question as of great moment, it was not extraordinary that the quickness with which you decided upon it (I mean not to arraign that prompt decision) should have occasioned a strong shock of alarm to me, however incompetent to direct an accurate view to its near or its remote consequences.

Under every circumstance of disagreement in opinion, of a nature less reasonably interesting the attention of the political world, violent surmises will be formed on both sides, which candour and moderation would lose their labour in attempting to reconcile. Doctor Barrow says, every fact has two handles-one, which severity, ill-nature, and harshness are ever inclined to lay hold of, the other constantly presents itself to calmness, moderation, and gentleness: I shall address myself to the latter, not the former, to gather and submit to you the judgment which I conceive candid and honourable men have formed upon these unfortunate transactions.

In many parts of your letter, if I mistake not, it may be collected that, owing to the circumstances of the times, the pressure of business produced by the war, and the necessity of pointing all thought, as well as all exertion, towards the defence of the empire, it was a general wish to postpone the consideration of the merits of the Roman Catholic question to a moment better

fitted for a less interrupted investigation of it. Of course, excepting otherwise driven by necessity, we should have seen you acting at least in unison with the views of the English Cabinet, had you terminated the session of Parliament with this point still reserved for future consideration. You, for the reasons which you have assigned, conceive that necessity to be so apparent and so strong as to leave you, in policy and prudence, no choice or remedy. Upon this point the whole matter seems to hinge. The public, turning towards the English Administration for explanation, discover them questioning that necessity which you consider as irresistible. Great stress is laid upon the impossibility of utterly preventing this discussion, from some quarter or another, being forced upon the Houses of Parliament.

That some one eager in the cause would infallibly stir it, though Mr. Grattan had held back, was clearly to be foreseen. But as in that case the argument for suspending might have been adopted by those who were inclined to fall into the views of both the Lord-Lieutenant and the English Minister, it did not seem to follow that, on such ground, a person so high in name and reputation, and so closely connected with the Castle, was impelled to seize that hour for giving notice of his Bill, sustained by Government and its adherents.

Still keeping clear of an impertinent obtrusion of my own sentiments upon the great question itself, I only take as an hypothesis that the King's Ministers did not, in their judgments, yield to that necessity which you state as sufficiently powerful with you to determine you no longer to restrain yourself to those limits within

which it appears, at least for the time, it was the wish of your political connections that you should have confined yourself; and from this, we guess, has arisen that fatal misunderstanding which has deprived Ireland of so much honour and integrity, the King of a faithful servant-has loosened the bonds of the closest friendshiphas carried the poison of distrust and resentment into houses never before at variance-and conveyed a heavy charge indeed to the doors of His Majesty's Ministers.

May I, my dear friend, in this place be permitted to say that, weighing every part of this subject in the most dispassionate and impartial manner I am able, I never heard the sound of accusation of your conduct in any quarter, perceived no attack aimed against your character, no stain endeavoured to be fixed upon your reputation, no abandonment of private friendship or affection, no wretched symptom of that refined dissimulation, which you fancy you have detected. In short, nothing that wore the shape of accusation or charge which brought you to the painful alternative of repelling or submitting to.

Under the strong feeling of a repugnance (which I am confident you will comprehend and excuse) to lend myself, with a silence that might argue willingness, to become the channel of censure to individuals who had acted serviceably and honourably by me-to others, whose conduct I have had opportunity of watching, and still retain my opinion of their unshaken friendship and attachment to you; lastly, to others on whom I could not assist at heaping such disgrace without holding them out at the same time as utterly unfit for the high