I. This spirited conduct had the desired effect. Govern- CHAP. ment were in no condition to withstand so serious a disruption of their Irish administration, or to exhibit to the world the spectacle of men who had rendered the great general election, one viscount and fourteen barons were created in England; which circumstance, in addition to these favours being indispensable to the success of the measure, led me to suppose that sixteen would not be thought an unreasonable number on so important an occasion as that of uniting the two kingdoms. . . . I am so overcome by your Grace's letter that I know not how to proceed in the mortifying detail. There was no sacrifice that I should not have been happy to make for the service of my king and country, except that of my honour. The mischief, however, will not end with my disgrace; but the confidence in the English Government will be shaken, and the ill-humour of our disappointed supporters will greatly retard the benefits which might have been expected from the measure, and will not tend to strengthen the hands of my successor. ... His Majesty will, I am persuaded, see the necessity of my having entered into embarrassing engagements according to the various circumstances which occurred during the long and arduous contest; and if any of them should appear so strongly to merit his disapprobation as to induce him to withhold his consent to their being carried into effect, he will be pleased to allow me to retire from a station which I could no longer hold with honour to myself or with any prospect of advantage to his service."– LORD CORNWALLIS to DUKE OF PORTLAND, June 17, 1800; Cornwallis' Correspondence, iii. 262-266. Lord Castlereagh's language was even more decided. "If the Irish Government is not enabled to keep faith with the various individuals who have acted upon a principle of confidence in their honour, it is morally impossible that either Lord Cornwallis or I can remain in our present situations; . it will remain a breach of faith, as injurious to the character of Government as to our own, having given an assurance which we were not enabled to fulfil.”LORD CASTLEREAGH to LORD CAMDEN, June 18, 1800; Castlereagh Correspondence, iii. 327. "I should hope, if Lord Cornwallis has been the person to buy out and secure to the Crown for ever the fee-simple of Irish corruption, which has so long enfeebled the powers of Government and endangered the connection, that he is not to be the first sacrifice to his own exertions; nor is the present the first occasion upon which the King's Ministers will, I trust, think it expedient to conciliate popular opinion, by failing towards those who have served them to the best of their abilities."-LORD CASTLEREAGH to MR COOKE (Secretary to the Duke of Portland), June 21, 1800; Ibid., iii. 333. "Lord Cornwallis was always desirous to carry the Duke of Portland's judgment and concurrence with him on every point; but the Union could not have been effected but by a person intrusted with unlimited authority; and it would have been fatal to the measure if the objections, or even the disinclination, of Ministers to any proposed arrangement had transpired."-LORD CASTLEREAGH to MR COOKE, June 25, 1800; Cornwallis Correspondence, iii. 267. "For my personal gratification, nothing could be so desirable as my quitting my present station; but I am afraid that my abrupt departure, under the marked disapprobation of the English Government, would be attended with fatal consequences in this country. You may be assured that I will act with temper, and bear everything but what would absolutely dishonour me, for the sake of the public."-MARQUESS CORNWALLIS to GENERAL Ross, June 24, 1800; Ibid., iii. 268, 269. 1800. CHAP. I. 1800. 102. Its settle ment by concession June 27. est services to their country receiving no other reward than indignities which obliged them to resign their offices. The Duke of Portland gave way accordingly, and the Cabinet agreed to confirm all Lord Cornwallis's engagements, while the only concession made on his part was, of Ministers. that one of them was prevailed on to relinquish his claim to the representative peerage.* A large number of offices of emolument were at the same time conferred on various subordinate supporters of Government in the struggle, and others promised. The great and acknowledged services of Lord Castlereagh fully entitled him to demand a British peerage for his father the Earl of Londonderry; but both he and his father had the disinterestedness to relieve the Crown of the embarrassment which was felt in creating so many peers, by waiving their present claim to that honour, in return for which the King, in the strongest terms, declared his determination to confer it on the family at any future time when performance of the promise might be requested. The title, accordingly, was not bestowed at that time, but it was so at an after period, when the great services of Lord Castlereagh had established yet higher claims to promotion. The father then had the proud satisfaction, rarely enjoyed in this donderry. World, of being advanced in dignity by the public services Jan. 22, of his son.1 * Sir John Blaqueemo. "Lord Londonderry and Lord Castlereagh, who never brought forward any pretensions of their own, are perfectly willing to wait for that mark of his Majesty's favour, to which I thought it my duty to state their pretensions, until it shall suit his Majesty's convenience; but it will be impossible for me to throw back the Marquess of Drogheda on the list of representative peers without being guilty of a breach of a positive engagement."-MARQUESS CORNWALLIS to the DUKE OF PORTLAND, July 7, 1800; Cornwallis Correspondence, iii. 274. "His Majesty is pleased to authorise your Excellency to assure Lord Londonderry and Lord Castlereagh, that at any time that it may be the wish of Lord Londonderry, or of any of his descendants when in possession of the title, to have a British peerage conferred on them, the sense his Majesty has of Lord Castlereagh's most distinguished and meritorious services will ever be remembered by his Majesty, and his Majesty will be ready to fulfil their wishes in such a manner that, should it not take place in the lifetime of Lord Londonderry, his posterity, by his present or any future countess, would derive the same benefit from it as if the creation had taken place in the lifetime of the present earl."-DUKE OF PORTLAND to LORD CORNWALLIS, June 27, 1800; Ibid., 273. CHAP. 103. regard to The difficulty with the supporters of the Union was now surmounted; but another of a more serious kind remained behind, which ultimately proved fatal, not only to 1800. the Irish Government, but to Mr Pitt's Administration. Difficulty in The Roman Catholics, it has been seen, remained nearly the Catholic neutral during the struggle between the Protestant oli- claims. garchy and the English Government, slightly inclining only to the support of the Ministry. During the rebellion, however, the Earl of Fingall and the leading Catholics had preserved their faith to Government inviolate during the most trying circumstances, when their co-religionists were maintaining a desperate struggle with those whom they deemed usurpers of their rights and possessions. The British Government had carefully abstained from giving them any distinct pledge that their demands would be acceded to; and both Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castlereagh had been cautious not to implicate either their superiors or themselves in any engagement on the subject. But many things in politics, as in other matters, are only the more distinctly understood from not being openly expressed. It was well known to the Catholic leaders, and indeed to their whole followers, that both Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castlereagh were decidedly favourable to their claims; indeed, that they regarded their early concession as an indispensable preliminary to the pacification of Ireland, and the development of the full benefits which they anticipated from the Union.* The latter had, by the directions of the Lord-Lieutenant, drawn up * "Our time has been so much occupied of late by the most important of all possible subjects, as you will probably have been informed by Lord Castlereagh, that I trust you will forgive us for detaining him till next week, before which it will be impossible for us to take into consideration the different propositions respecting the provisions for Roman Catholic and Dissenting clergy, and the other very important questions, relative to the Roman Catholics in general, and tithes."-DUKE OF PORTLAND to LORD CORNWALLIS, September 25, 1800; Cornwallis Correspondence, iii. 293, 294. "I cannot help entertaining considerable apprehensions that our Cabinet will not have the firmness to adopt such measures as will render the Union an efficient advantage to the empire. Those things which, if now liberally granted, might make the Irish a loyal people, will be of little avail when they are extorted on a future day. I do not, however, despair."-LORD CORNWALLIS to GENERAL Ross, October 8, 1800; Ibid., iii. 294. I. 1800. 104. Increased and transmitted to Mr Pitt a long and most able memoir on the subject, embracing every argument that has since been or could be advanced on behalf of the Catholics.* The Premier's own opinion entirely went along with these views, and he awaited only a suitable time for bringing them forward in the Cabinet. But it was not so easy a matter to say when that proper time would arrive. Not only was the Cabinet and the country divided upon the subject, but it was well known that objections of a nature which, it was feared, might prove insurmountable, existed in the very highest quarter against any such measure. Thus Mr Pitt, Lord Cornwallis, and Lord Castlereagh, were placed in the painful predicament of having tacitly allowed the Roman Catholics of Ireland, and, of course, of the whole empire, to expect a measure of relief to follow the settlement of the Union, which, when the time for performance arrived, they found themselves unable to realise. This situation, so irksome to men of honour, soon became so painful to Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castlereagh, difficulties that nothing but a high sense of public duty induced them attending the Catholic to remain in office. On the 17th December, Lord Casquestion. tlereagh sailed for England, in order to lay the whole particulars of the case before Government, and Lord Cornwallis was left in a situation which he himself described to General Ross as "as unhappy as you can conceive." A strong sense of public duty, however, and an anxious desire to carry through a great measure which "The tract which Lord Castlereagh submitted to your Grace on the great Catholic question is so clear and able, and so entirely comprises every material argument that can, in my opinion, be urged on that important measure, that I shall not trouble your Grace with any further reasoning on a subject of which you are so fully in possession."-LORD CORNWALLIS to DUKE OF PORTLAND, December 1, 1800; Cornwallis Correspondence, iii. 306. It is not to be found in Castlereagh Correspondence. +"Lord Castlereagh sailed last night for England, and Elliot follows in a few days, so I shall be left to transact all public business with Cooke. My situation is altogether as unhappy as you can conceive, and I see no hope of relief, and yet I cannot in conscience and in duty to my country abandon the Catholic question, without which all we have done will be of no avail. It was said, when I determined to free myself at the first outset from the trammels of the ruling party here, that I should not be able to carry on the Government. No prediction ever proved more false; and you may be assured that 1800. could alone develop the full beneficial effects of the Union, CHAP. induced both to remain at their posts some little time I. longer. Lord Castlereagh arrived in London on the 22d December, and immediately entered into close communication on the subject with the Duke of Portland and Mr Pitt, to whom his able tract in favour of the Catholics had previously been communicated. He found, however, the difficulties in the way of an adjustment much greater than he had previously anticipated. Not that there was any doubt on the part of either of these Ministers on the subject, though they had never pledged themselves to any time or specific course of action; but it had been ascertained that insurmountable difficulties lay in the way of its settlement in other quarters. The King had very recently become acquainted with what was in agitation, and he was deeply affected by it; for his own resolution was fixed never to make any further concessions to the Catholics, and he knew the strength of Mr Pitt's determination too well not to entertain apprehensions that the collision might break up the Cabinet. What passed on these important occasions is fully explained in a long letter of Lord Castlereagh to Mr Pitt on 1st January 1801, in which the views entertained by Mr Pitt, Lord Cornwallis Cornwallis, and himself, are so clearly stated, that any 330-332. paraphrase or abridgment is superfluous. * 1 all the powerful opposers of the measure in favour of the Catholics would join in giving their approbation as soon as it is effected."-MARQUESS CORNWALLIS to GENERAL Ross, December 18, 1800; Cornwallis Correspondence, iii. 313. * "When I left Lord Cornwallis, he certainly was prepared for some difference of opinion in the Cabinet on the principle of the measure itself, and for much caution on the part of his Majesty's Ministers in general, with respect to the period when they might think themselves justified in prudence in proposing to Parliament so important an alteration of the Test laws; but he did not apprehend, from anything that had hitherto passed on the subject, that their sentiments were adverse to the principle of the measure connected with the Union, much less that they were prepared to oppose the question on its merits, and to declare their determination to resist hereafter any further concession to the Catholics. As this impression on his Excellency's mind was in a great measure the result of what passed with reference to this subject when I was in England in the autumn of 1799, I think it necessary to recall to your recollection that, after the details of the Union had been completed, I was directed by the Lord-Lieutenant to represent to you the state of parties as they stood VOL. I. I Corresp. iii. |