The minds of the people of Ireland had so long been prepared to expect a motion of this kind, and the disposition of the house itself was so favourable to it, that hardly any opposition was made. Leave being given to bring in the bill, Mr. Grattan, Mr. Ponsonby, Mr. Forbes, and Mr. Knox, were appointed to prepare it. The joy and exultation expressed by the Roman Catholics on this occasion, had never been equalled in Ireland: they were accompanied with effusions of loyalty and attachment to the British government and nation, that indicated how effectually religious animosities might subside through a mild and conciliatory conduct, and that religious, as well as political differences, are soonest terminated by forbearance and lenity. But the universal satisfaction arising from the hopes conceived of an approaching emancipation from all restrictions, was quickly damped by the intelligence that arrived two days only after the passing of the motion, that the British ministry was averse to the measure. Lord Fitzwilliam informed them of the great danger that would infallibly result from retracting the assent so formally given to a motion of such importance, and explicitly refused, by taking upon him that office, to be the person to raise a flame which nothing but the force of arms could keep down. Such were his own words. In consequence of this answer, he was dismissed from his post which was conferred upon lord Camden. The consequences of this dismissal were immediately apparent in the proceedings of the Irish parliament. Sir Laurence Parsons, in the house of commons, proposed an ad. dress to lord Fitzwilliam, to express the confidence reposed in him by the Irish nation, and its representatives, and the apprehensions they felt on his premature removal from a station, wherein his conduct had been so acceptable to them. Another member Mr. Duguerry, not only seconded the motion, but proposed the impeachment of Mr. Pitt. Though this address was withdrawn at the request of those who wished to prevent farther acrimony on this occasion, it sufficiently manifested the resentment excited by the measures of the British ministry. Ano ther address, however, was voted, highly approving of his conduct. The universal dissatisfaction of the Irish at the removal of lord Fitzwilliam was soon after manifested in a more serious manner: tumults arose in several places, which were not quelled without the intervention of the military. From the most moderate of the disaffected, addresses to him were presented, full of rancour at the treatment he had experienced, and of invectives against the authors of his disgrace. From this period may be dated the deep and settled spirit of discontent, which at once pervaded, and by degrees inflamed to the highest pitch of violence, both Catholics and Dissenters, and was even felt by numbers of the protestants themselves, who thought that the most auspicious opportunity of reconciling all parties and interests, had been arrogantly thrown aside by the unwarrantable and ambitious machinations of a selfish faction, grasping at the exclusive enjoyment of all the places of power and profit, and at the sole management of all affairs of state. [Q] The The resentment of the public was particularly marked on the 25th of March, when lord Fitzwilliam took his departure from Ireland. It was a day of general gloom : the shops were shut, no business of any kind was transacted, and the whole city put on mourning. His coach was drawn to the water side, by some of the most respectable citizens, and the people seemed intent on every demonstration of grief. When earl Camden arrived at Dublin, five days after, his reception was far different. Every appearance of displeasure was exhibited; and such was the violence of the populace, that it broke out in disturbances, which force became necessary to suppress. But these were the mere ebullitions of popular fury, and proved how little dependence, in matters of state, is to be placed on the disapprobation manifested by the populace, in contradiction to the sense, or the interest of people in power. A striking proof of this was exhibited on the very first meeting of parliament, after lord Camden's arrival. Notwithstanding the severe disappointment experienced by the Roman Catholics, they were not disheartened from the prosecution of their object; and Mr. Grattan, their agent, made a motion for an inquiry into the state of the nation, and particularly the reasons for the recall of lord Fitzwilliam: but it was negatived by a great majority of those very members who had voted with such warmth and readiness in favour of Mr. Grattan's motion for a quite contrary purpose. On his presenting the bill for the emancipation of the Roman Catholics, it met with the same fate. This unsteadiness and tergiversation of their representatives, which it was not difficult to trace to its true source, filled the people of Ireland with mistrust and jealousies that have never subsided since. The language of the commonally became unusually explicit, in reprobating their abjectness and servility. No farther confidence, it was openly said, ought henceforth to be placed in them, and no epithets were sufficiently degrading to accompany the naines of those who had acted so ignomini ously. On the return of lord Fitzwilliam to England, an altercation arose between him and the ministry, concerning the instructions he had received previously to his assuming the government of Ireland, and the motives for his recal. The duke of Norfolk took up this business with great warmth. It bad, he said, long been understood in that country, that the restraints on the Roman Catholics were to be taken away. This opinion had been curs rent in Ireland, ever since the time of the American war, when the loyalty of the people of all persua sions to the government of Great Britain rendered it manifest that no distinctions ought any longer to subsist among them in point of civil rights and privileges. When lord Fitzwilliam was appointed to the office of lord lieutenant of Ireland, he accepted it in full expectation that he was to carry over with him a final deliverance from all disqualifications upon religious accounts. This was no less the opinion Mr. Grattan, and of the Irish parlament itself: the members of which concurrred almost unanimously in a cordial readiness to repel thoser strictions; and solely on that ground voted the most ample suppli s ever granted in that king of dom. But contrarily to the best founded hopes, the people of Ireland had been deceived in the most insulting manner: their reasonable requests had been denied, and the man of their confidence recalled, for having shewn an inclination to gratify them. A conduct so haughty and domineering ought to undergo a strict examination, and parliament was bound in justice to the public, to compel ministers to account for so inconsistent and mysterious a conduct. The duke, therefore, made a motion to this effect. The earls of Mansfield, Coventry, and Carnarvon, and lord Sydney, opposed the duke's motion. Lord Fitzwilliam's character not having suffered by his removal, they maintained that no enquiry was needed to clear it up. The prerogative of the crown empowered it to dismiss ministers at discretion; it were unconstitutional to institute enquiries into the reasons for such dismissions; and parliamentary discussions were the more improper, as they might disclose matters that ought never to have been divulged. The dismission of lord Fitzwilliam proved no more than a difference of opinion on his part, touching the affairs of Ireland, that made it improper he should act with ministers who were of another: neither was there sufficient evidence of the discontents in Ireland, to require any particular investigation. It was observed by the earl of Guildford, in reply, that, as without encroaching on the royal prerogative, to declare war, or to conclude peace, the propriety of either the one or the other might be discussed in parliament, so might the propriety of any other act of the crown. On this principle the removal of lord Fitzwilliam merited an enquiry, that the people of Ireland might know their friends in this country from their enemies. He was spiritedly supported by the duke of Leeds and lord Moira, who declared themselves satisfied that an enquiry, instead of danger, would ultimately be productive of safety, by eluci dating a transaction, the motives for which were so obscure, that the people of Ireland were at a loss to comprehend them, and might harbour resentments against those who had no participation in the measure. Lord Fitzwilliam was charged with imprudently forwarding a design to emancipate the Irish Catholics: but was it not sanctioned by every pru dent motive? Did not three-fourths of that nation petition for it? Did the other fourth oppose it? He had laboured with particular zeal to put a stop to the glaring abuses prevailing in the administration of affairs in Ireland: these were arrived to such a height, that if not corrected, their consequences would shortly prove fatal to the government of that country, however it might deem itself secure. Was it not temerity in the extreme, amidst so many causes of dissatisfaction, to add so material a one, as the depriving them at once of their hopes of obtaining what they were willing to consider as a redress of all griev ances. The earl of Westmoreland decidedly condemned the introduction into the Irish parliament of the business relating to the Catholics; which he asserted was contrary to the instructions carried from England: their emancipation, be maintained, was repugnant to sound. policy, as well as to the king's oath, and the laws of the land.. To this lord Fitzwilliam replied, that the most necessary policy had called upon him to act as he had done. Ireland was in a state of imminent danger from internal feuds and external foes: the Catholics were equally powerful and dissatisfied: the French were become masters of Holland,and thirty-six hostile sail of the line were hovering on the western coast of Ireland. In this peril ous situation he had the happiness to unite all parties in a determination to act vigorously for the defence of the kingdom. But could he have effected this, had he not convinced the Irish of the liberal intentions of this country? He was answered by lord Grenville, who, after alledging much the same reasons against an enquiry as those already adduced, remarked that were parliament to assume the right of enquiring into the motives for the dismission of ministers, they might, by the same rule, proceed next to the examination whether those who were appointed to succeed them had been properly chosen. This would obviously lead to still more dangerous enquiries, tending ultimately to unhinge the constitution. After other arguments on both sides of the question, the motion for an enquiry was rejected by one hundred against twenty-five. In the house of commons very spirited debates also took place on this subject. Mr. Jekyll intro duced it by observing, that the house had an unquestionable right to examine the use made of the royal prerogatives, and to limit them if necessary. He reminded the minister of his solemn promise, that whenever the period came for in vestigation, he would undertake to prove that no blame was imputable to the ministers of this country. Mr. Jekyll vindicated the conduct of lord Fitzwilliam from his letters. According to these he had acted in strict conformity to his instructions, which went to the emancipation of the Catholics, a condition without which he would not have undertaken the commission entrusted to him. But the fact was, that the interest of a particualr family was primarily to be consulted; that of the Beresfords: their dismission from office was the real ground of dissension between lord Fitzwilliam and the minister, and the business of the emancipation was only the pretence: it were absurd, Mr. Jekyll said, to mention the oaths taken by the king, as obstacles to such a measure. In Canada, in Corsica, the Catholic religion was settled by law, without violation of the royal oath. He concluded by moving for an enquiry into the conduct of ministers in dismissing from his office the lord-lieutenant of Ireland. It was stated, in reply, by Mr. Pitt, that no communication of the correspondence between lord Fitzwilliam and the ministry, could be permitted without the king's assent; and ministry were officially bound to the strictest secrecy in all cases of this nature. He would not, for this reason, enter into any verbal explanations of the business in question, and neither should admit nor deny the facts or the inferences alledged. The king had clearly the right to nominate, and to dismiss ministers without assigning his mo→ tives; cases of an extraordinary nature excepted. He forcibly urged the indispensible necessity of an entire agreement in sentiments between the king's ministry, without which it were impracticable to conduct the affairs of the nation with any regularity or success; and yet they might differ without any diminution of reciprocal friendship or esteem. He deprecated the discussion of subjects now before the Irish parliament, as a manifest violation of its independence; and warmly exhorted the house to leave the settlement of affairs in that nation to its representatives, who certainly were best qualified for that purpose. members. Mr. Pitt was seconded by other The principal answer to ministry was made by Mr. Gray: he contended, in forcible terms, for the propriety of an inquiry, in a case wherein the highest interests of the British and Irish nations were equally involved; the question before the house was incontrovertibly of this description. The people of both countries were sensible of its importance, and it ill became ministers to endeavour at the concealment of matters that ought to be held out to the fullest consideration of all parties concerned. Both the English and the Irish had a right to know, whether the restrictions, of which the Irish Catholics complained, were to be taken off, or to remain; and to be made acquainted, at the same time, with the real causes why they should either continue or subsist no longer. The private interest of a very minor part of the community should not, upon any pretence, be suffered to supercede the natural rights of the whole community at large, when every argument, founded upon equity, militated for them. Induced by the proofs which the Irish had given of an unfeigned attachment to England, so conspicuously displayed, at a time when the difficulties we were contending with afforded them a fair opportunity of throwing off their connection with us, we had come to a determination to break those fetters that were evidently no longer wanted to secure them. We had excited the liveliest hopes of a total emancipation from all those restraints, which the inimical disposition of the Roman Catholics to the Protestants had formerly rendered necessary; and now, when on the point of extinguishing all religious feuds, and terminating happily all differences, a sudden check was given to all these pleasing expectations: the man selected to put the finishing hand to those arrangements that were to constitute the basis of everlasting concord, between the sister nations, was recalled, in the midst of his exertions to bring them to a final issue, and censured, as if he had been committing an act of disloyalty to his own country. Was this behaviour of the British ministry to be borne with patience by the Irish? Was it to be submitted to by the English, whose honour was, in a manner, solemnly pledged, and whose interest ought forcibly to lead them to gratify the people of Ireland in the reasonable demands they now were making, and had certainly a right to insist upon? Whence, therefore, could this unexpected denial proceed, but from private motives, too personal to interest the public, and too base to be brought to light? A pretence was set up, that the independence of the Irish parliament would be violated by this country's interference in the settlement of the affairs of Ireland: but who did not see the futility of this pretence? Who did not know that the deli berations |