and drew him to the castle with enthusiastic exaltation. His excellency's popularity was not lasting. By dividing the channel of favour into a multitude of streams, the gentlemen of the House of Commons were taught to look up to the Lord Lieutenant, not only as the source, but as the actual dispenser of every boon. Not even a commission in the revenue of 40l. a year, could be disposed of but through him. Thus were the old undertakers given to understand, that there was another way of doing business, than through them. It was not without violence on both sides that Lord Townshend effected his purpose. The immediate sufferers termed this alteration in the system of governing an innovation, which they artfully taught the people to resent, as a national grievance.

LETTER

ΤΟ

HIS EXCELLENCY LORD VISC. TOWNSHEND.

MY LORD,

YOUR ancestors were lovers of liberty.

Feb. 24, 1770. You entered the

was worth your

world with a respectable paternal name. It while to take care, that it should descend unimpaired to pos terity.

You have had the misfortune to have many enemies, or many faults; for you have been much censured. If you ask me how could such a man, as the persons whom you call your enemies describe, be appointed to the lieutenancy of Ireland, I will not answer with them, that you were appointed by an administration, the only uniform object of which has been, to injure or insult every part of the British dominions; that no other man would trust them, or that they would not have trusted you; that they knew you to be as pliant, as incapa and that you would pledge yourself to the public with:

ple;

out a blush, for what you knew would never be performed. These are great considerations.-But something more was necessary. You had a brother: a prodigy of parts! In other particulars you may have resembled him. They would not make him the minister in England, and therefore they made "you a viceroy here.

You began your reign by a public falsehood, and promised, in the speech from the throne, a law for establishing the independence of Judges. A bill with such a title came indeed from Great Britain; but in such a form, that not one man was found so profligate as to defend it. Your hirelings have not insinuated that this was any species of performance; and therefore I will not prove that it was an aggravated breach of faith. You gave us, however, what you did not promise; the Octennial Bill. Notwithstanding this accidental difference, there was a perfect similitude in your sentiments with respect to these two laws; for you intended to give neither. As your inclination was the same, so your wisdom with respect to them was equal. You had the reproach of non-performance as to the one, without the honor of performance as to the other; and you tacked a dissolution of Parliament to the Octennial Bill, to assist you in carrying the Augmentation. Do not complain that you are charged with the insertion of the clause concerning the dissolution. You must submit to be responsible for every measure respecting this country, whilst you submit to govern it. Such, however, was the easiness of Parliament, that this promise which was not performed, and this performance which was not intended, though they could not clothe your administration with success, protected it for one session from indignity.

-Your government had but one object; the augmentation of the army. I shall not enter into the merits of that measure, for I fear I should differ with too great an authority. Your professional partialities too shall be indulged. But let me ques

tion your discretion. You proposed the measure in your first session of parliament; but not till you had alienated the persons, by whom you might have been sure to have carried it. A contest arose between English government, and an Irish confederacy; and you made the augmentation the ground on which they fought. Let us compare the state of these respective parties at that time, and at present; and see how far your ability has increased, or your insufficiency has diminished, the strength of government.

You contended the first session at an unlucky juncture. An augmentation of the army after the committee of supply was closed, which was necessary to provide for an additional expense-in a time of profound peace, when troops are the least requisite soon after a barbarous use had been made of the military in England, and an unconstitutional one in America; when the faith of government with respect to the Judges' Bill had not been maintained; and just upon the verge of a general election. This in point of time and circumstance, I say, independent even of the measure, was unfavorable ground. And on this ground, and in favor of such a mea sure, with what a host had you to contend? With the extended connexion, the revenue influence, and the popular manners of one leader; with the compact force and heredita ry firmness of another; with the first title, the first name, and the first fortune of the nation, in a third-supported by the esteem of the kingdom, by the popularity of the capital, by the parliamentary influence of a reputable phalanx, and by the calm inflexibility of his own determination. You had the craft of Tisdall, and the rhetoric of Hutchinson to oppose you, And besides the reconciliated force of these formerly hostile connexions, and formerly hostile advocates, you had to cope with the strength and reputation of an independent body, armed with the experience, the genius, the weight, and the popularity of their leaders. Government stood alone; unsup

ported indeed; but as yet not prostrated by you; and Government alone was beat only by four. Thus stood the force of Government at the end of your first session of parliament. How did it stand at the conclusion of the last?

You remained here for two years to lay siege to opposition. You made two summer progresses, but without advantage. I will not describe these excursions circumstantially. Not only the page of history, but the newspaper of the day, would be disgraced by a detail of irregularities, as mean as capricious. You negociated with the powerful, as if they were insignificant; and with the honorable, as if they were like yourself. You treated with every man in the same tone. No wonder you treated in vain. In two instances you seemed to succeed. The old leaders of debate on the side of the court were seen again at the head of your troops; and the rusty buckler of Tisdall, and the scoured shield of Hutchinson, were again held up in your defence. The wise, however, gave you no credit for this event. They did not allow you to have converted those, who were never of a different persuasion. One grew conscious that he was too old to oppose; and the other, that he was too notorious to oppose with effect. As a 'soldier, you should have punished their former desertion; as a statesman, you should have prevented it.

What was the end of all your preparations? From the be ginning of the winter to the day on which you prorogued the parliament, so commendably, in every material question, almost, you were defeated. After having had the power of the crown in your hands for two years, you were beat, on a critical motion, in the very last week of the last session, by a majority eight or nine times as great as that by which you had been beaten in the former session of parliament. An accession of weakness, my lord, which furnishes a proof of your talents for government; and shows that your ability is equal to your reputation. Neither does it apply solely to the estab

lishment of your character as a negociator. Without this example, who could have thought that your northern star would have left you so benighted?

I will not enumerate your miscarriages, nor describe the wounds they have given to government. I will speak of that measure, in which alone you were successful, the augmenta tion I mean; and if you were deficient there, what shall we say of your defeats? Management is sometimes commendable, because it is sometimes necessary. You should have remembered, my lord, that when Majesty capitulates, it is scarcely Majesty. You should not therefore have exposed your sovereign to the unkingly necessity of hearing conditions from his people. The excesses of the staff, and of absentee pensions, might have been corrected by a spontaneous, not by a stipula ted reduction. If his Majesty were to descend too from his throne, and to relinquish a part of his prerogative in the dispo sition of his troops, it ought not to have been done palpably to make terms, and to article for the augmentation. By our laws, the honor of a peer is equivalent to the most sacred obligation; and by at least equal reason, so is that of the king You suggested a doubt of its sufficiency; and by the proffer of your secretary, this sacred obligation of your royal master was recited in the bill of supply, that his Majesty in assenting to that law might give a bond for the performance of his honor: and register the mortgage of his word in the rolls of parliament What atonement can you make to your degraded. sovereign? A confession of folly will not be sufficient. There are stations in which incapacity is criminal. You should have explored your head and your heart, before you hazarded the dignity of the crown on either. If you are not too worthless to have a friend, and too despicable to have an enemy, you might have found one, from whose kindness or from whose censure you might have extracted counsel. Unhappy man!