[Footnote 103: 191 to 190.]
[Footnote 104: From December 19, when Pitt accepted office, to March 24, when the Parliament was dissolved.]
[Footnote 105: 'Memorials and Correspondence of C.J. Fox,' by Earl Russell, ii., 229, 248.]
[Footnote 106:
[Footnote 107: That of April, 1831, after the defeat of the Government on General Gascoyne's amendment]
[Footnote 108: Lord Macaulay, 'Miscellaneous Essays,' ii., 330.]
[Footnote 109: Lord Macaulay, essay on William Pitt.]
[Footnote 110: Alison ('History of Europe,' xiii., 971) states the English force in the Netherlands in 1794 at 85,000 men. Lord Stanhope calls the English at Minden 10,000 or 12,000.]
[Footnote 111: An eminent living writer (Mr. Leeky, 'History of England,' ii., 474) quotes with apparent approval another comparison between the father and son, made by Grattan, in the following words: 'The father was not, perhaps, so good a debater as his son, but was a much better orator, a greater scholar, and a far greater man.' The first two phrases in this eulogy may, perhaps, balance one another; though, when Mr. Lecky admits that 'Lord Chatham's taste was far from pure, and that there was much in his speeches that was florid and meretricious, and not a little that would have appeared absurd bombast but for the amazing power of his delivery,' he makes a serious deduction from his claim to the best style of eloquence which no one ever made from the speeches of his son. But Grattan's assertion that the man who, as his sister said of him, knew but two books, the 'AEneid' and the 'Faerie Queene,' was superior in scholarship to one who, with the exception of his rival, Fox, had probably no equal for knowledge of the great authors of antiquity in either House of Parliament, is little short of a palpable absurdity. We may, however, suspect that Grattan's estimate of the two men was in some degree colored by his personal feelings. With Lord Chatham he had never been in antagonism. On one great subject, the dispute with America, he had been his follower and ally, advocating in the Irish House of Commons the same course which Chatham upheld in the English House of Peers. But to Pitt he had been almost constantly opposed. By Pitt he and his party, whether in the English, or, so long as it lasted, in the Irish Parliament, had been repeatedly defeated. The Union, of which he had been the indefatigable opponent, and to which he was never entirely reconciled, had been carried in his despite; and it was hardly unnatural that the recollection of his long and unsuccessful warfare should in some degree bias his judgment, and prompt him to an undeserved disparagement of the minister by whose wisdom and firmness he had been so often overborne.]
[Footnote 112: Massey's 'History of England,' iii., 447;
[Footnote 113: Hallam ('Middle Ages,' ii., 386, 481), extolling the condition of 'the free socage tenants, or English yeomanry, as the class whose independence has stamped with peculiar features both our constitution and our national character,' gives two derivations for the name; one 'the Saxon
[Footnote 114: Lord Colchester's 'Diary,' i., 68, mentions that the officiating clergyman was Mr. Burt, of Twickenham, who received L500 for his services. Lord John Russell ('Memorials and Correspondence of Fox,' ii., 284-389) agrees in stating that the marriage was performed in the manner prescribed by the Common Prayer-book. Mr. Jesse, in his 'Life of George III.,' ii., 506, gathering, as the present writer can say from personal knowledge, his information from some papers left behind him by the late J.W. Croker, says: 'The ceremony was performed by a Protestant clergyman, though in part, apparently, according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church.' Lord John Russell avoids discussing the question whether the marriage involved the forfeiture of the inheritance of the crown, an avoidance which many will interpret as a proof that in his opinion it did. Mr. Massey's language ('History of England,' iii., 327) clearly intimates that he holds the same opinion.]
[Footnote 115: Russell's 'Life of Fox,' ii., 187.]
[Footnote 116: Fox's private correspondence is full of anticipations that the Regent's first act will be to dismiss Pitt, and to make him minister. In a letter of December 15 he even fixes a fortnight as the time by which he expects to be installed; while Lord Loughborough, who was eager to possess himself of the Great Seal-an expectation in which, though well-founded, he would, as it proved, have found himself disappointed-was led by his hopes to give the Prince counsel of so extraordinary a nature that it is said that the ministers, to whose knowledge it had come, were prepared, if any attempt had been made to act upon it, or even openly to avow it, to send the learned lord to the Tower. ('Diary of Lord Colchester,' i., 28.) In an elaborate paper which he drew up and read to the Prince at Windsor, he assured his Royal Highness, speaking as a lawyer, that 'the administration of government devolved to him of right. He was bound by every duty to assume it, and his character would be lessened in the public estimation, if he took it on any other ground but right, or on any sort of compromise. The authority of Parliament, as the great council of the nation, would be interposed, not to confer but to declare the right. The mode of proceeding should be that in a short time his Royal Highness should signify his intention to act by directing a meeting of the Privy Council, when he should declare his intention to take upon himself the care of the state, and should at the same time signify his desire to have the advice of Parliament, and order it by proclamation to meet early for the despatch of business.... It is of vast importance in the outset that he should appear to act entirely of himself, and, in the conferences he must necessarily have, not to consult, but to listen and direct.' The entire paper is given by Lord Campbell ('Lives of the Chancellors,' c. clxx.).]
[Footnote 117: Hume's account of this transaction is, that the Duke 'desired that it might be recorded in Parliament that this authority was conferred on him from their own free motion, without any application on his part; ... and he required that all the powers of his office should be specified and defined by Parliament.']
[Footnote 118: 'Parliamentary History,' xxvii., 803-speech of Mr. Hardinge, one of the Welsh judges, and M.P. for Old Sarum.]
[Footnote 119: I take this report, or abstract, of Lord Camden's speech from the 'Lives of the Chancellors,' c. cxlvii.]
[Footnote 120: 'Memorials of Fox,' ii., 292.]
[Footnote 121: The proceedings of the Irish Parliament on this occasion will be mentioned in the next chapter.]
[Footnote 122: Mr. Hallam (iii., 144, ed. 1832) gives a definition of the term 'unconstitutional' which seems rather singular: 'By unconstitutional, as distinguished from 'illegal,' I mean a novelty of much importance, tending to endanger the established laws.' May not the term rather be regarded as referring to a distinct class of acts-to those at variance with the recognized
[Footnote 123: The entry in the 'Parliamentary History,' November 20, 1788, is: 'Both Houses met pursuant to the last prorogation. Later meetings were in consequence of successive adjournments.']
[Footnote 124: In the Commons by 183 to 33; in the Lords by 119 to 11.]
CHAPTER V. The Affairs of Ireland.-Condition of the Irish Parliament.-The Octennial Bill.-The Penal Laws.-Non-residence of the Lord- lieutenant.-Influence of the American War on Ireland.-Enrolment of the Volunteers.-Concession of all the Demands of Ireland.-Violence of the Volunteers.-Their Convention.-Violence of the Opposition in Parliament: Mr. Brownlow, Mr. Grattan, Mr. Flood.-Pitt's Propositions Fail.-Fitzgibbon's Conspiracy Bill.-Regency Question.-Recovery of the King.-Question of a Legislative Union.-Establishment of Maynooth College.- Lord Edward Fitzgerald.-Arguments for and against the Union.-It passes the Irish Parliament.-Details of the Measure.- General Character of the Union.-Circumstances which Prevented its Completeness.
In describing the condition of Ireland and the feelings of its people, in the latter years of the reign of George II., Mr. Hallam has fixed on the year 1753 as that in which the Irish Parliament first began to give vent to aspirations for equality with the English Parliament in audible complaints; and the Irish House of Commons, finding the kingdom in the almost unprecedented condition of having 'a surplus revenue after the payment of all charges,' took steps to vindicate that equality by a sort of appropriation bill.
There were, however, three fundamental differences between the Parliaments of the two countries, which, above all others, stood in the way of such equality as the Irish patriots desired: the first, that by a law as old as the
