I have written this to you, though the thing has not yet taken its final turn, because any delay might possibly prevent your receiving it before your arrival here, for which I now look with increased impatience and anxiety.
God bless you, my dearest brother.
The weak point of the Government was its combination of opposite parties; and the consideration which finally determined the course of Ministers, was the necessity of preventing their differences from coming to an open rupture—a result that would have jeopardized the very existence of the Administration. With that paramount object in view, Lord Grenville, writing again to his brother, analyses the difficulties of the situation, and points out the only paths that could be opened to an honourable and creditable accommodation.
LORD GRENVILLE TO MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE.
Dover Street, Oct. 24th, 1794.
My dearest Brother,
Since I wrote my last letter I have received yours, written the day of your leaving Vienna, and I calculate that this will probably find you at the Hague. Our situation, with respect to the point on which I wrote to you so much at large, has been a little, and but a little, improved by a conversation between the Duke of P. and Pitt. Nothing having since passed, we conclude that there is a desire to wait for the benefit of your opinion and Lord Spencer's upon this difficult and distressing subject—a desire in which I need not say we most heartily concur.
As far as anything can be concluded from a conversation which did not lead to any decisive issue, I hope that we have been too easily alarmed by Irish reports on the subject of a new system, and that, probably in the imagination of those who have first given rise to those reports, some loose and general expressions have been construed into pointed and specific assurances. Be this however as it may, it is certain that infinite mischief has already been done by the prevalence of those reports, and both the settlement of the points in discussion here, and the subsequent task of the future Governor of Ireland, whoever he may be, have been rendered much more difficult than they would have been if more reserve and caution had been used. It is, however, useless to regret what is past, and all our endeavours ought to be applied to remedy the present evil. I most anxiously wait for the moment of talking over with you the means of doing this, which I am confident every one concerned joins in wishing, though all are obliged to confess the difficulty of it.
Three points are to be considered—Has Lord F. still kept himself sufficiently open with respect to his engagements with Grattan and the Ponsonbys, as to be able to undertake the Irish Government with honour and satisfaction to himself, without displacing the old tenants of Government to make room for their opponents, and without giving to the Ponsonbys in particular more influence and power than belongs to their situation as one among several of the great connexions in that country? If not, there seems no hope of any permanent agreement on this subject, even if it were so patched up for the present as that he could go to Ireland. The next is whether it is possible for him to undertake the Government without insisting on the removal of Fitzgibbon? If this cannot be done, the thing must come to an immediate stop, as we are more and more convinced that we cannot in honour or duty accede to that measure. And lastly, supposing any or all of these considerations to oppose an insurmountable obstacle in the way of his going, ought that to prevent his continuing to hold his present situation? and can the Duke of P., Lord F., and others, be justified in bringing on the country the infinite mischiefs of the dissolution of the present united Government, on no stronger ground than because alterations, however desirable in their opinion, in the system of governing Ireland cannot be adopted.
I have said nothing in all this of the question about Lord Westmoreland's removal. I should readily agree with what you say in your last letter on that subject, that he ought to wait for a provision, if I did not see that even this is rendered more difficult by the éclat of what has happened. Still I should think he ought to forego his claim; but if he thinks otherwise, he has a positive promise, which of course cannot be broken. But I always feel a confidence that this point would in some manner be arranged, because I am sure that we should all be willing to make almost any sacrifice rather than let it be said by the enemy, that after having professed to unite on public principle, we had separated on a mere squabble about the distribution of places.