What party purpose did my conduct answer at that time? I acted with Lord N. I went to all the ministerial meetings,—and he and his associates in office will do me the justice to say, that, aiming at the concord of the empire, I made it my business to give his concessions all the value of which they were capable, whilst some of those who were covered with his favors derogated from them, treated them with contempt, and openly threatened to oppose them. If I had acted with my dearest and most valued friends, if I had acted with the Marquis of Rockingham or the Duke of Richmond, in that situation, I could not have attended more to their honor, or endeavored more earnestly to give efficacy to the measures I had taken in common with them. The return which I, and all who acted as I did, have met with from him, does not make me repent the conduct which I then held.
As to the rest of the gentlemen with whom I have the honor to act, they did not then, or at any other time, make a party affair of Irish politics. That matter was always taken up without concert; but, in general, from the operation of our known liberal principles in government, in commerce, in religion, in everything, it was taken up favorably for Ireland. Where some local interests bore hard upon the members, they acted on the sense of their constituents, upon ideas which, though I do not always follow, I cannot blame. However, two or three persons, high in opposition, and high in public esteem, ran great risks in their boroughs on that occasion. But all this was without any particular plan. I need not say, that Ireland was in that affair much obliged to the liberal mind and enlarged understanding of Charles Fox, to Mr. Thomas Townshend, to Lord Midleton, and others. On reviewing that affair, which gave rise to all the subsequent manoeuvres, I am convinced that the whole of what has this day been done might have then been effected. But then the minister must have taken it up as a great plan of national policy, and paid with his person in every lodgment of his approach. He must have used that influence to quiet prejudice, which he has so often, used to corrupt principle: and I know, that, if he had, he must have succeeded. Many of the most active in opposition would have given him an unequivocal support. The corporation of London, and the great body of the London West India merchants and planters, which forms the greatest mass of that vast interest, were disposed to fall in with such a plan. They certainly gave no sort of discountenance to what was done or what was proposed. But these are not the kind of objects for which our ministers bring out the heavy artillery of the state. Therefore, as things stood at that time, a great deal more was not practicable.
Last year another proposition was brought out for the relief of Ireland. It was started without any communication with a single person of activity in the country party, and, as it should seem, without any kind of concert with government. It appeared to me extremely raw and undigested. The behavior of Lord N., on the opening of that business, was the exact transcript of his conduct on the Irish question in the former session. It was a mode of proceeding which his nature has wrought into the texture of his politics, and which is inseparable from them. He chose to absent himself on the proposition and during the agitation of that business,—although the business of the House is that alone for which he has any kind of relish, or, as I am told, can be persuaded to listen to with any degree of attention. But he was willing to let it take its course. If it should pass without any considerable difficulty, he would bring his acquiescence to tell for merit in Ireland, and he would have the credit, out of his indolence, of giving quiet to that country. If difficulties should arise on the part of England, he knew that the House was so well trained that he might at his pleasure call us off from the hottest scent. As he acted in his usual manner and upon his usual principle, opposition acted upon theirs, and rather generally supported the measure. As to myself, I expressed a disapprobation at the practice of bringing imperfect and indigested projects into the House, before means were used to quiet the clamors which a misconception of what we were doing might occasion at home, and before measures were settled with men of weight and authority in Ireland, in order to render our acts useful and acceptable to that country. I said, that the only thing which could make the influence of the crown (enormous without as well as within the House) in any degree tolerable was, that it might be employed to give something of order and system to the proceedings of a popular assembly; that government being so situated as to have a large range of prospect, and as it were a bird's-eye view of everything, they might see distant dangers and distant advantages which were not so visible to those who stood on the common level; they might, besides, observe them, from this advantage, in their relative and combined state, which people locally instructed and partially informed could behold only in an insulated and unconnected manner;—but that for many years past we suffered under all the evils, without any one of the advantages of a government influence; that the business of a minister, or of those who acted as such, had been still further to contract the narrowness of men's ideas, to confirm inveterate prejudices, to inflame vulgar passions, and to abet all sorts of popular absurdities, in order the better to destroy popular rights and privileges; that, so far from methodizing the business of the House, they had let all things run into an inextricable confusion, and had left affairs of the most delicate policy wholly to chance.
After I had expressed myself with the warmth I felt on seeing all government and order buried under the ruins of liberty, and after I had made my protest against the insufficiency of the propositions, I supported the principle of enlargement at which they aimed, though short and somewhat wide of the mark,—giving, as my sole reason, that the more frequently these matters came into discussion, the more it would tend to dispel fears and to eradicate prejudices.
This was the only part I took. The detail was in the hands of Lord Newhaven and Lord Beauchamp, with some assistance from Earl Nugent and some independent gentlemen of Irish property. The dead weight of the minister being removed, the House recovered its tone and elasticity. We had a temporary appearance of a deliberative character. The business was debated freely on both sides, and with sufficient temper. And the sense of the members being influenced by nothing but what will naturally influence men unbought, their reason and their prejudices, these two principles had a fair conflict, and prejudice was obliged to give way to reason. A majority appeared, on a division, in favor of the propositions.
As these proceedings got out of doors, Glasgow and Manchester, and, I think, Liverpool, began to move, but in a manner much more slow and languid than formerly. Nothing, in my opinion, would have been less difficult than entirely to have overborne their opposition. The London West India trade was, as on the former occasion, so on this, perfectly liberal and perfectly quiet; and there is abroad so much respect for the united wisdom of the House, when supposed to act upon a fair view of a political situation, that I scarcely ever remember any considerable uneasiness out of doors, when the most active members, and those of most property and consideration in the minority, have joined themselves to the administration. Many factious people in the towns I mentioned began, indeed, to revile Lord North, and to reproach his neutrality as treacherous and ungrateful to those who had so heartily and so warmly entered into all his views with regard to America. That noble lord, whose decided character it is to give way to the latest and nearest pressure, without any sort of regard to distant consequences of any kind, thought fit to appear, on this signification of the pleasure of those his worthy friends and partisans, and, putting himself at the head of the posse scaccarii, wholly regardless of the dignity and consistency of our miserable House, drove the propositions entirely out of doors by a majority newly summoned to duty.
In order to atone to Ireland for this gratification to Manchester, he graciously permitted, or rather forwarded, two bills,—that for encouraging the growth of tobacco, and that for giving a bounty on exportation of hemp from Ireland. They were brought in by two very worthy members, and on good principles; but I was sorry to see them, and, after expressing my doubts of their propriety, left the House. Little also [else?] was said upon them. My objections were two: the first, that the cultivation of those weeds (if one of them could be at all cultivated to profit) was adverse to the introduction of a good course of agriculture; the other, that the encouragement given to them tended to establish that mischievous policy of considering Ireland as a country of staple, and a producer of raw materials.
When the rejection of the first propositions and the acceptance of the last had jointly, as it was natural, raised a very strong discontent in Ireland, Lord Rockingham, who frequently said that there never seemed a more opportune time for the relief of Ireland than that moment when Lord North had rejected all rational propositions for its relief, without consulting, I believe, any one living, did what he is not often very willing to do; but he thought this an occasion of magnitude enough to justify an extraordinary step. He went into the closet, and made a strong representation on the matter to the king, which was not ill received, and I believe produced good effects. He then made the motion in the House of Lords which you may recollect; but he was content to withdraw all of censure which it contained, on the solemn promise of ministry, that they would in the recess of Parliament prepare a plan for the benefit of Ireland, and have it in readiness to produce at the next meeting. You may recollect that Lord Gower became in a particular manner bound for the fulfilling this engagement. Even this did not satisfy, and most of the minority were very unwilling that Parliament should be prorogued until something effectual on the subject should be done,—particularly as we saw that the distresses, discontents, and armaments of Ireland were increasing every day, and that we are not so much lost to common sense as not to know the wisdom and efficacy of early concession in circumstances such as ours.
The session was now at an end. The ministers, instead of attending to a duty that was so urgent on them, employed themselves, as usual, in endeavors to destroy the reputation of those who were bold enough to remind them of it. They caused it to be industriously circulated through the nation, that the distresses of Ireland were of a nature hard to be traced to the true source, that they had been monstrously magnified, and that, in particular, the official reports from Ireland had given the lie (that was their phrase) to Lord Rockingham's representations: and attributing the origin of the Irish proceedings wholly to us, they asserted that everything done in Parliament upon the subject was with a view of stirring up rebellion; "that neither the Irish legislature nor their constituents had signified any dissatisfaction at the relief obtained in the session preceding the last; that, to convince both of the impropriety of their peaceable conduct, opposition, by making demands in the name of Ireland, pointed out what she might extort from Great Britain; that the facility with which relief was (formerly) granted, instead of satisfying opposition, was calculated to create new demands; these demands, as they interfered with the commerce of Great Britain, were certain of being opposed,—a circumstance which could not fail to create that desirable confusion which suits the views of the party; that they (the Irish) had long felt their own misery, without knowing well from whence it came; our worthy patriots, by pointing out Great Britain as the cause of Irish distress, may have some chance of rousing Irish resentment." This I quote from a pamphlet as perfectly contemptible in point of writing as it is false in its facts and wicked in its design: but as it is written under the authority of ministers, by one of their principal literary pensioners, and was circulated with great diligence, and, as I am credibly informed, at a considerable expense to the public, I use the words of that book to let you see in what manner the friends and patrons of Ireland, the heroes of your Parliament, represented all efforts for your relief here, what means they took to dispose the minds of the people towards that great object, and what encouragement they gave to all who should choose to exert themselves in your favor. Their unwearied endeavors were not wholly without success, and the unthinking people in many places became ill-affected towards us on this account. For the ministers proceeded in your affairs just as they did with regard to those of America. They always represented you as a parcel of blockheads, without sense, or even feeling; that all your words were only the echo of faction here; and (as you have seen above) that you had not understanding enough to know that your trade was cramped by restrictive acts of the British Parliament, unless we had, for factious purposes, given you the information. They were so far from giving the least intimation of the measures which have since taken place, that those who were supposed the best to know their intentions declared them impossible in the actual state of the two kingdoms, and spoke of nothing but an act of union, as the only way that could be found of giving freedom of trade to Ireland, consistently with the interests of this kingdom. Even when the session opened, Lord North declared that he did not know what remedy to apply to a disease of the cause of which he was ignorant; and ministry not being then entirely resolved how far they should submit to your energy, they, by anticipation, set the above author or some of his associates to fill the newspapers with invectives against us, as distressing the minister by extravagant demands in favor of Ireland.
I need not inform you, that everything they asserted of the steps taken in Ireland, as the result of our machinations, was utterly false and groundless. For myself, I seriously protest to you, that I neither wrote a word or received a line upon any matter relative to the trade of Ireland, or to the polities of it, from the beginning of the last session to the day that I was honored with your letter. It would be an affront to the talents in the Irish Parliament to say one word more.