[95] His picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
[96] The Constitution of 1782 had not satisfied Ireland. The cry was raised for parliamentary reform, and for the extension of the franchise to Roman Catholics. Napper Tandy and his friends held meetings with French emissaries; and an attempt was made to convene a Congress of three hundred representatives at Dublin in October, 1784, backed by the volunteers. The Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Rutland, acted with vigour, and the proposed Congress collapsed. Lord Sheffield had taken part in the proceedings against the magistrates of Roscommon and Leitrim, who had called the meetings of representatives and signed the resolutions in favour of parliamentary reform during the summer of 1784.
[97] Jacques Necker (1734-1804), appointed Director-General of Finance in 1777, published, in 1781, his Compte Rendu. In the same year he was compelled to resign his office. In 1784 he published his Administration des Finances. He was recalled to office as Director of Finances in August, 1788, was dismissed July 11, 1789, recalled July 16 in the same year, and finally retired in September, 1790. "M. Necker est parti. Il a eu une si belle peur de la menace d'être pendu, qu'il n'a pu résister à la tendresse de sa vertueuse épouse qui le pressoit d'aller aux eaux." Madame Elisabeth à Madame de Bombelles, Sept. 6, 1790 (Feuillet de Conches, vol. i. p. 348). Necker's work, Sur l'Administration de M. Necker, par lui-même, was published in 1791. His daughter mentioned here was afterwards Madame de Staël.
[98] Lord Sheffield published, in 1785, his Observations on the Manufactures, Trade, and Present State of Ireland.
[99] Sir Willoughby Aston, the last baronet, married, in 1772, Lady Jane Henley, sister of Lord Northington, and died in 1815, without children.
[100] The Hon. John Hampden Trevor, second son of Lord Hampden, was British Envoy at the Court of Turin, 1783-99. He married, in 1773, Harriot, only daughter of the Rev. Daniel Barton, Canon of Christ Church.
[101] Lady Clarges (née Skrine) was the widow of Sir Thomas Clarges, third baronet, M.P. for Lincoln, who died in 1783.
[102] Second Lord Northington, formerly M.P. for Hampshire.
[103] Lord Spencer, who succeeded his father as second Earl Spencer in 1783, married Lady Lavinia Bingham, eldest daughter of the first Earl of Lucan.
[104] The Right Hon. John Foster, Lord Oriel (1740-1828), Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland (1784), Speaker of the Irish House of Commons (1785-1800), was the author of the Irish Corn Law of 1784, the founder of the National Bank, and closely connected with Lord Sheffield by their common interests in commercial and financial questions. He was elected Speaker August 15, 1785.