[105] Commissioners had been appointed to draw up a scheme for regulating the commercial intercourse of Great Britain and Ireland. Pitt's eleven propositions for the development of Irish Trade, in their original form, were practically rejected by the Irish Parliament in February, 1785. Remodelled, and increased to twenty, they were laid before the English House of Commons in May, 1785, and a Bill based on them was read the first time in July. This Bill was then introduced into the Irish House on August 12; but it was carried by so small a majority (127 to 108) that it was abandoned.
[106] The Emperor Joseph II., "à qui jamais rien n'a réussi," reigned 1780-1790. His attempted reforms in the Low Countries created a revolution against Austria; the two insurgent parties of the Statistes and Vonckistes,—the one conservative and aristocratic, the other commercial and resembling in their views the French Constitutionalists,—made common cause and expelled the Austrian governor, the Duke of Saxe-Teschen. "Vôtre pays," said Joseph, a few days before his death, to the Prince de Ligne, "m'a tué. La prise de Gand a été mon agonie; l'abandon de Bruxelles, ma mort."
[107] Frederick II. of Prussia died August 17, 1786. He had recently endeavoured to mediate between the Republican party in Holland and the Stadtholder, who was, in 1786, deprived of the government of the Hague and of his military powers as captain-general. He had also, in 1778 and 1785, interfered to prevent Austria's designs upon Bavaria.
[108] Lord Sheffield did not publish his Observations on the French Treaty and Commerce. [S.]
[109] On August 18, 1787, the Right Hon. W. Eden (afterwards Lord Auckland) was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the King of Spain; but he was at this time in Paris, assisting the Duke of Dorset in negotiating a Treaty of Commerce with France. His conduct in accepting from Pitt the mission to France was severely condemned by the old followers of Lord North. Among the numerous squibs which his action provoked, the following may be quoted:—
"A mere affair of trade t' embrace,
Wines, brandies, gloves, fans, cambrics, lace;
For this on me my Sovereign laid
His high commands, and I obey'd—
Nor think, my Lord, this conduct base.