[322] “Hist. of the Trial of Warren Hastings,” pt. v, 308, 309. His net fortune on 31st January 1786 was given as £65,313, exclusive of £12,000 made over to Mrs. Hastings.
[323] It may belong to the spring of 1787, when, as we learn from the “Corresp. of Wilberforce,” i, 40, Dundas introduced Adam Smith to Pitt and Wilberforce; but the latter does not record the anecdote.
[324] Of the 118 Parliamentary boroughs as many as 87 (including Belfast!) were “close,” that is, were controlled by Government or by a local magnate or the Corporation. See a list in “Castlereagh P.,” iv, 428–30; also Porritt, “Unreformed House of Commons,” ii, pt. vi.
[325] Lecky, iv, 429, 440, 450.
[326] “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 74, 96, 107, 119; “Rutland P.,” iii, 193.
[327] Pitt MSS., 324.
[328] “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 17, 19.
[329] Ashbourne, 84, 85.
[330] Ashbourne, 85–91.
[331] Grenville, writing in November 1798, said that he considered the faulty procedure adopted in 1785 largely contributed to the failure. (“Buckingham P.,” ii, 412.)