[589] Hansard, iv, 1015.
[590] Pretyman MSS.
[591] Pretyman MSS.
[592] In "H. O.," Ireland (Corresp.), 99, are long reports of the Irish Catholic bishops, dated November 1800, on the state of their dioceses. The bishops' incomes did not average more than £300 a year. The Archbishops of Dublin and Tuam reckoned the total number of parish priests and curates at 1,800, of whom 1,400 were seculars and 400 regulars. The benefices numbered 1,200; each required the services of two priests. The destruction of the seminaries in France and the poverty of the Irish made it impossible to supply or support 2,400 clergy. Other papers follow for and against Catholic Emancipation. See also "Castlereagh Corresp.," iii, ad fin.
[593] "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 3, 8, 9, 14.
[594] "Dropmore P.," vi, 445. Mulgrave, who knew Pitt well, was convinced of his sincerity in resigning. His letter of 9th February 1801 (quoted by R. Plumer Ward, "Memoirs," i, 44) refutes the insinuations of Sorel (vi, 101) that Pitt resigned because he could not make peace with France.
[595] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iii, 285.
[596] "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 286.
[597] Pretyman MSS.
[598] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 313, 330; "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 244.