"A call of the House is ordered for the first Tuesday after the recess, and circular letters from the Speaker worded in this remarkable manner, "that the members do attend on that day as they tender the rights of Ireland." In short, nothing will satisfy the people but the most unequivocal assertion of the total independence of the Irish legislature. This flame has been raised within this six weeks, and is entirely owing either to the insidious design or unpardonable inattention of the late administration, in including, or suffering to be included, the name of Ireland in no less than five British statutes passed last sessions. People here were ignorant of this till Grattan produced the five Acts to the House of Commons, one of which Eden had been so imprudent as to publish in the Dublin gazette. Previous to this the general sense of the country was, that the mere question of right should be suffered to sleep, provided the exercise of the power claimed under it should never again be resorted to in a single instance.
"The sooner you repeal the 6th of G. I. the better; for, believe me, nothing short of that can now preserve union and cordiality between the two countries.
"I hope my father and you are very good friends by this. I shall not be able to send you the remaining 50_l_. till October, as I have been disappointed as to the time of payment of the money I expected to receive this month. Let me entreat you to write to me shortly a few words. I beg my love to Mrs. S. and Tom.
"I am, dear Dick,
"Your very affectionate brother,
"C. F. SHERIDAN."
The expectations of the writer of this letter were not disappointed. The influence of Mr. Sheridan, added to his own claims, procured for him the office of Secretary of War in Ireland,—a situation, which the greater pliancy of his political principles contrived to render a more permanent benefit to him than any that his Whig brother was ever able to secure for himself.
The death of the Marquis of Rockingham broke up this shortlived Ministry, which, during the four months of its existence, did more perhaps for the principles of the Constitution, than any one administration that England had seen since the Revolution. They were betrayed, it is true, into a few awkward overflowings of loyalty, which the rare access of Whigs to the throne may at once account for and excuse:—and Burke, in particular, has left us a specimen of his taste for extremes, in that burst of optimism with which he described the King's message, as "the best of messages to the best of people from the best of kings." But these first effects of the atmosphere of a court, upon heads unaccustomed to it, are natural and harmless—while the measures that passed during that brief interval, directed against the sources of Parliamentary corruption, and confirmatory of the best principles of the Constitution, must ever be remembered to the honor of the party from which they emanated. The exclusion of contractors from the House of Commons—the disqualification of revenue-officers from voting at elections—the disfranchisement of corrupt voters at Cricklade, by which a second precedent [Footnote: The first was that of the borough of Shoreham in 1771.] was furnished towards that plan of gradual Reform, which has, in our own time, been so forcibly recommended by Lord John Russell—the diminution of the patronage of the Crown, by Mr. Burke's celebrated Bill [Footnote: This Bill, though its circle of retrenchment was, as might be expected, considerably narrowed, when the Treasury Bench became the centre from which he described it, was yet eminently useful, as an acknowledgment from ministerial authority of the necessity of such occasional curtailments of the Royal influence.]—the return to the old constitutional practice [Footnote: First departed from in 1769. See Burke's powerful exposure of the mischiefs of this innovation, in his "Thoughts on the Causes of the present Discontents.">[ of making the revenues of the Crown pay off their own incumbrances, which salutary principle was again lost in the hands of Mr. Pitt—the atonement at last made to the violated rights of electors, by the rescinding of the Resolutions relative to Wilkes—the frank and cordial understanding entered into with Ireland, which identifies the memory of Mr. Fox and this ministry with the only oasis in the whole desert of Irish history—so many and such important recognitions of the best principles of Whiggism, followed up, as they were, by the Resolutions of Lord John Cavendish at the close of the Session, pledging the ministers to a perseverance in the same task of purification and retrenchment, give an aspect to this short period of the annals of the late reign, to which the eye turns for relief from the arbitrary complexion of the rest; and furnish us with, at least, one consoling instance, where the principles professed by statesmen, when in opposition, were retained and sincerely acted upon by them in power.
On the death of the Marquis of Rockingham, Lord Shelburne, without, as it appears, consulting any of the persons attached to that nobleman, accepted the office of first Lord of the Treasury; in consequence of which Mr. Fox, and the greater number of his friends—among whom were Mr. Burke and Mr. Sheridan—sent in their resignations; while General Conway, the Duke of Richmond, and one or two other old allies of the party, remained in office.
To a disposition so social as that of Mr. Fox, the frequent interruption and even loss of friendships, which he had to sustain in the course of his political career, must have been a sad alloy to its pleasure and its pride. The fable of the sheep that leaves its fleece on the bramble bush is but too apt an illustration of the fate of him, who thus sees himself stripped of the comforts of friendship by the tenacious and thorny hold of politics. On the present occasion, however, the desertion of his standard by a few who had followed him cordially in his ascent to power, but did not show the same alacrity in accompanying his voluntary fall, was amply made up to him by the ready devotion, with which the rest of the party shared his fortunes. The disinterestedness of Sheridan was the more meritorious, if, as there is every reason to believe, he considered the step of resignation at such a moment to be, at least, hasty, if not wholly wrong. In this light it was, indeed, viewed by many judicious persons at the time, and the assurances given by the Duke of Richmond and General Conway, of the continued adherence of the cabinet to the same principles and measures, to which they were pledged at the first formation of the ministry, would seem to confirm the justice of the opinion. So much temper, however, had, during the few months of their union, been fermenting between the two great masses of which the administration was composed, that it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for the Rockingham party to rally, with any cordiality, round Lord Shelburne, as a leader—however they might still have been contented to co-operate with him, had he remained in the humble station which he himself had originally selected. That noble Lord, too, who felt that the sacrifice which he had considerately made, in giving up the supremacy of station to Lord Rockingham, had, so far from being duly appreciated by his colleagues, been repaid only with increased alienation and distrust, could hardly be expected to make a second surrender of his advantages, in favor of persons who had, he thought, so ungraciously requited him for the first. In the mean time the Court, to which the Rockingham party was odious, had, with its usual policy, hollowed the ground beneath them, so as to render their footing neither agreeable nor safe. The favorite object in that quarter being to compose a ministry of those convenient ingredients, called "King's friends," Lord Shelburne was but made use of as a temporary instrument, to clear away, in the first plane, the chief obstacles to such an arrangement, and then, in his turn, be sacrificed himself, as soon as a more subservient system could be organized. It was, indeed, only upon a strong representation from his Lordship of the impossibility of carrying on his government against such an Opposition, without the infusion of fresh and popular talent, that the royal consent was obtained to the appointment of Mr. Pitt—the memory of whose uncompromising father, as well as the first achievements on his own youthful shield, rendered him no very promising accession to such a scheme of government, as was evidently then contemplated by the Court.