So the matter remained for some weeks. Lord Mayo struggled between his love for his children, whom he could take with him to Canada, and the more splendid sphere of activity offered in India, where he would be separated from them. At length he decided on the wider and more independent career, and made up his mind to refuse Canada on the chance of India being offered to him when the time arrived. A few months afterwards the offer was made, and Lord Mayo's Parliamentary life came to an end.
Mr. Disraeli, in addressing the Buckinghamshire electors in the same November, thus spoke of the recent labours of that life, and of the reasons which had induced Her Majesty to reward them: 'With regard to Ireland, I say that a state of affairs so dangerous was never encountered with more firmness, but at the same time with greater magnanimity; that never were foreign efforts so completely controlled, and baffled, and defeated, as was this Fenian conspiracy, by the Government of Ireland, by the Lord-Lieutenant, and by the Earl of Mayo. Upon that nobleman, for his sagacity, for his judgment, fine temper, and knowledge of men, Her Majesty has been pleased to confer the office of Viceroy of India. And as Viceroy of India, I believe he will earn a reputation that his country will honour; and that he has before him a career which will equal that of the most eminent Governor-General who has preceded him.'
During his twenty-one years of Parliamentary life (1847-68), Lord Mayo spoke upwards of 140 times, filled the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland thrice, prepared and introduced 36 Bills, and carried 33 Acts to completion through the House. His 133 principal speeches fill 524 columns of Hansard, and deal with every subject connected with the administration of his native country.
It was, however, in the executive details of that administration, rather than in his Parliamentary appearances, that the value of Lord Mayo to his party lay. In his legislative measures the apprehension constantly harassed him that he was going farther than many of his friends would approve of, and yet not far enough to disarm their political opponents. This divergence from formerly warm allies grieved him deeply, and drew from him several letters, in which self-reliance is curiously mingled with regret and pain. In one such letter to Lord C——, in 1868, he defends his catholicity of spirit towards the conflicting creeds of his native country. The paper is too lengthy to be reproduced in full, but it reads like an amplification of Matthew Arnold's maxim, that the State should be of the religion of all its subjects, and of the bigotry of none of them.
To the outward world, Lord Mayo's career had seemed a fortunate one. Elected for his own county on his first start in public life; appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland while still a very young man; re-appointed to that post on each of the two occasions on which his party had subsequently held power; a favourite in Parliament and among his country neighbours; a Cabinet Minister, with considerable patronage passing through his hands; he had succeeded to his family estates while still in the prime of life, and become the head of an ancient and a noble house. With a well-knit frame, and unwearied power alike of physical and mental enjoyment, he now possessed a fortune adequate to his place in the world, but not involving the responsibilities incident to the administration of one of the great incomes of the English peerage.
Yet the divergence steadily widening between Lord Mayo and the party with whom he had set out in life, made him at this period a very unhappy man. 'I remember,' writes a friend, 'one summer evening we sat till late together, and for the first time he let me see his inner self. I felt much for him, for I knew how well and hard he had worked for Ireland, and how poor had been the acknowledgment. Then, too, I saw how greatly he longed for some sphere of usefulness in which he could show the world what he was made of, and test the strength which he felt in him, but never had had the chance of putting forth as he wished.' In such moods Lord Mayo turned towards his family as a refuge from the frustrations which beset his public life. He had always tried to make himself the friend of his children; and in 1868 his letters breathe a peculiar tender playfulness which, considering his own state of mind at the time, is not without pathos.
Wherever he might be, and whatever the pressure of his anxieties or his work, he always found time for his boys. Some of his notes are scribbled from the House of Commons, others from his office; many from country houses where he had run down for a day's hunting or shooting. Throughout they bear the impress of a kindly, genial man, who had the sense to see the policy of making his children his companions and allies.
One of his sons is always 'My dear old Buttons,' another 'My dear old President,' or 'My darling old Boy,' and so forth. From one who appears to be starting on a rowing-excursion on the Thames, he wishes to know, 'What day do you go on your great voyage?' and so, 'Good-bye to my Powder Monkey, and tell me what day you leave Eton.' To another he is 'very sorry to hear that you are in the Lower School, as it will keep you back sadly hereafter; but the only thing now is to work very hard, and get a remove every half, or even a double remove.' 'I send you my Address,' he writes from the Conservative borough of Cockermouth; 'stick it up in your room, and lick any Radical boy that laughs at it.' 'I am glad you like your school, though I am somewhat afraid, by your liking it so much, that you are neither worked very hard in your head nor birched on the other end.' To another, 'I send you thirty shillings for your subscription. The Eton beagles will have to go precious slow if your old toes can carry you up to them.'
He could give advice when needful. 'My dear old Boy,' he writes to one of his sons, who he heard was making some not quite desirable acquaintances, and who had replied in a spirited letter that he could not desert his friends, 'I liked your letter very much, because you spoke out your mind, and told me what you thought. I do not want you to give up your friends, or to do anything mean; but I did hear that you were intimate with one or two fellows who were not thought much of in the school, and not your own sort at all. This annoyed me; for I should hate to think any boy of mine was not able to hold his own with his equals. I think that you had better extend your acquaintance, and, without giving up any of your old friends, mix more generally with the boys, and let them see you are as good as any of them. It is a bad thing to be always chumming up with one or two chaps, as it leads to jealousy and observation, and prevents you from studying the characters of many whom you will have in after life to associate with or to struggle with. Those are my sentiments. I know you will try and follow them.'
Lord Mayo found another resource against the vexations of a public career in his love of country life and field sports. In England he was an ordinary politician, not distinguished by commanding wealth or by any great hereditary influence, and deficient rather than otherwise in oratorical graces, who made his mark by strong common sense, and the power of mastering details and of doing hard work. In Ireland he was known as an indefatigable sportsman and a most joyous country neighbour, whose time and purse were always at the service of his friends. His famine-work had made a name for him in County Kildare, and his genuine kindliness of heart, with a happy Irish way of adapting himself to his company, steadily increased his popularity as he went on in life. No sketch of Lord Mayo would be complete which overlooked this side of his character. It was the aspect in which he was best known to a large proportion of his friends; and his country tastes helped in no unimportant way to keep his temper sweet and his nature wholesome, at a time when he began to feel somewhat keenly the difference between what he had hoped to do for Ireland, and what he would be permitted to accomplish.