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would, I am afraid, be much too sanguine to entertain hopes that this should be extended to the case now in question. I will not fail to let you know as soon as anything occurs on the main point.

There is every appearance that the Flemish revolution is complete. Trautsmansdorf and the patriots are running a race for Luxemburg, where the former means to wait for succours. There are not fifteen thousand troops in the provinces, and there are above forty thousand of the patriots already armed, and the whole country with them. They collect the revenues of the country, on which they maintain their army. They flatter themselves that, allowing for the necessary requisitions for passage, &c., no effectual force can be brought to act against them till the spring; and the style of the Emperor's concessions, as well as the mode of making them, looks as if he was of the same opinion.

Ever most affectionately yours,

W. W. G.

It was some compensation to Mr. Grenville that, in his official capacity as Secretary of State, he had the satisfaction of conveying to Lord Buckingham His Majesty's entire approval of the line of conduct his Lordship had pursued in Ireland. After expressing His Majesty's concern at the state of Lord Buckingham's health, which rendered him unable any longer to serve His Majesty in the situation of Lord-Lieutenant, the letter signifies the royal approbation of his Lordship's attachment and zeal in the discharge of the important duties of his station; adding, "and, particularly, I have His Majesty's express direction to acquaint your Lordship with the satisfaction which His Majesty has felt from your

attention to maintain the honour and dignity of his Crown, and to preserve the constitutional connection between his two kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, under the interesting circumstances which were occasioned by His Majesty's late indisposition."

Feeling the delicacy of the position in which he was placed by his relationship to Lord Buckingham, in having to convey this gracious message, Mr. Grenville submitted a draught of the letter to His Majesty for his approval, before it was forwarded. Upon this draught His Majesty made the subjoined minute :

Windsor, October 17th, 1789. Eighteen minutes past Ten o'clock.

The draught of an answer to the Marquis of Buckingham's letter of resignation meets entirely with my sentiments. If I thought any alteration necessary, it would be by more explicitly stating the allusion to his very commendable conduct, during my late calamitous illness, which would render the approbation in effect more marked.

G. R.

A retirement thus graced and dignified by the special approbation of the Sovereign, left nothing for Lord Buckingham to regret in the scene of party conflict he had quitted. It was an exchange from turmoil to peace, rendered still more acceptable to him by the expressions of regard and attachment it drew from some of the most distinguished men of his time. Well might Lord Fife congratulate him, in one of the numerous letters addressed to him at this period, on the difference he would find between Stowe and the Castle of Dublin.

1790.

MR. GRENVILLE'S ELEVATION TO THE PEERAGE.

THE events of this year on the continent of Europe offer a striking contrast to the repose of England. While the wise and steadfast policy of Mr. Pitt had secured to this country the blessings of peace, now rapidly expanding into a condition of almost unexampled prosperity, France was undergoing the throes of that desolating Revolution which brought the Sovereign to the scaffold, and laid the train of those disasters which finally expelled the Bourbons from the throne. There are few traces of those disturbing circumstances in the correspondence of Lord Buckingham and his brother, which, in consequence of the frequent opportunities they now enjoyed of personal intercourse, had become scanty, and, so far as public affairs were concerned, unimportant. Slight scraps of intelligence, the last rumour from abroad, or matters of purely personal or domestic interest, form the staple of the letters that passed between them at this period.

It was in this year that Edmund Burke, to the infinite surprise of his old allies, published his famous pamphlet on the French Revolution. The impression it made in England may be accepted as an evidence of the soundness of the national judgment, and the devotion of the people to the established institutions of the country. This healthy condition of the public mind was attributable, in a greater degree than we can venture now to estimate, to the spirit of patriotism and union awakened in the kingdom by the firm Administration of Mr. Pitt and his friends. They had restored the general confidence in the justice and stability of the Government, which the weakness and divided councils of former Cabinets had dissipated; they had struck the happy mean between the prerogatives of the Crown and the encroachments of the Legislature; and, above all, in the recent conflicts on the Regency question, they had successfully asserted the doctrine, that the rights of the Sovereign and the rights of the people were founded on a common basis; and, by showing that their interests were identical, they had reconciled those extreme elements. in the Constitution which a powerful party had laboured, with great eloquence and considerable effect, to separate on the grounds of a natural antagonism. Their popularity was unbounded, and saved the country. Paine's " "Age of Reason" fell innocuous upon the people; the tidings of the Revolution, and of the massacres that tracked its daily steps in blood, excited wonder and horror, but produced no frenzy of imitation such as they inspired elsewhere; and while Europe was convulsed with alarms,

VOL. II.

N

England, strong in her liberties and self-reliance, was united and unmoved.

In Ireland, the departure of Lord Buckingham was followed by a revival of the factious intemperance his energy had for a season suppressed. The Parliament opened in disorder, and carried on its debates in a tone of vindictive hostility to the British connection. The opponents of Government had strengthened their hands by the accession of new orators, and by the occasional lapses into their old violence of others who had given in their submissions to the late Viceroy, and who, now that he was gone, affected an independence of their obligations. The Lord Chancellor Fitzgibbon was growing into increasing disfavour with the Opposition, and becoming, by the force of resistance, more English and less popular than before. The invectives in which the wild passions of party found a congenial vent, descended to the fiercest recriminations, and led to the severance of friendships, and personal rencontres. Fitzgibbon and the Ponsonbys, who had hitherto preserved unimpaired, amidst the contentions of the Senate, their intimate relations in private life, were now cast asunder by an explosion of animosity that tempted the Chancellor to declare "that he would never speak to them again;" even the close bonds that united the Ponsonbys and the Beresfords were imperceptibly relaxed; and Mr. Hobart, to use his own expression, was " obliged to fight Mr. Curran," for which he excuses himself to Lord Buckingham by saying that "in any other country in Europe he would not have met him." In no other country, undoubtedly, from a cause so absurd and unwarrantable, could the necessity

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