leaving open, with a view to accommodation, it being understood that your chaplain, for whom you intended it, is to be otherwise provided for. With respect to the Primacy, I think all opinions here will concur clearly in the propriety of appointing the Bishop of Norwich, so that no difficulty can arise on that head. As to engagements, any that you cannot fulfil must certainly be managed with good faith by your successor. That of Lord Glentworth is the only one which I understand to be positive, and on that I foresee no difficulty. The Attorney-General will, I dare say, be promoted on the first occasion of vacancy of the chief of any Court. It is wished to arrange immediately with the SolicitorGeneral that he should retire on terms satisfactory to himself, which it is supposed may be easily adjusted, and it is meant G. Ponsonby should succeed him.

The next point is, the idea of stipulating for distinct reparation for the improper conduct held towards you. I have no difficulty in saying that any such idea seems inconsistent with our system going on cordially here, which is more indispensable than you are aware of. In the next place, for yourself I am clear that to urge such an idea is neither wise nor necessary. Your honour is perfectly saved by receiving on your return a public mark of approbation and consideration; by your being satisfied that those who have supported your Government will have justice done them; and thirdly, by your remaining engagements being properly attended to.

I began this letter the day before yesterday, but was interrupted; and yesterday I was detained the whole day at Horne Tooke's trial. You will have the good

ness to make a discreet use of the general purport of this letter, as far as you think necessary; but the partiI will write you an

culars are only for yourself.

ostensible letter soon, or send you a copy of that to

Lord Fitzgibbon.

I shall of course be impatient for the return of the

messenger.

I remain, &c., &c.,

Mr. Pitt to Earl Fitzwilliam.

W. P.

MY DEAR LORD,

Downing Street, Feb. 9, 1795.

I feel myself under the necessity of troubling your Lordship on a variety of subjects with respect to Irish arrangements which have lately given me much anxiety. I cannot help flattering myself that several of the reports which have reached me must have proceeded from some misapprehension, or that the circumstances have not been fully known to your Lordship. At all events, from an anxious desire of doing everything that is possible to avoid uneasiness and embarrassment, either here or in Ireland, I have thought it best to state to your Lordship directly what I have heard, and the reflections which occur to me in consequence.

The first point relates to Mr. Beresford, with respect to whom I had heard reports to which I was unwilling to give credit; but who, I since find, has now received a letter of dismission from his office of First Commissioner of Revenue, with an assurance that he shall have an

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allowance from the incidents of Excise equal to his salary of 20007. per annum. By your letter to the Duke of Portland, which his Grace has been so good as to show me, I see your Lordship conceives him to be consenting to this arrangement, and satisfied with it.

On the other hand, I understand from himself that the communication he received was in the first instance peremptory as to his quitting his office; and that the only subject of discussion was the provision to be made for him. He considers himself as forcibly turned out; and so far from consenting to any part of the arrangement, he demands that if he must quit his office, the proposed allowance should be secured to him for life, which it is not, as I apprehend, in the power of the Government of Ireland to do, and for which it is obviously impossible to recur to Parliament. I must remark that though your Lordship at different times mentioned apprehensions of Mr. Beresford's supposed influence and power, from ideas which I always conceived to be mistaken, no intention was to my recollection ever hinted at, even in the most distant manner, of proposing his removal from the Revenue Board, much less of doing so without his consent. Indeed, if a change in so principal an office had been in your contemplation, it would certainly have been mentioned at the meeting here, at which all the other official arrangements which you thought of were discussed. And certainly if it had been then mentioned, Lord Grenville and I should have stated it as in itself liable to the strongest objection, particularly from its being inconsistent with that principle of protection to the servants of Government which we conceived you to

have fully adopted, and by which alone the full advantages of the union which had taken place here could be extended to Ireland; instead of considering it as an object fit to be purchased at so dear a rate as an additional burden of 20007. per annum to the public. While all these general considerations press themselves on my mind, you will not wonder that I cannot help also feeling it as a circumstance of some additional weight in this particular instance, that the change which has thus been announced could never take effect but by a direct authority from hence, and that under the signature of the Lords of the Treasury.

I am not so minutely informed of what is supposed to have passed with the Attorney-General, but I am apprehensive his free consent to the arrangement in which he is concerned has been as little asked as Mr. Beresford's. The same remark I am afraid applies as strongly to the Solicitor-General; and it is material to remind your Lordship, that even if means could have been found of reconciling it to them both to retire at once, it was agreed here that both vacancies should not take place immediately, in order to avoid the bringing Mr. G. Ponsonby at once into the situation of AttorneyGeneral.

I must add that, at all events, removing the AttorneyGeneral from his present situation, unless for the purpose of giving him a seat on the Bench suited to his legal character, will not, as I fear, be found to render the state of the Legal department more creditable to Government, or more satisfactory to the public. The idea of recommending Mr. Ponsonby for the office of

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Secretary of State, under the notion of its being afterwards relinquished by him, is not only liable to all the objections originally stated to that appointment, but to many more arising from the other circumstances to which I have referred.

All these arrangements—if they were to take place -could carry no impression to the public but that of a studied and immediate change in almost all the principal departments. I am very sorry to add to this unpleasant detail, but I cannot pass over the case of Lord Glentworth, whose history your Lordship knows. The manner in which the patent was opened for him is, I believe, not new. The argument of its absorbing the patronage of a successor could not for many obvious reasons be applied very forcibly to his case, and much less to the question of his succeeding to the actual vacancy, after the engagement to provide for him, of which I apprised your Lordship.

There is also an application for Church preferment from Lord Dysart, which I am bound to state, because Lord Westmorland engaged to comply with it when there were Bishoprics vacant (becoming so in his time), which would have afforded him the means. He waived these recommendations at my desire to accommodate your Lordship, and, as I understand, left with you a Memorandum of his promise, of which Lord Dysart claims from him the performance.

On some of these points I should have written to you sooner, but that the state of business has really not left me the time of doing so; and it is not without very deep regret that I feel myself under the necessity of