(Private.) Downing Street, Feb. 15th, 1789.
MY DEAR LORD,
The account received this morning of the step which the Irish House
of Commons have taken, has not surprised me; as it seemed before
evident that the torrent was too strong to be stemmed by any
exertion. Those who at the moment felt it as a triumph, perhaps
already begin to repent of it, and will probably have more and more
reason to do so every day. It will be abundant satisfaction to you
and your friends that you have done everything which depended on
you; and in the midst of so much profligacy, that you have
experienced such a support as that of Fitzgibbon and a few others,
which is in the highest degree honourable and manly.
I am fully aware how delicate your ground has been in all the
progress of the business, of which we have hitherto learnt the
result; and that it is not less so in what remained relative to the
transmission of this strange Address. Whatever you may have
decided on the spot will, I dare say, under all the circumstances,
have been right; and in either of the alternatives, you will not
want here the most cordial and decided support, whenever the
measure comes into discussion. All that I am now writing is, I
hope, superfluous; but I could not let the messenger go, without
expressing in part the sentiments for which I trust you would at
any rate have given me credit.
* * * * *
Believe me, my dear Lord,
Sincerely and affectionately yours,
W. PITT.
Lord Buckingham, acting on the discretion thus confided to him, resolved
to decline accepting or transmitting the Address. This determination,
which threw the whole responsibility of the measure upon those with whom
it originated, afforded the highest satisfaction in England. Letters
from Lord Mornington, Lord Sydney, and others, abound in admiration of
the firmness of Lord Buckingham's conduct.
As had been anticipated, the Address was voted in both Houses of
Parliament, and laid before Lord Buckingham for transmission to His
Royal Highness. His Lordship at once declined to receive it; and in a
short and explicit answer, rested his refusal on the obligations imposed
upon him by his duty and his oath, adding that he did not feel warranted
in forwarding to His Royal Highness an Address, purporting to invest him
with powers to take upon him the government of the realm before he
should be enabled by law to do so. This answer, which had received the
full approbation of Mr. Pitt, by whom it had been communicated to the
Cabinet, was, as might have been expected, deeply resented by the
Opposition, whose hostility to the Government had been all along
assuming that shape of combination in which it now appeared without
disguise.
Frustrated in their desire of transmitting this Address through the
channel of the Lord-Lieutenant, they passed a resolution appointing
ambassadors of their own to lay it before His Royal Highness. The
persons nominated to undertake this extraordinary commission were, the
Duke of Leinster, the Earl of Charlemont, Mr. Conolly, Mr. O'Neill, Mr.
Ponsonby, and Mr. Stewart. Nor did they stop here. It was necessary to
avenge the indignity that had been put upon them; and a resolution,
declaring the conduct of Lord Buckingham unwarrantable and
unconstitutional, was accordingly moved by Mr. Grattan, and carried.
That a resolution still stronger than this, going to the preposterous
length of declaring the commission of the Lord-Lieutenant actually void
by the will of the Irish Parliament, was at one moment contemplated,
would appear from a passage in a letter of Mr. Grenville's, dated the
18th of February.
I am a little alarmed by one part of your letter, in which you talk
of a resolution of the two Houses being passed for avoiding your
commission, and of your resigning the Government in consequence of
it to Lords Justices appointed under the Act of last year. I trust,
however, that these favourable accounts [of the King's health] will
have put this idea out of the question. But if not, for God's sake
consider whether there is any one principle in which you deny the
right of the two Houses to appoint a Regent by address, which does
not apply equally to prove that they cannot either appoint or
remove a Lord-Lieutenant by resolution. I am persuaded, the more I
think of it, that it is impossible for you to quit the Government
in any other manner, than in consequence of a recal from hence, or
a resignation grounded on the removal of the Ministers here, or on
the Regent's acceptance of the office, under what you consider an
illegal appointment.
Mr. Pitt entirely concurred in these views, and it was resolved that
Lord Buckingham should remain in Ireland till he had overcome the
confederacy by which the security of the British power in that kingdom
was so seriously perilled. In a subsequent letter, Mr. Grenville conveys
the assurances of Mr. Pitt's determination to support Lord Buckingham in
any measures he should think necessary to the maintenance of the
supremacy of the Crown, and the vindication of his conduct in these
transactions. One of the measures which was considered indispensable, as
marking the sense and upholding the authority of the Government, was the
immediate dismissal of all those persons who, holding offices and
emoluments under the Crown, had joined in a factious resistance to the
policy of Ministers.
I had, yesterday evening, a long conversation with Pitt on the
subject of your letter of the 25th. I have already told you that
his ideas agree entirely with yours as to the proposition of your
remaining in your present situation long enough to complete your
victory over this combination, and to establish a Government
founded on a better system. We both consider it as a point of
absolute necessity and of indispensable duty, that we should resist
this profligate conspiracy against the Government of both kingdoms,
by every means, and to the last extremity; and we agree in thinking
that this battle ought, both for your own credit and for ours, to
be fought by you, preferably to any other person. He desires me to
say that there cannot be the least hesitation here in adopting any
proposal which you may think it right to make on the subject of
dismissals, and that his opinion inclines to the immediate removal
of all the people whom you have named, on the ground not of their
former votes, but of the combination which is now avowed.
The King was now so much better that he was permitted, at his own
request, to see the Chancellor, who, however, was prohibited by the
medical attendants from talking to His Majesty on business. Even this
prohibition was removed in a few days; and Willis considered him so
completely recovered that he recommended, as a preliminary experiment to
test the state of his mind, that the Chancellor should be authorized to
communicate to His Majesty the public events which had occurred during
his illness. Of all men that could have been selected for so delicate an
affair, Thurlow was, perhaps, the worst qualified; but his relation to
the Crown as Chancellor left Ministers no alternative.