(Private.) Whitehall, June 13th, 1789.
MY DEAREST BROTHER,
You will receive with this the official notification of
Fitzgibbon's appointment to the Seals, which I send with the more
pleasure at this particular moment, because I know that it will
relieve your mind from one of the points on which you have felt a
peculiar degree of anxiety. The decision on this point gives me
great satisfaction, on many accounts, as an act of justice towards
him, and as an example both to our friends and our enemies; but the
interest which you took in it makes the event infinitely more
agreeable to me than it would otherwise have been, however much I
am convinced that it was right and necessary.
The particular occasion, however, of my writing this letter, was
not so much the conclusion of this business, as something which
relates to another, more nearly concerning yourself. In consequence
of your letter, and of the alarm which I have since had on your
account, I thought it very material that the idea of your going to
Bath should be opened to the King, in order to ascertain how far it
was practicable for you to avail yourself of this, which I am
persuaded will be the best of all remedies for you, without, at the
same time, giving up the idea of returning to Ireland, if you
should feel yourself desirous of it. I accordingly took to-day the
first opportunity which I have had, of mentioning this to the King,
and I have great pleasure in saying, that he not only acquiesced in
the idea, but that he lent himself to it with the greatest
readiness, and seemed desirous that you should not omit this if it
could be useful to you. If, therefore, on consultation with Austin,
you should find that a journey to Bath will be of service to you,
there remains nothing for you to do, but to write an official
letter "requesting the King's permission to be absent from Ireland
for a limited time, in order that you may go to Bath for the
recovery of your health," and I shall be able to return you an
answer, signifying the King's consent, before your preparations for
your journey can be made. If, after some residence at Bath, you
should find your health and spirits not equal to the returning, you
will be better enabled then to decide upon that point, and it will
be perfectly easy for you then to state this, and to resign on the
ground of the injury which the King's service would sustain from
any longer absence. But I am sure I need not mention to you, who
are so well acquainted with that country, the absolute and
indispensable _necessity_ of your doing everything (in the event of
your going to Bath) which may give the _strongest impression_ of
your _determination_ to return. If this is not done, you must feel
that the Government will be thrown loose, and that the mischief of
such an interval may be such as to be irretrievable. If, on the
contrary, this persuasion prevails, I see no fear of inconvenience
from your absence on this account.
I enclose to you, under a flying seal, a letter of congratulation
and compliment to Fitzgibbon, which expresses no more than I really
feel on that subject. Adieu, my dear brother.
Believe me ever most affectionately yours,
W. W. G.
P.S.--You will, of course, immediately recommend Fitzgibbon for a
Barony; but if you can dissuade him from it, pray do not let him
take the title of Limerick, actually possessed by Lord Clanbrassil.
The instance of Earl of Buckingham_shire_ (so created) and Marquis
of B. by no means applies, and it would look invidious.
Lord Buckingham's resolution to relinquish the Government of Ireland was
now finally taken. He communicated his intentions, in the first
instance, in a private letter to Mr. Grenville, to which the following
is the reply.