Whitehall, July 1st, 1788.
My dear Brother,
I received yesterday morning your two letters of the 25th and
27th, and was preparing to answer them to-day, when I received a
third letter from you with its enclosures. Nothing could exceed
my surprise at reading Lord Sydney's letters. The only reason of
their having been delayed till the 23rd was, that, at my
request, Pitt had desired Lord Sydney not to write to you till
he could see him, in order more certainly to secure--what I had
understood to have been before settled with him--that the thing
should _not_ be done in the form in which it has been done. I
had never imagined that the thing itself could be pleasing to
you, although I certainly entertained no apprehensions of your
thinking of quitting your situation, because in a single
instance the King's private wishes had interfered with your
patronage. I had, on the contrary, supposed that if it was done
in such a manner as to mark, unequivocally, that it was a
personal interference of the King's in behalf of his own
aid-de-camp and equerry, and that it was not a competition for
patronage on the part of any other person, you would think it
right to do what is done in every other department of
Government--to acquiesce in it as a thing out of the ordinary
course, and as a gratification of the King's personal wishes. It
was under these impressions, that when I was informed of the
circumstance by Fitzherbert, on the Saturday morning, I thought
it infinitely more desirable for you that I should confine
myself to securing that the attention due to you should be
preserved in the mode of doing it, and that it should be stated
to you in a private letter, and afterwards be carried into
effect upon your recommendation, than that I should endeavour to
take any steps for inducing the King to withdraw his
interference in favour of a man for whom he felt personally
interested, and whom he had acquainted with his intentions in
his favour. It was very doubtful whether any endeavours of this
sort, from whatever quarter they came, could be successful after
he was so far engaged; and he could not fail to consider the
attempt in the most ungracious light, both with respect to you
and to every other person engaged in it. Add to this, that I did
not then know that you had any object in it, beyond the common
course of army patronage. With respect to what you mention of
the aggravation arising from the preference given in this
instance over your own nephew, and of its being publicly known
in Dublin that Colonel Nugent's name, and your wishes in his
behalf, had been previously stated to the King, I can positively
assure you that neither Pitt nor myself, nor even Fitzherbert,
as he has expressly told me, had any knowledge of your intention
to recommend Colonel Nugent till several days after this
transaction passed. Under these circumstances, I cannot still
help thinking that I acted right in not taking such steps as
must involve you, whether you wished or not, in a personal
contest of this nature with the King.
In the point which I did labour, I have failed; but from what
reason, or from what fatality, I am utterly at a loss to
conceive. It is certainly true that, both in the commission and
in the instructions to the Lord-Lieutenant, all military
promotions are expressly reserved to the King, and that they do
not fall in the line either of those offices which the
Lord-Lieutenant himself disposes of, or of those on which the
King declares his intention of waiting for the Lord-Lieutenant's
recommendation. But the practice and the understanding certainly
is, and it is so recognised in Lord Sydney's letter, that the
Lord-Lieutenant should recommend to all commissions below the
rank of Colonel. It is on this ground that I thought, and
continue to think, that the King's _wishes_ only ought to have
been intimated to you, and that your recommendation ought to
have preceded the appointment. I understood Fitzherbert, at the
time, that he had been assured by Lord Sydney that the thing
should be done in this mode. To make this more secure Pitt,
undertook, as I have before mentioned, to see him before he
wrote to you, and as that was impossible before the Monday, he
begged him to delay his letter till then. We none of us
conceived that the delay of these two days would have afforded
you any additional uneasiness, as the whole circumstance would,
in the interim, have been stated to you, and explained by
Fitzherbert and myself. When I saw Pitt afterwards, he assured
me that the thing would be done as I wished it. How it has
happened, after this, that you have received the notification
exactly in that form which both Pitt and myself laboured so much
to prevent, is to me utterly inexplicable. I know that what I am
going to say will seem to you extraordinary, and yet I must say
it, because it is the real truth: I am still in the entire,
firm, and thorough persuasion that there is not in Lord Sydney
the remotest wish (as there cannot be the shadow of an interest)
to do anything that can be personally offensive, or even
disagreeable to you. Pitt, on whose sincerity I have ever found
reason to rely, has assured me that he is in the same belief,
and Fitzherbert entirely agrees with me. I am to see Pitt again
in the course of to-day; but I am not sure whether it will be
time enough for this letter. He will have endeavoured to inform
himself upon the subject, and to see whether any and what
solution can be found for the difficulties which you feel with
respect to it. You will, I am sure, feel--and, indeed, your last
letter seems to express it--that after what has passed it is
impossible to induce the King to withdraw Colonel Gwynne, as
that would be a disgrace to which nothing could make him submit,
short of a necessity more absolute than he could see in this
case. Whatever else can be done you will, I am sure, find Pitt
ready and desirous to do. I showed him your letter, which I
received to-day; but I had not communicated to him your two
former letters, because he is spoken of there in terms very
different from what his conduct in this business has merited.
Your letter to him was written in a strain of more justice; but
it is surely early in this business for you to complain of
having been abandoned.
I shall write to you again to-morrow, and it is not impossible
that you may receive that letter even before this, as I think I
shall avail myself of Bernard's offer to be the carrier of it. I
have written this in the same free and unreserved manner in
which I am happy to think our correspondence has ever been
carried on; I am not, however, without uneasiness as to the
impression which it may make on your mind. I feel the
peculiarity of my situation, and the possibility of your
thinking that I am biassed by my own personal objects, to lay
less stress upon points affecting your honour than I should
otherwise do. I have, however, relied on your entertaining a
more favourable opinion of me. If I do not grossly flatter
myself, I am capable of forming an opinion unbiassed by the
considerations to which I allude; especially on points where my
own honour, or that which I value as dearly as my own, is
concerned. I have examined my own heart, and can say, with
confidence, that it is not from personal motives that I speak,
when I say that you lay upon these points a degree of weight far
beyond what they deserve. If you were in a situation of
inferiority or dependance, a watchful attention to everything of
this sort would be necessary, and therefore commendable;
because, without that, you could not preserve the degree of
respect and consideration which is essential to carrying on the
duties of your office. In your actual situation, it is surely
not doing justice to yourself to talk of being disgraced by such
circumstances as these, or to imagine that your consequence can
be lessened or impaired by them. With respect to the thing
itself, I believe that it never happened to the most absolute
Minister that ever governed this country to feel it in his power
to exclude all personal interference from the Crown in the
nomination to offices. I am sure it is not a matter of policy to
any Minister to wish it; and a very little reflection will
convince you that such at least is not the system of the present
Government, or of the present times. How, then, are you
disgraced, because a single instance of this nature occurs
within what are understood to be the limits of your patronage?
But you will say this may be repeated, and I shall lose the
means of carrying on the Government. My answer is, that you will
act in Ireland as you would act here in any of the situations of
this Government; that the line is perfectly easy to be defined
to every man's understanding, though not reduced to a written
rule, and the limits easily seen, where the King's
recommendations cease to be the casual exertions of private
favour, and begin to be systematic interferences with the power
entrusted to his servants. Ask yourself which is the case in
this instance.
I could say much more upon this subject--particularly to state
the effect which a resignation on these grounds would have--but
I am satisfied, from the tenour of your last letter, that this
is a step you will not adopt, except on more pressing grounds.
I have not time to add anything more to this letter--not even
those assurances (which are, however, I trust, unnecessary) of
my constant, sincere, and zealous affection and interest in
whatever concerns you. You shall hear again from me at latest by
to-morrow's post.
Ever yours,
W. W. G.