Royal Hotel, Pall Mall,
Saturday, August 30th, 1788.
My very good Lord,
My complaints at times to your Excellency, and my apprehensions
expressed to you that bodily weakness and the infirmities of old
age were coming upon me apace, will prevent your Excellency from
being much surprised when I tell you that my journey hither,
which at first I thought would have relieved me, hath served
only to confirm me in the apprehensions I had conceived that the
hour of infirmity, which is an enemy to all exertion, and first
weakens and slackens the course of business, and soon afterwards
disables, was not far off.
I now grow so clumsy and weak in my limbs, and so soon grow
tired and fatigued to a degree painful to me, that although my
mind seems as well as ever, yet I am sure that I cannot long do
my duty, and there is nothing I dread so much as sitting upon a
great seat of justice as a kind of ruin, and in a state of
decay. In my seventy-fourth year, I am not sure that avarice may
not lay hold of me, and tempt me to stay where I am, until I
feel or am made to feel, by being told that I have stayed too
long; and that peevishness too, an attendant upon old age, may
not put an end to that command of temper, which I have ever
endeavoured to preserve; and that, with such enemies to fair
fame, I may soon impair and sully the character and esteem which
I may at present have.
Under these impressions, my wishes to retire become divided,
which they were not until within these few days past. I should
have been happy in first declaring this to you, wishing in
everything to do that which but expresses my sincere attachment
to and regard for your Excellency. But being going into the
royal presence, I resolved to lay myself at His Majesty's feet,
and express to him my apprehensions and my wishes to retire, if
I could do so in a manner honourable and convenient to myself,
when His Majesty's service would admit of it. Accordingly,
yesterday, in the closet, I did as I had resolved. His Majesty's
kindness and goodness to me was beyond what I can express.
Retirement, before decay actually comes on, meets his ideas
perfectly; and I have every reason to think that I am lucky in
the choice I have made of the present opportunity.
I have also communicated my wishes to Mr. Pitt, who received me
with attention and kindness. He said he would confer with His
Majesty upon the subject, and forthwith communicate the matter
to you, without whose participation and concurrence I cannot be
at ease and happy. Upon a measure of such importance as this is
to me, I exceedingly wish that you should be possessed of the
motives and principles upon which I act; and I will state them
to you without reserve. But permit me first to say, that I hope
and think that avarice cannot be imputed to me; for, parting
with £10,000 per annum, for what must be greatly below it,
excludes the imputation. Ambition must be equally out of the
question, for I want no advancement in the Peerage.
Now, as to my motives and principles at this time. I am in my
seventy-fourth year, and although my mind, assisted by
experience for a number of years, that makes few things new to
me, may be as good as ever, yet the weakness of my limbs, my
inability to go through any bodily fatigue, and many other
monitions that tell me the day of great infirmity is at hand,
ought not to be unattended to by any man who hath sound sense or
any religion about him.
I stand well, as I flatter myself, with the people of Ireland,
to whom I have administered justice for more than twenty years,
with both Houses of Parliament, and with the Bar of Ireland;
with all of whom I have lived without a quarrel with any man,
but I hope without forgetting what belonged to me to be mindful
of.
The country of Ireland quiet beyond what I have known it at any
time: a circumstance corresponding and consisting with my
declarations, at all times, that I would not ever be found to
act like a man who leaves the ship in a storm. And to these I
hope I may add that I have friends in Administration; that, in
particular, I have a friend in your Excellency; and that,
although in one of our last conversations you concluded your
expressions of great kindness with something that threatened
reluctance to my retirement, yet it was done with a countenance
and in a manner that flattered me with hopes that there was a
friendship under it, that would afford me your assistance
whenever the occasion should direct me to look up to and solicit
your Excellency for it.
All these circumstances concurring (and so many concurring
together I cannot, according to a reasonable calculation of
human affairs, much expect), determined me to do as I have done.
I have struggled to overcome my passion for my office in
Ireland; but I submit, because I am worn out, or rather am as
near being worn out as, I think, a man who wishes to preserve a
dignity of character should approach to. I have exceedingly
wished to afford your Excellency every assistance in my power
during your Administration; and if I retire from the Great Seal,
I shall most certainly retain that wish, and display it by such
proof as you can desire, and as I can with the warmest
attachment afford you. Your Excellency will be a gainer by a
change, as you will have the exertions of a younger and more
vigorous man, and my best help added to it.
I did not come out of the King's closet until between six and
seven yesterday evening, and I was then so fatigued that I could
not set pen to paper.
I have not said anything upon this subject to anybody here, save
only to the King and Mr. Pitt.
Permit me to beg your Excellency's friendship in this matter,
that so much concerns me and my family. Your kindness in it, you
may rely upon it, will never be forgotten by me, and I shall
transmit the remembrance of it to those who are to come after
me. I have now done, and have the honour to be, with the most
sincere attachment and respect, my very good Lord, your
Excellency's most faithful and most obedient, humble servant,
Lifford.