effectual than any thing of your own. The author would not dissemble, that whilst he was writing, he so conceived it would be. The Minister manifested more than ordinary astonishment, apparently not unmixed with anger, when the author informed him, that he had given in a note to his History the papers put into the hands of Earl Fingall, and Dr. Troy, by Mr. Pitt, and Marquis Cornwallis, respecting their going out of office upon their inability to carry the Catholic question*. The author met the rising displeasure of the * In Mr. Pitt's paper the Catholics are assured, that the then leading part of his Majesty's Ministers finding unsurmountable obstacles to the bringing forward measures of concession to the Catholic body, whilst in office, had felt it impossible to continue in administration under the inability to propofe it with the cir cumstances necessary to carrying the measure with all its advantages, and they had retired from his Majesty's service, considering this line of conduct as most likely to contribute to its ultimate success. The Catholic body might with confidence rely on the zealous support of all those who then retired, and of many who remained in office, when it could be given with a prospect of success. They might be assured that Mr. Pitt would do his utmost to establish their cause in the public favour, and prepare the way for their finally attaining their objects. Marquis Cornwallis's paper is intitled, The Sentiments of a sincere Friend to the Catholic Claims. It purports, that if the Catholics should proceed to violence, or entertain any ideas of gaining their object by convulsive measures, or forming associa tions with men of Jacobinical principles, they must of course lose the support and aid of those, who have sacrificed their own situations in their cause; but who would, at the same time, feel it the Premier, by submitting to him the utter im possibility of suppressing documents of such consequence, which manifested to the nation, or rather to the whole British empire (they are not slightly affected by the change) the grounds, upon which Mr. Pitt and his friends retired from office; consequently of those, upon which his successors came in. In the course of this interview Mr. Addington very distinctly, and very forcibly, thrice intimated to the author, that by his pledged resistance to this question of Catholic emancipation, he had come into and continued in that house. The author presuming, that his Majesty had other motives for promoting him to that important station, took the liberty of expressing his hopes, that he was not inexorable in that opposi. tion; he replied, he was not to be moved from it. Another topic of conversation at this interview was far from being unimportant to the public. The primary object of the author's commission was it to be their indispensable duty to oppose every thing tending to confusion. On the other hand, should the Catholics be sensible of the benefits they possess by having so many characters of eminence pledged not to embark in the service of Government except on the terms of the Catholic privileges being obtained, it is to be hoped, that in balancing the advantages and disadvantages of their situation, they would prefer a quiet and peaceable demeanour to any line of conduct of an opposite description. Vide Hist. Rev. vol. ii. p. 944• was to convert the truth of Irish history into evidence of the utility and advantages of incorporate union; it was but therefore consistent, that the historian should, as far as truth would bear him out, conmend the system of Marquis Cornwallis's government of that country. The commendation of that humane, just, and firm governor became indirect censure upon the opposite system of government pursued by his immediate predecessor; and the author submitted to the Premier, that he did not conceive he could do more honour to Earl Camden, than to say of him what the Earl of Clare avowed in the Irish Lords in January 1798, that the system of coercion was extorted from him; and as it was evident, that this system had diffused a wide and deep sense of soreness and disaffection throughout the country, it became the duty of the historian to remove the odium of those measures, as far as truth would allow, from the door of the British cabinet. He had therefore thrown it where it immediately rested, upon a certain triumvirate, who then political power of that country. monopolized the They have since the hand of God been chiefly removed from it by or the power of the executive. The author was here sharply interrogated, whether he could for an instant presume it to have been the Minister's wish or intention, that a syllable should have dropped from from the author's pen to the disparagement of the respectable names of Clare, Foster, and Beresford. He scouted the idea of any difference of principle or system in the two governments of Earl Camden and Marquis Cornwallis. It was an identity of spirit and principle applicable to the varying circumstances of a rising, raging, and expiring rebellion *. Mr. Addington very significantly assured H * Such also was the language of every other gentleman connected with or dependant upon the present administration, with whom the author, at any time since the publication of his history, has conversed upon the subject of it. They have been all taught to identify the spirit and principle of the governments of Earl Camden and Marquis Cornwallis; as if a besotted public would second their attempt to varnish over a system of discord, blood, and terror (the discordant part of it has been since revived), with the wisdom and lustre of the opposite measures of his immediate successor; or to defile the moderate, humane, just, firm, and uniting system of Marquis Cornwallis with the slightest tint, shade, or spirit of that system of acerbity, which the late Lord Clare vaunted had been extorted from Earl Camden. So spoke Mr. Wickham to the author on the 24th day of July last (the day after the late explosion in Dublin). In a conversation of nearly two hours, Mr. Secretary distinctly disclosed to the author the grounds of the Minister's displeasure and offence at his history: it treated with unseemly freedom some of the most revered characters of that nation: it spoke disrespectfully of persons (the Orange-men) to whom Government looked up for the salvation of the country: it retailed horrors beyond those of the French revolution. When the author surmised the probability of some immediate attempts of the discontented in Ireland, he was boastingly assured of the unprecedented tranquillity and content diffused through the country by means of the mild and conciliatory measures of the Castle Thus assured the author, that he knew not the grounds, views, or motives, of Lord Cornwallis's actions. This Thus also spoke Viscount Castlereagh to the author on the 15th of August; and who should better know the different systems, than the Secretary at the close of Lord Camden's and through the whole of Lord Cornwallis's administration? He also identified the views, spirit, principles, and measures of the two governments. When this Noble Lord assured the author, that he had never before that day heard of such a work as the Historical Review, the author apologized for not having sent a copy of it to his Lordship, fearing thereby to offend him, as he conceived he had offended others. The author was probably more sensible than an indifferent person of his Lordship's ignorance of the publication two months after it had been before the public. His astonishment however abated on reflecting, that this was the same Noble Lord, who in the Imperial House of Commons on the 18th of March 1801, (Vide Parl. Reg. 435) in all the pomp of official solemnity alleged, that no forture had been used in Irelaud under the authority, or with the approbation of Government. Notwithstanding it be matter of lamentable noto. riety, that triangles were kept in daily and often in hourly agita tion on the Royal Exchange, on the old Custom-house Quay, in Mr. Beresford's Riding-house, the Prevost at the Barracks, in the Arsenal-yard within the Castle, and other places in Dublin, for several months together, in the year 1798, when this Noble Lord was Secretary, and consequently must have known, that such unconstitutional engines (how could he be ignorant?) were worked with the authority and approbation of that Government, of which he was the active minister. The sufferings and cries of these tortured victims were certainly calculated to make a deeper impression upon his Lordship's conceptions and memory, than Mr. Egerton's extensive advertisements of the Historical Review. This ignorance and denial of the Government's sanctioning the torture seemed confined to this Noble Lord; for even Mr. J. C. Beresford admitted (Parl. Reg. 439) such seve rities |