sense of his dignity and independence. He repented his folly in having himself given uncontrouled discretion and powers to the subalterns of the Irish government; who, he had not the sagacity to perceive, were more the agents of the British Cabinet, than servants of the Irish Viceroy. Mr. Pitt had now personally offended by encroaching on the Vice regal patronage: and Lord Hardwicke was determined, that his resentment should be also personal. His Lordship was judicious in taking issue with the British minister, upon a point favourable to Ireland. Though he foresaw, that victory would be followed by retreat, he was resolved, that it should not even be attempted, without previously possessing himself of an unassailable position. He secured to his own family the office of Clerk of the Pleas of the Court of Exchequer in Ireland, by putting the great seal to the grant of it after the death of the Earl of Buckinghamshire, for the lives of himself and his two sons and the survivor. The place is a sinecure, generally estimated a £16,000 per annum, and is considered to be the best appointment in the gift of the Irish government.

1805.

Mr. Pitt, wicke and

Lord Ha rd

Sir Jonah

The grand struggle for power between the Premier and the Viceroy was a remote consequence of the Union; carrying upon the face of it the cha- Barrington. racteristic features of that state juggle. So essential for his system did Mr. Pitt find the services of his Irish friends up to the Union, that the ineffectual opposition given to it by some few of them he readily forgave, and anxiously courted them to fall

1805.

back into their old ranks, and rally once more round the principles, upon which he had brought Ireland into its present state of debility and degradation. Mr. (now Sir Jonah) Barrington, Judge of the Admiralty Court in Ireland, had been raised to that situation for his long and faithful services to the Irish government with an annual salary of £800. The judicial duties of the situa tion were so light, as not to break in upon the functions of a practising barrister. He became moreover one of the most active and powerful opposers of the Union by his pen and tongue, both in and out of Parliament. The principles and manner of carrying that fatal measure appeared to have operated an entire change in his political sentiments and conduct; and he early took the resolution, in concurrence with Mr. Charles Ball, the barrister, who had also taken a determined part against it, to transmit to posterity a faithful record of the whole infamy of that transaction. Before the Anti-union fervor had abated, they collected all the documents, which would disclose to posterity the means, by which the measure had been forced through Parliament against the avowed sense and feeling of the Irish nation. The history was finished and put to press in London, in July 180s. Sir Jonah Barrington went over to superintend and manage the work. He had several interviews with Lord Pelham, then Secretary of State: and no more was heard of the history of the Union during the Addington administration. Great preparations had been made to give effect to

the work, which the author habitually pronounced 1805. the death warrant of the hopes of Ireland. Drawings and engravings of the principal performers in that eventful tragedy were procured from the first artists, and every aid of type and paper were to be used, to add lustre and consequence to the interesting substance of the contents. It was more generally known, that the work had been put to press, than why no progress had for a time been made in it. Upon the first intentions of publishing this work, it was more. a matter of boast and recommendation than secrecy, that Mr. Foster had furnished the authors with many interesting anecdotes, and proofs of particular sums of money paid to persons for borough interests and accommodation, douceurs for resignations, or occasional absences from the House of Commons, for particular speeches in Parliament, for a variety of positive and negative services purchased by the mana gers of the Union and amongst other valuable documents, was a copy of a long and curious correspondence between Mr. Pitt and Lord Castlereagh, relative to the expedients and means of forcing the Union. For impressing more deeply upon the public the authenticity of the documents, the authors had gone to the expence of engraving fac-similes of several of the most important letters, and drafts for Union service monies, which were generally given upon. Beresford's bank. Some time after Mr. Pitt's, return to office, Sir J. Barrington revisited London, and resumed his intentions and shew of publication. Mr. Foster, who had again

1805 thrown himself into the arms of Mr. Pitt and

Lord Castlereagh, after having completely expiated the solitary crime of having once fought (though unsuccessfully) for Ireland, apprized them of the variety of authentic documents, with which that history might be supported. Their alarm and agitation drove them to their old practices? and to prevent detection, they undertook to purchase suppression; with attention, however, to the other contracting party, in the most honourable manner, that they could devise. A negociation was accordingly set on foot, through Mr. H. Alexander, a former political friend of all parties, and a man of tried fidelity in the school of Pitt. It was soon settled by these negociators, that £800 per annum was a very insufficient charge for a Judge of the Admiralty in Ireland; that, in order to give full dignity and effect to the situation, the salary should be raised to £2500, which would place the Judge of the Admiralty on a footing with the puisne Judges of the Common Law courts, and enable him to discontinue the practice of his profession. The terms were settled in London between the minister and the historian, without any communication with the Lord Lieutenant; he was, however, not ignorant of them. The moment he was officially apprized of the object of the minister, he took strong objection to the measure; alledging, that the place, for which they were about to make so splendid an allowance, was nearly a sinecure, and that he could never consent to encrease the bur thens of an oppressed people by extravagant

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and unmerited public charges.

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His Excellency 1803. also observed, that he ought to have been consulted in the first instance, before any proposal had been made; and much more so, before any engagement had been entered into. This unexpected firmness in an Irish Lord Lieutenant astonished and confounded Mr. Pitt. Within very few days something little short of an absolute command, went to Mr. Long, the new Secretary, that the Lord Lieutenant should sign the warrant for the encrease of Mr. Barrington's salary; which Lord Hardwicke peremptorily refused. Ireland is trebly indebted to Lord Hardwicke for this first, though late resistance to the mandate of the British ministet. It was an assertion of the dignity and rights of the King's Vicegerent: it eased the country of a perpetuity of £1700 per annum and prevented the suppression of an able and interesting work, of which two numbers of a most splendid edition have kindled a desire in the public to be gratified with the remainder.

Case of Troy v. Sg

On the very day before the Parliament was prorogued, a trial came on in the Court of King's mond Bench, Westminster, Troy v. Symonds, which, in as much as it was national matter, ought not to pass unnoticed.It had been intended and expected to be tried long before it was actually brought on. The most rev. Dr. Troy, the Catholic or (as he is conmonly styled) titular Archbishop of Dublin, was the plaintiff, and Mr.. Symonds, a bookseller in Pater Noster Roza, London, the publisher of the Anti Jacobin review, the defendant. The action was