the legal and responsible ministers of the crown: by which the enlightened councils of the incorruptible Fox were proscribed from St. James's, and the desperate and tyrannical Pitt was stimulated by the back stair sycophants to open Pandora's box upon the empire. The contents of it are still operating their destructive havoc upon us. I followed your patron through various efforts to support the Pitt system in England and Ireland* to the nationa! festival for the King's * A reference to my history of Ireland in 2 vols. octavo, whilst under an injunction, might be misconstrued into a contempt of court, by presuming it to be in circulation in defiance of its order; it is moreover incumbent upon me to falsify the charge of my being led on blindly by the blind, and gaggling after the foreign influence men like a wild goose, assertions without proof and calumnies ad nauseam. I shall therefore present to my readers a compendious and faithful tableau of your patron's administration of Ireland from the inimitable hand of Ireland's most favoured model of talent, truth, and patriotism. If there be truth in the trite saying, like master like man, this exhibition will not be considered a hors d'œuvre (Speech of Grattan in Par. Deb. 15) "Such has been the 46 conduct of your Reformer. This was the man; you remember his entry into thè capital, trampling on the hears, "of the Duke of Rutland, and seated in a triumphant Car, "drawn by public credulity. On one side fallacious hope, and on the other many mouthed profession: a figure with "two faces; one turned to the treasury; and the other pre"sented to the people with a double tongue speaking contradictory language. This minister alights : justice looks "up to him with ample hopes, and peculation faints with idle alarms. He finds the city a prey to an un-constitutional King's recovery in 1789, where he toasted that illfated minister, as the friend to Ireland, next to the King and Queen, and to the exclusion of His R. Highness the Prince of Wales. You, Reverend and most learned Doctor, cannot have forgotten, however you may now disapprove of the two Houses of the Irish Parliament having prepared an address (your patron refused to forward it) to His Royal Highness, to take upon himself during his Royal Father's, indisposition, the government of the Kingdom according to its laws and constitution, with all regal powers jurisdiction police he continues it. He finds the country over burthened * with a shameful pension list-he encreases it. He finds the "House of Commons swarming with placemen-he multiplies them. He finds the salary of the Secretary encreased to prevent a pension-he grants a pension. He finds the king"dom drained by absentee employments, and by compensations to buy them home-he gives the best reversion in the "country to an absentee-his brother. He finds the govern. ment at different times had disgraced itself by creating ❝sinecures, to gratify corrupt affection-he makes two com. "missioners of the rolls, and gives one of them to another brother. He finds the second council to the commissioners .. put down because useless-he renews it. He finds the boards of accounts and stamps annexed by public compact--, "he divides them. He finds three resolutions, declaring, "that seven commissioners are sufficient-he makes nine."He finds the country has suffered by some peculations in "the ordnance-he encreases the salaries of offices, and gives "the places to Members-to Members of Parliament." jurisdiction and perogatives thereto belonging. Hence the fatal precedent for the late un-constitutional restriction of the Regent's powers by the avowed disciples of the Pitt school. I then anticipated the horror and aversion of your new Maecenas, at the prospect of any independent unbiassed and faithful history of that government, which he had twice administered upon the principles of the Pitt system. Still however I would not expose myself to the imputation of having omitted any opportunity, which lay before me, of procuring information and document for authenticating my historical researches. I endeavoured through a common friend to secure the longed for interview. The following letter, which I received after my return to London, bespeaks the patriotic sympathy, with which Dr. M'Dermott endeavoured to forward the success of my application to you. DEAR SIR, Booterstown, Nov. 20, 1801. Letter I take the pen to inform you, that Mr. O'Conor's address is, Stowe, Buckingham. I have already acquainted him with the nature of your undertaking, and of the objects it embraces; to promote which I have made it a point with him, that he should furnish you with all the materials within his reach. I am sensible however, that it must be extremely difficult to communicate much historical information by letter, except as to particular facts or dates, which may appear dubi ous to you. If there be any such, and that you mention them by letter to Mr. O'Conor, I have no doubt, but that he will bé able either to elucidate those matters himself, or at least, that he will point out the best sources of information to you, There from Dr. M'Dermett There is scarce any book on Irish history or antiquities, which you may have occasion for, that he cannot furnish you with, if you cannot procure it in London. I wish, however, that same chance may bring him to that city: as he might shew you his second volume, the manuscript of which he might be unwilling to part with. On the whole, I have requested him to render you every assistance in his power, and I hope you will find him as liberal in his communications, as he ought to be. Mr. O'Leary must, I apprehend, have been misinformed: Mr. O'Conor wrote no continuation of Curry's Historical Review. He wrote an Introduction to it, at considerablc length, which was prefixed to the Quarto edition, but omitted afterwards in the Octavo edition by an ill-judged parsimony. He also wrote a summary of Irish history in the article of Ireland in Guthrie's Geography, which was published in Dublin by Chambers about the year 1788 in Quarto; at least a great part of that article was furnished by Mr. O'Conor. It may not be amiss, that you should see both it and the Introduction. The latter was highly spoken of by the Monthly Review. The further researches of Mr. O'Conor into our history are either scattered in pamphlets, which principally relate to the penal laws, or are diffused amongst his manuscripts, which are all in the hands of Dr. Charles O'Conor at Stowe. We purpose going down to Connaught in adout a fortnight. I should be happy if a return to my books and papers could enable me to send you any timely communications. You may at all times freely command my best exertions; and you may be assured of my good wishes for the speedy completion of your Work. Last week I had a letter from Dr. O'Conor, who was then at Brazen.nose, Oxford. He therein tells me, that Cox is the greatest liar of all our historians, except Morrison. He quotes to me the following passage from the body of Cox's Work. "Oh "Oh that they were the Irish papists, who cut off King Charles's head! Oh! that they had been the guilty regi "cides! But alas, &c. &c." I am, with great esteem and regard, Dear Sir, Your very assured Servant, HUGH M'DERMOTT. cation to bis correspondent. As soon after the receipt of this letter as the pro-r's gress I had made in the manuscript, and my profes- first appli sional engagements would allow of, I wrote to you on the 6th of February from London, to the fo!lowing effect. DEAR SIR, Essex-Street, London, Feb. 6, 1801. Although I have not the honor of being personally known to you, yet I trust, that the communications made to you concerning me, and the business, which carried me over to Ireland last autumn by Dr. M'Dermott, will apologize not only for the liberty I now take in troubling you with this letter, but also in entreating the favor of your letting me know, where you shall be on or about the 12th of the month, in order that I may have an opportunity of some conversation with you. Should you be at Oxford, I will come thither: if at Stowe, I will come to the Inn near that place, which I recollect many years, ago, and I presume still subsists. Should this find you at Oxford, I shall esteem an immediate answer a very singular favor. I have the honor to be with great esteem and respect, Sir, your obedient humble Servant, To the Rev. Dr. O'Conor, Brazen-nose College, Oxford. |