By the Irish Parliament certain donations had been annually made for public or charitable institutions. By the Imperial Parliament these charges were granted on the motion of Mr. Corry, the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the present year, 1801, the charges are as follows: the Public Offices. To the Accountant-General To the Deputy Accountant-General To paymaster of corn bounties To the examination of corn bounties. Exports *Now the South Dublin Union. 5,538 9 3 18,166 11 10 313 16 11 221 10 9 738 9 3 184 12 4 184 12 4 Some of these items might fairly be charged upon the Imperial Exchequer, but with regard to the rest there was no obligation under the Act of Union in any way binding the United Parliament to make good these annual charges. Some were of Irish public concern, and others peculiarly and essentially charges on the rates of Dublin. But in the first intoxication of the honeymoon's first quarter the bridegroom will not play the curmudgeon and grudge the payment of this little bill at least out of the joint matrimonial purse. It will look well in Ireland, where accordingly the loyal press enlarges on the generosity and good-will displayed to the country by the Imperial Parliament. Doubtless, too, this arrangement was one of the numerous treaties, jobs, settlements, closetings, intrigues, etc., the dim under-world of which the Act in the Statute Book is the highly respectable peak. Still, that the national purse should be drawn upon in ease of a little plundering nest of Dublin oligarchs was a scandal, though a small one, and the age of chivalry being past, a ruthless economist and calculator was at hand to rip up and expose this modest financial fraud. On the debate for the appropriation of these sums, an economical Philistine, Robson by name, representing the district of St. Mary-la-bonne, has a very untimely and disagreeable word to say as to the sums proposed to be allocated to the use of the Dublin Board of Commissioners. Robson explained that in his parish no such Imperial assistance was given to the ratepayers;, that there the cleaning, paving, and lighting were perfect, while Dublin, witness a recent complaint by its own Grand Jury, was in a filthy mess; that labour was cheaper in Dublin than in Londori; and that yet the rates of St. Mary-la-bonne were but fourteen pence in the pound, while Dublin groaned under the heavy burthen of eighteen pence. Warming up, he then, with insulting comments, careered through the items of expenditure, enlarging on the perfumed wash-balls, the cards, and gilt paper and camphorated wax appearing in the accounts, the splendid incomes of Commissioners who did not even pretend to do any work, and Inspectors of Nuisances who inspected nothing, and the Inspectors-General of Globes with their six deputies, loudly asserting that the whole management was a swindle, and the Commissioners, with their immediate entourage, were a mere nest of public thieves. Lord de Blaquiere promptly and with great spirit and ire resisted this uncomfortable economist. Yet surely in an age when every public man believed that he had a right to dip his hand in the people's purse, men who had the control of a considerable city and were closely allied with Government, might create for themselves sinecures, and be of service to their friends without being upbraided by pence-counting Jacobins. I remark that in this age any man who raises his voice in any direction against the State plunderer is called a Jacobin. This Jacobin, however, was apparently a mere merchant and business man, and so was without much difficulty snuffed out. Note, too, that our virtuous oligarchy, which will presently with averted faces silently ignore Nelson's dying request for a lady whom he loved not wisely but too well, is in these times a grand patron of gambling, preaching up this vice from their high Imperial pulpit more powerfully than the clergy and moralists can preach it down. The Irish and the English Parliaments have been accustomed to raise the wind each year by a grand State lottery, which even in beggared Ireland has brought in some £200,000 in a year. We have now a grand Imperial lottery, the proceeds of which, on the twoseventeenths principle, will be shared between the Irish and English Exchequers. CHAPTER VII. SKULL SUCCEEDS CHARLATAN. FEBRUARY 10 the great War Minister retires from. office for reasons not a few, taking along with him. certain of his friends, to be succeeded by the Addington Administration, a galaxy of talent not of exceeding brilliancy; chief amongst which shines the star of Castlereagh, with his faithful satellites, his century of Irish blackguards, for such and no more they appeared then to sour indignant Grattan, as now to the impartial eye of history. Pitt retires, pursued by Royal compliments and regrets, as the coachman may for a while surrender the ribbons to some young feather-brain, but all the time keeps a keen eye upon the driver-warning, advising, pressing now this rein, now that, with a nod or a wink to the passengers, and ready the moment he pleases to eject the neophyte and resume his charioteering with a flourish and a vigorous administration of leather to his flagging cattle. |