near his property in Berkshire. So unanimous was the warfeeling at this time, that any opposition to the minister in Parliament must have been ineffectual; nor was Pitt slow to perceive this, or to show that he perceived it. Fox had, with a few of his immediate followers, seceded from his post in Parliament, disgusted and disheartened at the progress of a policy which he condemned, and the disastrous prospects of a cause which was the dearest to his heart. Mr Tierney became, pro tempore, leader of the Opposition. In this character he resisted, as precipitate, a proposal of Pitt's, that a bill for the augmentation of the navy should be passed through all its stages in the Commons, and sent up to the Lords the same night. Piqued at the terms of Tierney's objection, and impatient of any resistance, Pitt descended to personalities, and reproached Tierney with an intention to impede the defence of the country.' Tierney appealed to Addington, the Speaker, who called Pitt to order. Pitt gave an equivocal explanation, which he afterwards converted into an insult, by saying, I gave no explanation; be'cause I wished to abide by the words which I used.' Addington, who might, and ought to have interfered, took no notice of this; and the consequence of his inexcusable backwardness was a duel, in which neither of the combatants was wounded. On receiving Tierney's Sunday challenge, Pitt wrote to Addington, who instantly rode to Wimbledon, where he arrived just in time to see the harmless conclusion of the duel, and accept an invitation to dine with Pitt. Within five years from that day, Tierney took office in an administration headed by Addington!

That the year 1799 passed over without the dreaded invasion, was an unhappy subject of congratulation, for an old and haughty 'nation proud in arms. Our triumphs were limited to India and the ocean. The two Wellesleys were, by their policy and vigour, consolidating the empire which Clive had founded. It is true, that the capture of Seringapatam encouraged, in some degree, the spirit which the victory of the Nile had raised; but neither these, nor the brilliant defence of Acre, reconciled an ambitious and murmuring people to the nearer disgrace of the Duke of York's failure in Holland. It was in such a state of affairs, that Ireland contributed more than its usual proportion of trouble, confusion, and perplexity to the minister. That country-predestined to be the torment and the scandal of every administration --so long misgoverned that good government has become almost impossible, or appears at least for a season to be without fruit and without reward had added to the terrors of hostile invasion, the greater terrors of civil rebellion. The rebellion was put down with a vindictive severity, which it would be unfair to assert that Pitt

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knew or desired. But the spirit which had raised the rebellion was not laid: And to conciliate Ireland became naturally the first object of the administration. Pitt had set his heart on the legislative union of the two countries. With a view to compass it, he had, fifteen years before, proposed a commercial union between them. The English Parliament had approved it. But the Irish-ardent for nationality and independence-rejected it. The late rebellion had shown that it was unsafe to leave such a neighbour to the counsels of a separate legislature, the intrigues of foreign powers, and the madness of a persecuted people. He therefore determined to achieve his long cherished object-the complete political and legislative union of the two countries. But at first in vain. Resolutions to this effect were approved of by the English, only to be rejected by the Irish Parliament.

While he was maturing his plans for preserving Ireland from the alternative of foreign subjugation or domestic insurrection, or from both, he received the news of the Duke of York's capitulation, at the head of 25,000 men. His equanimity on this occasion appears wonderful. A year earlier he had talked of obtaining a secure and permanent peace through 'a vigorous continuation of the war.' The event which had just occurred, displayed as little vigour in war, and promised as little security in peace, as might be. But Pitt could only write as follows:- The action took place on the 2d, in consequence of an attack made by our troops, which ended, as usual, 'much to their honour, and left us masters of the field of battle. 'But the advantage was not decisive enough to promise a farther progress without too much loss and risk; and it was, therefore, 'wisely determined to retreat to our former position behind the Zuyder; which has been done accordingly. We must now look only to the Helder, if it can be made secure, and withdraw the 'bulk of our force, to be nursed for future service.' The Dean's commentary on this coolness of the minister is characteristic:— Thus calmly could this great man express himself respecting 'the defeat of so large a portion of his own plan for the cam'paign.' It is comfortable, too, to learn, that Addington's mind was not long disquieted by a most ignominious defeat of a most costly expedition. The Speaker, though at first anxious, ' required, like his buoyant friend, but a short period to reconcile himself to these disappointments.' If this buoyancy' was genuine, what a notion does it give of the Speaker's, and the Premier's, recklessness! That it was genuine on Addington's part, we believe. He was not a man of strong sympathies, or profound sentiment. His character was too placid to be much disturbed by any public calamity, or any national disgrace. But

we are convinced, that on Pitt's part it was in a great degree affected. He had, despite his will, been entangled for a second time in war; and the war was oppressive, disastrous, and, with the exceptions we have specified, disgraceful. That the son of Chatham should not feel abject humiliation in the discomfiture of English arms, and the incompetency of his sovereign's son, we cannot bring ourselves to believe. On the contrary, we are convinced that it was mortification at his ill-success, and a growing hopelessness of all his efforts for an honourable peace, that dictated this assumption of haughty confidence and indifference. He was galled by the fruitlessness of expensive and burdensome campaigns, and no less saddened by the contrast which must have often forced itself on his mind, between his own fortune and that of him who had made the name of Pitt historical. But the memory of what his father had done, and he had failed to do, forbade the expression of despair or the desire of sympathy: And doubtless, he was looking forward, in the agony of his deep but silent solicitude, to the time when his conceptions should yet be realised; when England should identify her triumph, and Europe her salvation, with the name and policy of a second Pitt. But that time never came!

Meanwhile, events were ripening. The close of 1799 saw the beginning of a new constitution, and of a new era in France. The Directory had destroyed the Convention. The Consulate now destroyed the Directory; itself to be superseded by Napoleon. The First Consul wrote to George III. a letter which rather excused the continuance of war than proposed the basis of a peace; and, within a few months afterwards, he recrossed the Great St. Bernard. The battle of Marengo scattered one Austrian army, and secured Bonaparte a triumphal entry into Paris. The battle of Hohenlinden made an end of another, and wrung a separate treaty from Austria. There was now so little room for hope, that the advocates of war had to look for arguments in necessity and despair. We were abandoned by Austria and Prussia. We had contributed to the disgrace of Holland. Italy was cowed. and helpless. As Pitt expressed it- Within and without the 'prospect lowers.' Besides these great disasters, bread had become unprecedentedly dear. The kingdom was on the eve of a great scarcity, if not a famine. The people were restless under taxation. Pitt felt the national calamity and his own inability to mitigate these complicated afflictions. He was broken in mind, and shattered in body. In this state, he may have conceived the design, which he afterwards carried into execution, of resigning; and have cast about him for a

successor.

As yet, however, he had no plea for leaving office; but he found one ere long. At this period of his life, his letters to Addington are more full, confidential, and affectionate than formerly. In the grateful attention which the son of his father's physician would naturally pay to one by whom he had been elevated to the place of First Commoner, the disturbed and wearied mind of the Premier might reasonably hope to find some solace and repose. To Addington, accordingly, he now, for the first time, unbosoms himself, laying before him his doubts and fears. He asks his opinion, almost his advice: and it is to the shades of Woodley that he repairs, to recruit his health, and brood over the condition of the country. Addington expresses great delight at the prospect of entertaining him; but it is the delight with which an inferior acknowledges the honour done him by a superior. This year of illness and chagrin witnessed the increase of While taxation, and the consequent increase of discontent. the Habeas Corpus was again suspended, the Income-tax was still continued. But the minister had had one great success. He had called into existence the United Empires of Great Britain and Ireland; and he might reasonably hope that he had laid the foundation of a lasting union. But this measure brought all questions personal to himself to a speedy and decisive issue. The first Parliament of the United Kingdom convened within its walls a hundred Protestant representatives of a portion of the empire discontented from a hundred causes, and devoted to the Church of Rome. They were, in fact, the representatives of Irish Protestantism and Irish landlordism, not of the Irish people. Pitt knew that, throughout Ireland, such a representation would be derided as a fraud and a pretence. A Parliament of Irish Protestants legislating in College Green was a very different thing from a section of Irish Protestants, voting with five times as many English Protestants, in Saint Stephen's. In the one case, though still a faction they were an Irish faction; they were controlled by the opinion, and amenable to the wishes, of constituents who surrounded them; in the other, they were uninfluenced and irresponsible. More than this, Pitt had disseminated, or caused to be disseminated in Ireland, rumours that he was about to bring in a bill for the relief of the Roman Catholics. How far this was generally believed, or how far it had reconciled the people to the union, it is difficult to pronounce. Indeed, whether he really entertained the design, or only courted the credit of it, for the purpose of affording himself a decent pretext for quitting office, is among the questions which some political sceptics still consider as undecided.

The agents of Government had been for some time playing the difficult game of reconciling the two religious parties in the country to the ministerial plan. The Catholics were told that the friends of Protestant ascendancy would be satisfied by seeing a Catholic minority swamped in a Protestant senate; the Protestants were comforted by the assurance that the Catholics would now be too weak to do any harm. The union was held out as a politic civility to one class; as a real safeguard to the other. But the union was not carried by promises, assurances, or compliments. Security more substantial was required; and security more substantial was given. The patriots of Ireland had their price. The peerage and the representatives of Ireland named their own terms. Gold, pensions, titles, were showered upon men who rejoiced that they had a country to sell! Some five hundred families handed over their legislative independence to England, and the minister believed that, by satisfying their demands, and securing religious toleration, he should take the first step towards curing the maladies of their country, and correcting the misgovernment of centuries. The mistake was not peculiar to the man or his age. It had required twenty-five years to show that religious toleration was an element in the good government of Ireland. It may require twenty-five years more, from this time, to show that it was only one element. But whatever may have been Pitt's sincerity in promising Catholic emancipation, or his belief of its beneficial results, this is clear, beyond all doubt, that no sooner had the union been established, than he laid before the King a suggestion for the removal of Catholic disabilities. He was supported by a majority of his colleagues, including Lords Spencer, Grenville, and Camden, and his tried ally, Dundas. He was opposed by Lord Westmoreland and the Chancellor Loughborough. Out of the Cabinet, Canning, by his devotion, gave earnest of the liberalism by which he was destined to break from the trammels and the routine of the Tory party. The King was shocked, and perhaps affronted. Lord Malmesbury says, Mr Pitt, either from indolence, or from, perhaps, not paying always a sufficient and due attention to the King's pleasure, ' neglected to mention, ministerially, to his Majesty, that such a measure was in agitation, till he came at once with it for his approbation. In fact, George III. had heard of the minister's intention, through another channel, before Pitt cared to break it to him. The effect was such as might have been expected from the King's character; but such, too, we believe, as Pitt had himself foreseen. The conduct of the minister was an insult at once to the King's pride and his prejudices; it assailed his prerogative and his religion; or, rather, his particular form of