Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/267

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1763-1765
SHELBURNE AND ROCKINGHAM
241

Lord Lieutenant was sent over to quiet things. The undertakers were restored, but could no longer make the good terms for Government which they used to do; things were laid too much open for the old system to revive; and there was no new system prepared to substitute in its place. The foundation was thus laid, and may be easily traced from that time to the total emancipation of the legislature of Ireland from that of Great Britain, and the complete Revolution which has since taken place in regard to the fundamental laws of Ireland.[1]

"His Irish unpopularity did not affect his line in England, where it was little attended to, and less understood; he rose rapidly in consideration, and his fortune ran quickly to its termin. In the military line he had no rival, at least no one who could cope with him in regard to family, fortune, connection, or talents for imposition and intrigue. Enough was known of his character for everybody to fear him, as he was generally understood to be of a vindictive implacable disposition. In a political line he did not as yet set up to be Minister, which made him an object to all parties as a second. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox both bid for him; his Westminster connection secured him constant access to the Duke of Newcastle, and let him into every secret of that house, while he assiduously cultivated and promoted his mother's country people, the Scotch, which made a form of union between him and the Earl of Bute. He naturally excelled in that species of dexterity and address which enabled him to turn all these circumstances to his consideration. The war breaking out, he could not avoid serving, which he chose to do upon the coast of France under the Duke of Marlborough, an easy, good-natured, gallant man, who took a strange fancy for serving, to get quit of the ennui attending a private life, without any military experience or the common habits of a man of business, or indeed capacity for either, and no force of character whatever.[2] This opened a fine game to Lord G. Sackville, who played it off

  1. Writing in 1785 Horace Walpole says: "The man who certainly provoked Ireland to think is dead." H. Walpole to Mann, August 26th, 1785, Correspondence, ix. 10.
  2. The Expedition to Rochefort in 1757 is here alluded to.
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