Lord Chancellor Bowes

Chapter XLI.

Life of John, Lord Bowes, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, from his birth to the rumours of French Invasion in 1759.

In compiling my memoir of Lord Chancellor Lord BOWES, I have to lament the want of any account of his early career. The very short statement in Duhigg’s ‘History of the King’s Inns,’ ‘that he came to the country in the train of Chancellor West’ being nearly all that I can find respecting him. Lord Chancellor West died in 1726, having been but one year in office, when Mr. Bowes was not more than twenty-nine years of age, which would give 1697 as the date of his birth. He was a native of Surrey in England, and possessed powerful friends. He was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple, Trinity Term, 1718. Duhigg says Bowes had two methods of attaining an independent station, each sufficient to insure him success, were he deficient (which was not the case) of legal talents. He was a native of England, and might return thither, where he had a powerful patron in Sir Philip Yorke, then Attorney-General of that kingdom, or under that banner solicit Irish promotion. He preferred remaining in Ireland, and was called to the Irish Bar by the Benchers of the King’s Inns, in Michaelmas Term, 1725. He soon obtained considerable practice, and received the rank of Serjeant in 1727. [Patent, May 4, 1727. He became second Serjeant by Patent dated January 18, 1728.]

Mr. Bowes was a graceful and fluent speaker. His abilities as a debater recommended him to the Government, and he was elected member of the Irish House of Commons. Duhigg says, ‘He was returned to Parliament without any intercourse with constituents or injury to his purse, Government having given to the borough-monger official compensation. He became a zealous supporter of the administration, and whenever occasion required his advocacy, it was always forthcoming to uphold the Ministerial views. His practice at the Bar was not diminished by his senatorial labours: it was extensive and lucrative, and as at this period the Irish Bar boasted of men second to none in legal acquirements and capacity, it is no small credit to Bowes that he was competent to hold his ground ‘with them. I have already given the very high eulogium on his powers of oratory and judgment as Counsel for the Crown on the prosecution before the Peers of Lord Santry, when Bowes was Solicitor-General, [Ante, p. 71.] which office he received on the promotion of Jocelyn as Attorney-General in 1730. [Privy Seal, Windsor, September 28. Patent, October 23, 1730. 4 Geo, II. pars f. R. 27.] Sir Robert Walpole took considerable interest in his advancement, and as Sir Robert was Prime Minister, any recommendation from him was sure to be promptly attended to.

On the advancement of Robert Jocelyn from the office of Attorney-General to that of Lord High Chancellor, on September 11, 1739, Bowes became Attorney-General. He did not remain long Law Officer, for when Chief Baron Marley exchanged the chief seat on the Exchequer Bench for that of the Lord Chief Justiceship in 1741, the Attorney-General succeeded him. He had as his puisne Barons Richard Mountney and Arthur Dawson, whose name is well known in Irish convivial circles as the humorous author of ‘Bumper, Squire Jones.’ [Arthur Dawson, third Baron of thu Court of Excheqtrer in Ireland, was born in Dublin. His father was Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant in the reign of Queen Anne. The Baron was remarkable for his legal knowledge and con. vivial habits, which, as Lord Chesterfield remarked, were very prevalent amongst the Irish gentry. One of the niost celebrated houses in Ireland for mirth and bacchanalian revelry was Moneyglass, County Leitrim, the seat of Squire Jones popularly called ‘Bumper.’ Here Carolan, the eminent Irish minstrel, loved to take up his abode, repaying the hospitality he experienced with his enchanting music. He composed, in compliment to his host, the well known plauxty or drinking-song, for which Baron Dawson wrote the words, entitled, ‘Bumpers, Squire Jones.’ I give a few verses:-

Ye good fellows all

Who love to be told where there’s claret good store;

Attend to the call,

Of one who’s ne’er frighted,

But greatly delighted,

With six bottles more:

Be sure you don’t pass

The good house, Moneyglass,

Which the jolly red god so peculiarly owns,

‘T will well suit your humour,

For pray what would you more

Than mirth, with good claret, and bumpers, Squire Jones?

Having gone through the conditions of ‘lovers who pine,’ ‘poets who write,’ ‘soldiers so stout,’ ‘clergy so wise,’ he proceeds to his own profession:-

Ye lawyers so just,

Be the cause what it will, who so learnedly plead,

How worthy of trust!

You know black from white,

Yet prefer wrong to right,

As you chance to be fee’d;

Leave musty reports,

And forsake the King’s Courts,

Where dulness and discord have set up their thrones;

Burn Salkeld and Ventris,

With all your damned entries,

And away with the claret, a bumper, Squire Jones!

He then despatches the doctors, and winds up with:-

Ye fox hunters eke,

That follow the call of the horn and the hound,

Who your ladies forsake,

Before they’re awake,

To beat up the brake

Where the vermin is found:

Leave Piper and Blueman,

Shrill Duchess and Trueman:

No music is found in such dissonant tones,

Would you ravish your ears

With the songs of the spheres,

Hark away to the claret, a bumper, Squire Jones]

While Chief Baron Bowes presided on the Exchequer Bench occurred a trial at the Bar in Michaelmas Term 1743, which deserves to receive more than a passing mention. This was the cause of ‘Lessee of ANNESLEY *V. *EARL OF ANGLESEY.’ It is generally believed the incidents of this trial were used by Sir Walter Scott in the construction of ‘Guy Mannering,’ the names of some of the witnesses appearing as those of characters in ‘the novel. An expression, too, of one of the witnesses for the plaintiff, ‘He is the right heir if right might take place;’ is likely to have suggested the Bertrand motto, ‘Our right makes our might.’ The main incidents I have taken from the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine.’ [July 1840.]

A young gentleman named Richard Fitz Gerald, while travelling from Dublin to a friend’s house in the County of Wexford, in the year 1715, found himself benighted near Dunmain, the seat of Lord Altham. It was quite customary in those days of good fellowship and hospitality for travellers in such circumstances to knock boldly at the door of the nearest mansion and demand supper and a bed. Mr. Fitz Gerald followed this custom, and soon stood by a good fire, welcomed by Lord Altham, who was in a state of hilarious excitement, which he readily accounted for; on that very evening Lady Altham had made him a father! Their marriage had been childless for many years, and now he had to rejoice in the birth of a son and heir. The guest shared in the joviality which prevailed at Dünmain that night, and, before pursuing his journey next day, was allowed to see the young and welcome heir of the house of Altham, on which occasion he presented a piece of gold to the nurse who held the child. Little could Mr. Fitz Gerald foretell that, after a lapse of twenty-eight years passed in the army of the Queen of Hungary, he would assist in recovering for the babe, whose eyes were yet unused to the light of day, the rank and fortune then apparently his right. The birth of the child did not cement the union between Lord and Lady Altham. Lord Altham, a man of violent passions and irregular life, treated his meek and forbearing wife with such cruelty that a separation ensued. She resided in England, and his remittances for her support, growing smaller as years rolled on, ceased for a time, which reduced her to starvation of body and imbecility of mind. The luckless fruit of this hapless marriage, young James Annesley, was doomed to be as little cared for as his unhappy mother. Lord Altham entrusted him to the care of a woman of dissolute life, named Juggy or Judith Landy, a dependent on his bounty, who occupied a miserable thatched cabin about half a mile from Dunmain. Here the child of noble birth, heir to the honours and manors around, was brought up. Whatever sins the woman Landy had been guilty of, want of care of her young charge was not alleged against her. She lavished upon the boy most affectionate solicitude; he had endeared himself to her as children often do, and when the boy was removed from her by Lord Altham, she was so unwilling to allow much time to elapse without seeing the child, that the cruel Peer, in his anger, ordered his groom ‘to horsewhip and set the dogs on her.’

This vicious Lord removed with his son to Dublin, where Lord Altham devoted himself to a profligate life. He associated with the most worthless of the male, and most degraded of the female, sex. One of the latter, named Gregory, acquired such an ascendency over the weak and dissipated Lord Altham, that he allowed her to call herself Lady Altham, and she induced him to drive from his presence and home his only child, who thus became an outcast on the Dublin streets.

As the inevitable sequence from Lord Altham’s career, his finances were soon at the lowest ebb. The harpies who infested his house were insatiate, and his Lordship borrowed money upon his reversionary interest in the estates of the Earl of Anglesey, to whom he was heir-at-law. As James Annesley, Lord Altham’s son, would have proved an important legal impediment to these transactions, he was reported dead. His existence, however, was traced, on which it was then asserted he was the illegitimate son of Lord Altham and Juggy Landy.

The course of life led by Lord Altham does not conduce to longevity. He died in wretched circumstances in 1727, while his little son was but twelve years old. A pauper’s burial has few to attend the ceremony, and Lord Altham was a pauper ere he died. Among the few who followed the coffin was a half-naked boy, aged twelve years, around whose delicate limbs an old yellow livery waistcoat hung. This was James Annesley, then Lord Altham.

But the title was usurped. The Hon. Captain Annesley, brother of the deceased Peer, perhaps believing the child was the offspring of some illicit amour of his unworthy brother, assumed the title. When he became satisfied that his nephew, the child, was legitimate, instead of yielding his rank, he sought to get possession of the boy, with a view to put him out of the way. For some time the boy escaped the emissaries of his uncle, owing to the protection of a butcher named Purcell, who took pity on the destitute child. At length he was captured, placed by his uncle’s directions on board a vessel bound for America, where he was employed to work in a plantation, and remained in this lowly servitude for thirteen years.

During these years occurred the death of the Earl of Anglesey, on which event that title, with large estates, devolved upon the usurper of the title and rights of Lord Altham.

James Annesley endured great privation while in exile, and made many attempts to escape before he succeeded. We find he escaped at length, and became a sailor on board a British man-of-war. He was identified by some persons on board, and Admiral Vernon, then in command of the West India station, wrote an account of this singular case to the Duke of Newcastle, Prime Minister, and in the meantime supplied the young Lord Altham with clothes and money, and treated him with the respect due to his rank.

The moment the Earl of Anglesey was aware of these events, which threatened to deprive him of his usurped position, he took prompt steps to retain the most eminent Counsel of the Bar in the anticipated. legal proceedings against him. When young Lord Altham arrived in Dublin several of the old servants from Dunmain visited him, and knew him at once. Some, in the exuberant feelings to which the Irish nature is prone, cast themselves on their knees, and ‘blessed God they lived to see his lordship come to claim his own.’

It was said the Earl was so much alarmed by the arrival, and recognition, of the young heir, he was desirous of effecting a compromise; and, with a view of residing in France, commenced to study the French language, when an event took place that threatened to rid him of his rival.

Lord Altham, when out shooting in England, accidentally shot a man, and this was an opportunity the Earl tried to turn to account by having Lord Altham prosecuted. The coroner’s jury, however, having found that death was the result of the accidental discharge of Lord Altham’s gun, was a great disappointment to the Earl. He employed an attorney named Gifford, and tried a prosecution against the object of his fears, which ended in the acquittal of Lord. Altham, and cost Lord Anglesey a thousand pounds.

These circumstances were commented on in the newspapers of the day, and meeting the eye of Colonel Fitz Gerald, who had grown grey in the service of Hungary, and returned to England full of honour and wealth, he remembered his visit to Dunmain the very day of the boy’s birth, lost no time in seeking an interview, told the young Lord all that we know already, and finished by offering his fortune to restore his young friend’s rights. A skilful and experienced Irish attorney was engaged, an able Bar instructed, and the importance of the issue justified a trial before the full Court of Exchequer, which commenced in the year 1743.

A highly respectable special jury was empanelled for this great trial, The plaintiff had for his counsel Robert Marshall,’ [Afterwards Chief Justice of the King’s Bench.] Second Serjeant; and Philip Tisdall, the Third Serjeant; while for the defendant there appeared the Prime Serjeant, Anthony Malone; the Attorney-General, St. George Caulfield; the Solicitor-General, Warden Flood; Eaton Stannard, Recorder of Dublin; and nine other members of the Irish Bar. The plaintiff substantially proved by his witnesses the case above narrated, one of the witnesses declaring, ‘If right might take place, he is the right heir.’ The ground of resisting the plaintiff’s claim was chiefly the illegitimacy of James Annesley, whom the defendant sought to prove the child of Juggy Landy, ‘a clean, bright girl,’ resident on the property, and occasionally employed in the house of Lord Altham at Dunmain. The summing up by Baron Dawson noticed the duration of this singular case:- ‘This is the longest trial ever known at the Bar; this is the fifteenth day since the trial began; trials at Bar are usually determined in one day. There are such contradictions on both sides of the question, that it would not be hard to show that several witnesses on each side are not to be credited. Several of the witnesses on each side not only contradict the witnesses on the other side, but also, in many instances, themselves; and therefore, independent of other things proper to be considered, one could not tell where to settle.’ His lordship then went fully and minutely through the various circumstances, and offered such suggestions as were warranted. The jury did not delay very long in finding a verdict. After a deliberation of about half-an-hour, they found for the plaintiff, to the dismay of the defendant. The Earl then used all the engines in the armoury of the law to procrastinate giving possession. He obtained a writ of error, and the case went on for years, until its further progress was stayed by a decision from which there was no appeal. James Annesley died in 1759, without having been married, and the Earl continued in possession until his death.

When the Lord-Chancellorship of Ireland was at the disposal of the Government by the death of Lord Chancellor Lord Jocelyn, in December 1756, there was considerable speculation as to his probable successor. In Ireland popular belief generally pointed at Chief Baron Bowes, while in England Lord Mansfield-Lord Chief Justice-was named. [‘Chief Baron Bowes is named for an Irish Chancellor; *here *(in England) they say Lord Mansfield will be the man, if he will accept it.’ - Mrs, Delany (‘Mary Granville’s Letters,’ vol. iii. p. 455). I do not think it was offered to Lord Mansfield. He was then Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench of England, and, according to Lord Campbell, ‘was offered the higher dignity of Lord Chancellor of England, but at once rejected the proposal.’ - Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. iii. p. 446.] The selection proved the Irish opinion right. Chief Baron BOWES was appointed Lord Chancellor in 1757, and on the assembling of the Irish Parliament, on October 11 in that year, took his seat on the woolsack as Speaker of the House of Lords.

The Lord Chancellor continued to discharge the duties as Speaker of the House of Lords without a peerage for some time, but on August 15, 1758, he was created Baron Bowes of Clonlyon, and when the House next sat for the despatch of business in the year 1759, he was introduced to his brother Peers between Barons Mornington and Rusborough in their robes. The usual ceremonies of the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, and Ulster in his Coat of Arms, carrying his Lordship’s Patent and reading his summons, were gone through, after which he took the oaths, and subscribed the declaration required by the Statutes.

The Cause List of Chancery was left by Lord Jocelyn somewhat in arrear, and on the adage of new brooms sweeping clean, Lord Chancellor Bowes soon reduced the list of causes. As the decision of a Judge is sure not to please all parties, the decree of Lord Chancellor Bowes in a suit instituted against the Rev. Dr. Delany, Dean of Down, was by no means pleasing to that eminent divine. This we gather from these agreeable letters of his high-born and talented wife, *née *Granville, and it went so far, that, when both gentlemen were invited to the same table, the hostess thought it well to apprise the Delanys of the fact, which prevented their meeting. Mrs. Delany wrote an account of this party to her sister, Mrs. Dewes, from Delville, her seat, near Glasnevin, Dublin, on May 12, 1759:-

‘At 2 o’clock a note came from Lady A. Dennys to say, as some of her company might not be quite agreeable to us to be surprised with, she thought it proper to let us know who they were - Lord Shelburne, Lord Kerry, *Lord Chancellor, *&c. [Note in Lady Llanover’s book- ‘John, Lord Bowes, Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1757 to 1767, who was very much opposed to the Dean during the lawsuit.’] I was at a loss at first, but sent her a note to say that D. D. (Dr. Delany) was in the Four Courts, and was apprehensive when he went that it would not be in his power to wait on her, which was really true; and I sent him a note which determined him not to dine at Lady A. Dennys. I went and Sally. An excuse was made to me for not recollecting circumstances, which *might *have made such a meeting *disagreeable to me! *But it was quite easy to me; I had no reluctance in the meeting; “if an excuse was wanted, it was to the persons who had done the injury, as it might *not *be *quite so easy to them.” *This was the answer I made. Lady A. Dennys is a civil, sensible woman, but she must have been in a very absent way when she invited her company. The Chancellor officiously addressed himself to me in conversation; he is in a miserable state of health, with legs bigger considerably at the ankle than at the calf.’

The fact of the Chancellor conversing with Mrs. Delany shows him to have been a true gentleman, willing to show that public duty did not interfere with courtesy to a lady.

At the conclusion of the session of Parliament in 1758, the House of Lords presented through the Lord Chancellor a highly complimentary address to John, Duke of Bedford, then Viceroy, [This nobleman was son of Wriothesley, second Duke of Bedford, and grandson of Lord William Russell, who took so prominent a part in the efforts made to exclude James II. from the British throne. His grandmother was the noble-hearted wife, Lady Rachel Russell, who, when her husband was tried at the Old Bailey for high treason on June 13, 1683, took notes of the evidence to enable him to make his unavailing defence, and wrote on while her tears mingled with the ink. In 1744, John, Duke of Bedford, was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, and at the breaking out of the rebellion in Scotland raised a regiment for the service of King George II. From 1748 to 1751 he was one of the principal Secretaries of State. In 1757 he became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, which he held until 1761. In 1762 he was Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of France, and died in 1771.] in which they state *:-’ *We justly consider the appointment of your Grace to the government of Ireland as a most interesting proof of his Majesty’s paternal goodness. The principles and virtues inherited by your Grace from your illustrious ancestors had always been the objects of our reverence and admiration; and the vigorous exertion of these virtues by your Grace in important stations - equally to the honour of the Crown and the advantage of the publick - afforded us the most lively presage of happiness in being committed to your Grace’s care.’

It is very noteworthy that in the viceroyalty of the Duke of Bedford the first dawning of toleration towards the Catholics appears. It is true there were professions in the time of former Lords Lieutenant, especially in that of Lord Chesterfield’s; but before the Duke of Bedford accepted the office ‘he openly avowed that, were he to accept it, he should not govern on the narrow maxims of intolerance and exclusion which had hitherto prevailed.’ [Correspondence of John, Duke of Bedford, vol. ii.] These sentiments were so acceptable to the Catholics, that ten days after his appointment was known exhortations to tranquillity and obedience were read from the altars in the Catholic Chapels of Dublin, in which the hope that had been held out by some honourable persons of a mitigation of the penal laws was noticed, and the blessing of Heaven invoked in favour of so generous a design. [Ibid. vol. ii. Introduction, 14.]

Shortly after his arrival a measure was proposed by Lord Clanbrassil for the registration of Roman Catholic priests. The Primate, Archbishop Stone, and Lord Chancellor Bowes, the Chief Justice, and Chief Baron Willis, opposed it, on the bigoted grounds ‘that it would prove a toleration of that religion which it had been the general policy of England and of Ireland to persecute and to depress.’ The discussion before the Privy Council was warm and animated; it occupied five hours, and the Lord Lieutenant delivered a very able argument in support of the measure, which, however, was thrown out by fourteen to twelve.

The Duke wished to maintain upright and impartial conduct in the government, and commenced by exacting strict attendance of all officials, especially officers of the army and military chaplains. He also sought to prevent increase of pensions, which at that time absorbed a great portion of the revenue of the kingdom.

In his endeavour to acquire popularity he was ably seconded by the Duchess of Bedford. [She was his second wife - Gertrude, daughter of John, first Earl Gower. He married her in 1737. His first wife was Diana, daughter of Earl Sunderland, She died 1735, leaving no child living.] Walpole, in his ‘Memoirs,’ says, ‘The Duchess pleased universally. She had all her life been practising the part of a queen; dignity and dissimulation were natural to her. [Not very complimentary to female sovereigns.] The Irish were charmed with a woman who seemed to depart from her state from mere affability.’

But the person who influenced them both, and exerted no small share of power over the affairs of Ireland, was Richard Rigby, the Viceroy’s Secretary. He is thus described by his co-temporary: ‘Rigby had an advantageous and manly person, recommended by a spirited jollity that was very pleasing, though sometimes roughened into brutality: of most insinuating good breeding when he wished to be agreeable. His passions were turbulent and overbearing, his courage bold and fond of exerting itself; his parts strong and quick, but totally uncultivated; and so much had he trusted to unaffected common sense, that he could never afterwards acquire the necessary temperament of art in his public speaking. He was a man who was seldom loved or hated with moderation; yet he himself, though a violent opponent, was never a bitter enemy.’ [Walpole’s Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 255.]

As the task of managing the House of Commons - bent on exercising the prerogative of controlling all supplies, irrespective of the Crown - was a difficult one, the Lord Lieutenant, acting in concert with the ‘Lord Chancellor, resolved to ascertain who was for and against the Ministry. He tells us in his correspondence the course, he adopted to ascertain this end:-

‘Dublin Castle, November 14, 1757.

‘I sent for the gentlemen whose names are underwritten, servants of the Crown, and members of the House of Commons, to insist upon receiving from them, singly, a categorical answer upon the point, -

‘Whether, in case a question of adjournment, in order to prevent the proceeding to-day on the Money Bill, should be proposed in the House, “each would use his utmost endeavours to prevent the carrying such a question?” And, ‘Whether each will co-operate to the best of his power towards carrying through the Money Bill, in order to its being transmitted to England in time to be passed before the old one expires?

‘In case my not having sent an answer to the House, whether I would transmit their resolutions of November to his Majesty, should be alleged as a reason for postponing the Money Bill, to show the impropriety of that doctrine; particularly in those who are attached by their employments to the Crown; because the King’s and the public business should not be stopt, and that exceeding confusion brought on which must necessarily attend the loss of a Money Bill, because the Lord Lieutenant has not given the actual promise of transmitting which the Commons desired; for if he shall have done wrong there is a Parliamentary way of proceeding against him, without in the least endangering a bill necessary for the service of his Majesty and the public.’

This attempt to coerce the Government officials to vote in compliance with the Minister’s views, was very embarrassing to these gentlemen. The Speaker, the Right Hon. John Ponsonby, denied ‘having any knowledge of what resolutions would be agreed to by the House of Commons till they were brought into the House; and, as the Speaker of the House, considered it was highly improper to require from him, as it would be in him to give, any assurance upon a subject which might affect the privilege of the House, which he, as Speaker, was specially bound to maintain.’ The Lord Lieutenant then pressed ‘him to engage his friends to support the Government, and not to suffer the Money Bill to be postponed; but he coldly replied, ‘he could not influence any honourable members on a point of this sort, who would go with their party according to their own opinions.’ [Bedford Correspondence, vol. ii, p. 289.]

Warden Flood, the Attorney-General, was more complaisant. [He was promoted to the Chief Justiceship of the King’s Bench in 1760. His son was the Right Hon. Henry Flood, a very distinguished Irishman.] He gave an absolute promise to support the Government; while the Solicitor-General, Philip Tisdall, was quite the other way, and most explicit in his declaration of insisting to have a positive and simple promise of transmitting before he could give his consent to proceed on the Money Bill. The Viceroy tried all the arts of cajolery and persuasion to induce the Solicitor to alter his determination; he reminded him of his duty to the King, whose servant he was, and exhausted every argument that occurred to him. [Bedford Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 290.] All was in vain: Tisdall was neither to he swayed from what he conceived to be the line of duty by the sunshine of Court favour, or the chillness of Royal wrath. Sir Thomas Prendergast, Postmaster-General, declared ‘that should an adjournment be proposed for a week, or a longer time, he would certainly vote against it;’ but was not so rigid in his resolution as the Solicitor-General. Most of the subordinate officials, as might have been expected, were too much under control to resist the commands of the Viceroy; but all was of no avail. On the question of postponing the Money Bill the numbers were 85 to 64 against the postponement; so the Government were beaten by a majority of 21. The Viceroy was very angry. He complained ‘that persons employed in the Revenue, officers of the army, and, what he regarded still more extraordinary, Commissioners who had reaped the benefit of his Majesty’s bounty, voted against the Government.’ The Primate was supposed to have prompted this opposition of the House of Commons. The success of this effort to assert the independence of the Irish Parliament induced some bold spirits to meditate an alteration in Poyning’s Law. [Bedford Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 297.]

As the Government was very anxious to secure a majority in the Irish Parliament, to enable them to carry their measures without conceding the claim of the Irish Parliament, the Duke of Bedford, acting on the advice of the Lord Chancellor, distributed the favours of Government in a manner to aid that result. The love of conviviality and hard drinking, then prevalent in Dublin, was ably sustained by the Lord Lieutenant’s Secretary, Rigby, whose banquets, if not so numerously attended as those of our present estimable Chief Secretary, [Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, whose entertainments, presided over by his generous and amiable wife, Frances, Countess Waldegrave, exceeded in splendour and repetition all former festivities at the Chief Secretary’s Lodge.] or so graciously presided over, were pleasant and jovial.

The extent to which Mr. Rigby carried his social habits gave alarm to the more staid members of his party, and occasioned remonstrance from Sir Robert Wilmot; [Head of the Irish Department in London.] to which he replied: ‘Now for the drunken story. It is very certain Mr. Pery and I have once dined together since I came to Ireland, and it is as true that we liked one another well enough not to part till near three in the morning, long before which time the company was reduced to a *téte-a-téte, *except one other drunk and asleep in a corner of the room. Who, therefore, has been accurate enough to remember the whole conversation I cannot imagine; but you may assure yourself their ingenuity much exceeds their veracity. I have never heard or seen any symptoms of anger from Kildare, [James, twentieth Earl of Kildare, created Marquis of Kildare by Patent dated March 19, 1761; and Duke of Leinster, Patent, November 26, 1766. He built Leinster House, Dublin.] or Malone, [Right Hon. Anthony Malone.] from that night’s jollity till I read it in your letter this morning. We both, I believe, made free with the times, as people in high spirits and in their cups are apt to do; but I really believe, were I to show it to him, Pery would be as much surprised as I am to hear that our fun was made matter for serious discourse or deliberation. I am much obliged to you, Sir Robert, for sending me all these stories; I am as much entertained, and can laugh at them more than those that invent them. I know that a Secretary is lawful game for everybody to fly at; and I should be very sorry to have led so insipid a life as to be suffered to pass unenvied, and consequently uncensured, through that employment. Let me hear from you - the oftener the better; and when from Parliament and closet, from councils and bumpers, I can find time to work, I shall think my time well bestowed to answer you.’ [Correspondence of the Duke of Bedford, vol. ii. Introduction, p. 23.]

The Chancellor got on very smoothly with this jovial official. The Court of Chancery had a great share of business; but this the Chancellor liked, and his duties as Speaker of the House of Lords were comparatively easy. That august assembly rarely numbered thirty Peers, including a dozen Bishops, and their proceedings were of a tame and formal nature. Preparing or receiving addresses, introducing Peers, conferences with the Commons, enlivened by few debates of any importance, was their chief work. This formed a strong contrast to the business of the House of Commons, where stirring action constantly went on. The Chancellor must have congratulated himself on the easy task he had to perform, when Rigby complained, ‘I am kept every day in the House of Commons till six or seven o’clock [The House met early in the day.] on one nonsensical motion or another. I am railed at by one party for being the mover of all these inflammatory inquiries and the grand incendiary, and the other condemning me for my candour and good humour towards (for they would not have me speak to) any that vote against the Castle.’

But he bore them good-humouredly, and told the Chancellor ‘that if he could have a day’s cockshooting now and then, he would not mind continuing at his post for years.’

The state of affairs in France caused much anxiety to the British Government at this period, and rumours of a French invasion were prevalent.

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