undertaking, that he only leaves me the power to thank him for an arrangement which I profess my inability either to dispute or to improve.”
Uninfluenced by this successful opening into literary life, intimate friends in Ireland could see little advantage in his selection. They thought well of his talents, and wished for their exertion in a more stirring sphere. Politics formed the great game of all the Irish gentry; and he who declined to play it was thought to have spent his life to little purpose, or wanted spirit for the pursuit. As his brother had failed to move his resolution, others now tried their powers of persuasion. Among these were John Fitzgibbon, afterwards distinguished as Earl of Clare; one or two of the Fitzgeralds; and Mr. Denis Daly. All wished for his influence, or expected much from the soundness of his advice in a crisis they saw at hand.
The state of Ireland at this time had assumed a new and threatening aspect. As national misfortune will ever engender discontent, the disasters of the American war led Irish politicians to look narrowly into the condition of their country, in order as well to withstand a foreign enemy, as to place the ties that bound them to England in an improved condition. Her great and undoubted grievances were—restraint upon her originating laws for her own guidance, dependence of her Parliament upon the Ministry and Parliament of the sister state, and the imposition of very selfish and ungenerous restrictions upon her commerce by that state. England, above all countries in the world, would never for a moment have submitted to anything
