tion of favours among the friends of Boyle, and the temporary disgrace of Stone, averted further difficulties, "while the Commons," once more to quote Lord Clare, "took effectual care that the question should not occur a second time, by appropriating every future surplus to their private use, under the specious pretence of local public improvements. Windmills and watermills, and canals, and bridges, and spinning-jennies, were provided at the public expense, and the Parliamentary patrons of these great national objects were entrusted with full discretionary powers over the money granted to complete them. From this system of local improvement a double advantage arose to the Irish aristocracy, it kept their followers steady in the ranks, and reducing the Crown to the necessity of calling for supplies, made the political services of the leaders necessary for the support of the King's Government; but the precedent was fatal, and a system was gradually built upon it which would bear down the most powerful nation of the earth. The Government of England at length opened their eyes to the defect and dangers of it; they shook the power of the aristocracy, but were unable to break it down, and substituted a much more serious evil, by giving birth to a race of political adventurers possessed of an inexhaustible stock of noise and indecorum, always at the disposal of the best and highest bidder."[1]
It is to the beginning of the period when the English Government "shook the power of the aristocracy, but were unable to break it down," that the present chapter relates.
The party of Boyle had triumphed in 1753. He was created Earl of Shannon, and became the most powerful man in Ireland. After a short disgrace, however, the Primate Stone was restored to favour. He patched up a treaty with Lord Shannon, and with the assistance of the Speaker Ponsonby, the successor of Boyle, carried on the Government through the Viceroyalties of Hartington and Bedford, of Halifax and Northumberland. In 1764 death removed both Shannon and Stone, but the former
- ↑ Speech of Lord Clare, 1800.
