226] 
The resentment of the public was 
particularly marked on the 25th of 
March, when Jord Fitzwilliam took 
his departure from Ireland. It was a 
day of general gloom: the shops 
were shut, no business of any kind 
was transacted, and the whole city 
put on mourning. His coach was 
drawn to the water side, by some of 
the most respectable citizens, and 
the people seemed intent on every 
demonstration of grief. 
When earl Camden arrived at 
Dublin, five days after, his reception 
was far different. Every appear- 
ance of displeasure was exhibited ; 
and such was the violence of the 
populace, that it broke out in dis- 
turbances, which force became ne- 
cessary to suppress. But these were 
the mere ebullitions of popular fury, 
and proved how little dependence, 
in matters of state, is to be placed 
on the disapprobation manifested by 
the populace, in contradiction to 
the sense, or the interest of people 
in power. 
A striking proof of this was ex- 
hibited on the very first meeting of 
parliament, after lord Camden’s ar- 
rival. Notwithstanding the severe 
disappointment experienced by the 
Roman Catholics, they were not dis- 
heartened from the prosecution of 
their object ; and Mr. Grattan, their 
agent, made a motion for an inquiry 
into the state of the nation, and 
particularly the reasons for the re- 
callof lord Fitzwilliam: but it was 
negatived by a great majority of 
those very members who had voted 
with such warmth and readiness in 
favour of Mr. Grattan’s motion for 
a quite contrary purpose. Qn his 
presenting the bill for the emancipa- 
tion of the Roman Catholics, it met 
with the same fate. 
This unsteadiness and tergiver- 
sation of their representatives, which 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1795. 
it was not difficult to trace ta its 
true source, filled the people of 
Treland with mistrust and. jealousies 
that have never subsided since. 
The language of the commonalty 
became unusually explicit, in 
reprobating their abjectness and 
servility. No farther confidence, 
it was openly said, ought hence- 
forth to be placed in them, and 
no epithets were sufficiently de- 
grading to accompany the names of 
those who had acted so ignomini- 
Ously, . 
On the return of lord Fitzwilliam 
to England, an altercation arose 
between him and the ministry, con 
cerning the instructions he had re- 
ceived previously to his assuming 
the government of Ireland, and the 
motives for his recal. The duke 
of Norfolk took up this business 
with great warmth. It had, he 
said, long been understood in that 
country, that the restraints on the 
Roman Catholics were to be taken 
away. This opinion had been cur-~ 
rent in Ireland, ever since the time 
of the American war, when the 
loyalty of the people of all persua- 
sions to the government of Great 
Britain rendered it manifest that 
no distinctions ought any longer to 
subsist among them jn point of civil | 
rights and privileges. When lord 
Fitzwilliam was appointed to the 
office of lord lieutenant of Jreland, 
he accepted it in full expectation . 
that he was to carry over with him 
a final deliverance from all disquali- 
fications upon religious accounts. 
This was no less the opinion of 
Mr, Grattan, and of the Irish par- 
liament itself: the members of 
which concurrred almost unani- 
mously in a cordial readiness to re- 
pel thoser strictions; and solely on 
that groyid voted the most ample 
suypli s ever granted in that king- 
dom, 
