46 



ANNUAL REGISTEIl. 1804. 



ing been appointed on the Irish staff 

 Tery shortly after the insurrection 

 Jiad taken place, he had opportuni- 

 ties of learning the particulars of 

 what happened on the 23d of July, 

 from a great variety of quarters. 

 The ujiiversa! impression was, that 

 the Irish government was f.iken by 

 snrprisc. lie considered (hat gene- 

 ral Fox ought not to have been de- 

 prived of such an important situa- 

 tion, when no rhars^e could be 

 brought against hisn tor misconduct. 

 Mr. secrelary Vorke did not know 

 fliat general Fox had been rvcalled. 

 Differences had existed between him 

 and the lord lieutenant, which made 

 it necessnry that one of them should 

 retire, and general Fox accordingly 

 resigned. Jlis noble relation (lord 

 llardwicke) had accejjted the go- 

 vernment of Ireland on (he princi})Ie 

 of adopting a system of conciliation ; 

 he was, thercforo, not over ready to 

 give implicit credit to tvcy story 

 that was brought him of intended 

 insurrection, it was not to he ex- 

 pected that government should have 

 been accurately infornied of the 

 precise time when Fnnnett resolved . 

 to begin his insurrection ; that was a 

 secret, of which Mr. Emmet alone 

 was the depository. Symptoms of 

 insurrection had appeared in the 

 county of Kildare, in consequence 

 of wliich fresh reinforcements of 

 troops were sent to that county.— 

 The garrison of Dublin, amoniiting 

 to 4000 reg'.ilars, were ccrtniuiy 

 sutTicient for the snppr<>ssion of any 

 insurrection which conhl have lak« n 

 place in that city. The object of 

 the government ccrtaiulv was to 

 take the procaufions that were neces- 

 sary for the public safety, hvt to 

 avoid all iinncccsKary alarm. After 

 stating a variety of circumstances, to 

 skew that the Irish government was 



: 



not surprised, he declared, that if it 

 should be the sense of the house, he 

 felt no personal objection to the 

 fullest enquiry upon the subject. 



Mr. Fox said he should vote, for 

 the enquiry. The Irish government 

 had certainly endeavoured to iniput< 

 biaiiie to his honourable relation 

 (general Fox) in order to screen 

 themselves. The coolness which was 

 alli'dged to subsist between the lord 

 lieutenant and general f^ox did not 

 take place until several dcays after 

 the 23d of July, and until the Irish 

 government were a second time sur- 

 prised, by finding themselves much 

 blamed for their negligence. They 

 then attempted to shift the blame to 

 his honourable relation, and it was 

 signified to him, that the lord lieute- 

 nant wished him to resign. This 

 certainly could not be considered a 

 voluntary resignation, and did imply 

 a censure. Although the ministers 

 had expressly disclaimed the inten- 

 tion oi imputing Ijlame to general 

 Fox, yet the Irish government still 

 took that course of justifying them- 

 selves, and the" Dublin Journal," the 

 newspaper of the castle, continued 

 to insert scurrilous and defamatory 

 paragraphs against him. Through- 

 out all the letters, and extracts of 

 letters, which had been published on 

 this business, it was evident that the 

 great leading principle of lord Hard- 

 wicke's policy was to avoid giving 

 alirm, and that he totally disbelieved 

 the intelligence which he had re- 

 ceived. General Fox had been only 

 six weeks in the country, had no se- 

 cret service money, and had no 

 means of knowing whether any 

 information that was given Avas 

 wortiiy of belief or not. It was 

 clearly the business of the govern- 

 ment to determine that, and their 

 whole conduct shcved that they 



did 



