494 POLITICAL CORRESPONDENCE. [1827. 



Mr Huskisson has become its effective leader did not 

 bring to it any greater claim to our confidence. Our 

 views and reasons have been repeatedly explained to 

 our friends, and nothing has occurred materially to 

 change them. I therefore cannot now abandon Lord 

 Grey, or renounce the course and principles to which 

 we have been so long engaged. The very circum- 

 stance that he appears to have been thrown over by 

 many of his friends, is with me an additional motive 

 for adhering to him. 



" I am not vain or weak enough to imagine that my 

 single support is of any consequence to the Adminis- 

 tration ; but I must be allowed to remark, which I do 

 with great regret, that the fears I entertained from 

 the first have been confirmed by all the appointments 

 that have taken place under either Cabinet, and espe- 

 cially by the more recent ones. 



" I perhaps attach more importance than you are 

 supposed to do to the success of the Irish question ; 

 but, believing as I do that the peace and security of 

 the empire do mainly depend upon it, it gives me very 

 painful forebodings to observe that in every single 

 instance the patronage of Government has been exerted 

 in a manner to support and encourage the declared 

 enemies of that cause, and to indicate either the in- 

 difference, or, as I believe, the weakness, of its friends. 



"I cannot help thinking that the appointment of 

 Hart* is as bad as possible, independent of the political 

 and religious doctrines he imbibed under Lord Eldon ; 

 and I cannot but consider the speculation upon Plun- 

 ket's future chance to be altogether visionary. I 

 knew long ago that you had been offered by Canning 



* As Lord Chancellor of Ireland. 



