He did more in one year
than the duke would have accomplished in five. He began by instituting a
principle of impartial justice. Formerly, Protestants had alone been
employed as 'managers;' the Lieutenant was to see with Protestant eyes,
to hear with Protestant ears.
'I have determined to proscribe no set of persons whatever,' says
Chesterfield, 'and determined to be governed by none. Had the Papists
made any attempt to put themselves above the law, I should have taken
good care to have quelled them again. It was said my lenity to the
Papists had wrought no alteration either in their religious or their
political sentiments. I did not expect that it would: but surely that
was no reason for cruelty towards them.'
Often by a timely jest Chesterfield conveyed a hint, or even shrouded a
reproof. One of the ultra-zealous informed him that his coachman was a
Papist, and went every Sunday to mass. 'Does he indeed? I will take care
he never drives me there,' was Chesterfield's cool reply.
It was at this critical period, when the Hanoverian dynasty was shaken
almost to its downfall by the insurrection in Scotland of 1745, that
Ireland was imperilled: 'With a weak or wavering, or a fierce and
headlong Lord-Lieutenant--with a Grafton or a Strafford,' remarks Lord
Mahon, 'there would soon have been a simultaneous rising in the Emerald
Isle.
Pages:
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418