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Rh Lords Justices, who in the absence of the Lord-Lieutenant had exercised all the power and patronage of Government. Townshend was at the same time instructed to take occasion in private conversation to acquaint the persons with whom he should judge it for His Majesty's service to communicate, of the intention of the English Ministers to support the Septennial Bill and the Judicature Bill, and thereby to encourage the heads of those measures being sent over. Further than this he was directed by Shelburne not to go, in order to avoid alike the appearance of dictation and the discredit of a possible defeat.

At the same time the Irish Parliament was to be induced if possible to pass a Bill for augmenting the army, an object of sovereign importance in the disturbed condition of the country, still heaving and shaking as it was with the disturbances of and  and. Every effort was accordingly to be made to prevent the revenue being frittered away in useless grants and appropriations, and to render the support of the additional men voted possible without any increased taxation, beyond the absentee tax which it was tolerably certain would be sent over. To give a pledge of their own sincerity in the cause of economy, the English Government resolved to abandon the practice of facilitating the administration of affairs in Ireland, by the grants of pensions, reversions, and sinecure places, all of them secured under King's letters on the hereditary revenue.

A misunderstanding with the Cabinet led the Lord-Lieutenant to mention the tenure of the Judges in the speech from the Throne with which on the 20th October he opened the Parliament. The consequences of the mistake were serious. The mention of the tenure of the Judges was made by the patriots into a proof that the English Ministers were opposed to the Septennial Bill.

The party of Lucas and of Pery really believed in the new grievance. The oligarchy in fear of their constituents had to profess to believe in it. But they too