Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/377

Rh Nor can I omit telling your Lordship that they expect to have some ostensible authority communicated to me on these points from your Lordship.

"Should His Majesty be advised to give way to these demands, I cannot doubt but that the business of the session would be carried through, in the way the King wishes, with the utmost ease."

To these bold demands thus categorically stated Shelburne replied:

"The terms your Excellency mentions falls within the rule His Majesty has laid down as not to be departed from, that his Ministers stand precluded from proposing to him the granting of places and pensions for life or years. It must therefore remain with the leading persons in Ireland to act in this matter in such a manner as they can answer to their own consciences, as servants to His Majesty, as men of property, and as representatives of the people, to whom they will be accountable for their conduct, and for the evil consequences which may be ascribed to the failure of this measure, which has been so strongly recommended to them by His Majesty. At the same time I may acquaint your Excellency that the King will certainly at the end of the session graciously take into his royal consideration the merits of those who shall have exerted themselves for the support of his Government and the good of Ireland; nor is it to be supposed that the conduct of those who shall have acted from motives of a less honourable nature can escape His Majesty's notice."

On receiving this communication, the Speaker, the Prime-Serjeant, and Lord Shannon declared that they could not support the Augmentation Bill; their friends thought it too late in the session; they were themselves averse to opening the Supplies again, and they demanded that security should be given by an Irish Act of Parliament—and not by an English Act as proposed by the Ministers—that the force to be kept up in Ireland should