Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/379

Rh he had no queen's letter for so doing: only a letter from Mr. Secretary Boyle, that her majesty designed to remove him.

The privy council in Ireland have a great share of the administration; all things being carried by the consent of the majority, and they sign all orders and proclamations there, as well as the chief governor. But his excellency disliked so great a share of power in any but himself; and when matters were debated in council otherwise than he approved, he would stop them, and say, "Come, my lords, I see how your opinions are, and therefore I will not take your votes;" and so would put an end to the dispute.

One of his chief favourites was a scandalous clergyman, a constant companion of his pleasures, who appeared publickly with his excellency, but never in his habit, and who was a hearer and sharer of all the lewd and blasphemous discourses of his excellency and his cabal. His excellency presented this worthy divine to one of the bishops, with the following recommendation: "My lord, Mr. is a very honest fellow, and has no fault, but that he is a little too immoral." He made this man chaplain to his regiment, though he had been so infamous, that a bishop in England refused to admit him to a living he had been presented to, till the patron forced him to it by law.

His excellency recommended the earl of Inchiquin to be one of the lords justices in his absence, and was much mortified when he found lieutenant general Ingoldsby appointed without any regard to his recommendation; particularly because the usual salary of a lord justice, in the lord lieutenant's Rh