illustrating the strong and manly
temper in which Burke, unlike too many of his countrymen with fortunes
to make by English favour, uniformly considered the circumstances of
his country. It was not until a later time that he had an opportunity
of acting conspicuously on her behalf, but whatever influence he came
to acquire with his party was unflinchingly used against the cruelty
of English prejudice.

Burke appears to have remained in Ireland for two years (1761-63). In
1763 Hamilton, who had found him an invaluable auxiliary, procured for
him, principally with the aid of the Primate Stone, a pension of three
hundred pounds a year from the Irish Treasury. In thanking him for
this service, Burke proceeded to bargain that the obligation should
not bind him to give to his patron the whole of his time. He insisted
on being left with a discreet liberty to continue a little work which
he had as a rent-charge upon his thoughts. Whatever advantages he had
acquired, he says, had been due to literary reputation, and he could
only hope for a continuance of such advantages on condition of doing
something to keep the same reputation alive. What this literary design
was, we do not know with certainty. It is believed to have been a
history of England, of which, as I have said, a fragment remains.
Whatever the work may have been, it was an offence to Hamilton. With
an irrational stubbornness, that may well astound us when we think of
the noble genius that he thus wished to confine to paltry personal
duties, he persisted that Burke should bind himself to his service for
life, and to the exclusion of other interests. "To circumscribe my
hopes," cried Burke, "to give up even the possibility of liberty, to
annihilate myself for ever!" He threw up the pension, which he had
held for two years, and declined all further connection with Hamilton,
whom he roundly described as an infamous scoundrel. "Six of the
best years of my life he took me from every pursuit of my literary
reputation, or of improvement of my fortune.... In all this time you
may easily conceive how much I felt at seeing myself left behind
by almost all of my contemporaries. There never was a season more
favourable for any man who chose to enter into the career of public
life; and I think I am not guilty of ostentation in supposing my own
moral character and my industry, my friends and connections, when Mr.
Hamilton first sought my acquaintance, were not at all inferior to
th