s active and the country was in a disturbed state.
He informed the cabinet that the catholic question was urgent.
Parliament met and in a loyal humour voted large supplies for the war.
Grattan undertook the catholic business, and Fitzwilliam promised his
support, and pressed for the approval of the cabinet on the ground that
a complete repeal of all disqualifying laws was necessary in order to
secure the pacification and loyalty of the country. No answer was sent
to his appeals. Meanwhile Fitzwilliam dismissed some administrative
officers and among them Beresford, a powerful member of the party which
had so long been preponderant at the castle. Beresford carried his
complaint to London, and Pitt remonstrated with Fitzwilliam on his
dismissal. Portland, too, at last wrote, warning him not to commit
himself on the catholic question. It was too late. Portland wrote again
and declared himself hostile to emancipation. Fitzwilliam expostulated
in vain, and finally, on February 23, the cabinet agreed to recall him.
He left Ireland on March 25. It was a day of general gloom; the Dublin
tradesmen put up their shutters, no business was transacted, and many
persons wore mourning. The hopes of Ireland were bitterly disappointed
and the door seemed shut against reforms by constitutional means. Lord
Camden was appointed lord-lieutenant, the catholic bill was rejected,
Fitzgibbon was made Earl of Clare, and the party in favour of the
protestant ascendency was re-established in power. Whether the presence
of catholics in the parliament would have led to such a thorough removal
of the causes of Irish discontent as would have pacified the country and
saved it from the rebellion of 1798 seems extremely doubtful, but it is
certain that the recall of Fitzwilliam was fatal to any chance of so
happy a settlement.

Although he acted hastily and unadvisedly as regards the dismissals, he
was right in saying that it was impossible for him to stave off the
catholic claims, and that no measures would secure the loyalty of the
catholics or the peace of Ireland unless they were satisfied. As Pitt
desired to defer emancipation to an uncertain date, the end of the war,
he should not have excited the expectation of the Irish by an
appointment which they naturally interpreted as a sign of immediate
acquiescence. Fitzwilliam, before his actual appointment, was allowed to
commit himself to a line of conduct to which Pitt afterwards objected;
his instructio