justice. Formerly, Protestants had alone been
employed as 'managers;' the Lieutenant was to see with Protestant eyes,
to hear with Protestant ears.

'I have determined to proscribe no set of persons whatever,' says
Chesterfield, 'and determined to be governed by none. Had the Papists
made any attempt to put themselves above the law, I should have taken
good care to have quelled them again. It was said my lenity to the
Papists had wrought no alteration either in their religious or their
political sentiments. I did not expect that it would: but surely that
was no reason for cruelty towards them.'

Often by a timely jest Chesterfield conveyed a hint, or even shrouded a
reproof. One of the ultra-zealous informed him that his coachman was a
Papist, and went every Sunday to mass. 'Does he indeed? I will take care
he never drives me there,' was Chesterfield's cool reply.

It was at this critical period, when the Hanoverian dynasty was shaken
almost to its downfall by the insurrection in Scotland of 1745, that
Ireland was imperilled: 'With a weak or wavering, or a fierce and
headlong Lord-Lieutenant--with a Grafton or a Strafford,' remarks Lord
Mahon, 'there would soon have been a simultaneous rising in the Emerald
Isle.' But Chesterfield's energy, his lenity, his wise and just
administration saved the Irish from being excited into rebellion by the
emissaries of Charles Edward, or slaughtered, when conquered, by the
'Butcher,' and his tiger-like dragoons. When all was over, and that sad
page of history in which the deaths of so many faithful adherents of the
exiled family are recorded, had been held up to the gaze of bleeding
Caledonia, Chesterfield recommended mild measures, and advised the
establishment of schools in the Highlands; but the age was too
narrow-minded to adopt his views. In January, 1748, Chesterfield retired
from public life. 'Could I do any good,' he wrote to a friend, 'I would
sacrifice some more quiet to it; but convinced as I am that I can do
none, I will indulge my ease, and preserve my character. I have gone
through pleasures while my constitution and my spirits would allow me.
Business succeeded them; and I have now gone through every part of it
without liking it at all the better for being acquainted with it. Like
many other things, it is most admired by those who know it least.... I
have been behind the scenes both of pleasure and business; I have seen
all the coarse pulleys and dirty ropes which exh