n his Treasurership of the
Navy. The matter was patched up, only to be opened once more in the
winter. Pitt sought to mediate between the bard and his victim, but
failed to elicit from Canning an apology as complete as Hawkesbury
demanded. Finally, on 18th January, Canning informed Pitt that, as
Hawkesbury had left his letter unanswered for three days, he declined to
take the further steps which Pitt recommended.[704] Is it surprising
that the health of the Prime Minister began to suffer? Friends noted
with concern his thinness and a hacking cough. Nevertheless, he rode out
successfully the squalls of the session of 1805, beating off the onset
of Sheridan against his Defence Bill, and defeating an inopportune
motion of Fox for Catholic Emancipation.

On this subject Pitt secretly sympathized with Fox, but his hands were
tied both by his promise of March 1801 to the King not to bring up the
subject during his reign, and recently by his union with Addington. The
Irish Catholics knew of these difficulties; and at meetings held by
their leading men at the house of James Ryan, a wealthy Dublin merchant,
in the autumn of 1804, both Lord Fingall and Counsellor Scully
deprecated a petition to Parliament as alike useless and embarrassing.
Scully urged that they must conciliate one whose "opinions had literally
proved of great weight in the Catholic cause.... The Catholics owe him
[Pitt] respect for his enlarged and manly conceptions of the necessity
of relieving them, and the dignified energy with which he publicly
expressed those conceptions." A Committee was chosen to consider the
matter and communicate with Pitt. It included Fingall, Sir Thomas
French, Scully, and others. At the third meeting at Ryan's house, on
17th November, Keogh sharply blamed Fingall for opposing the petition,
and commented adversely on the silence of Pitt. Scully inferred from it
"that he is favourably disposed, but in some way, to them unknown, not
in a situation in which he can freely act," or even explain his
reticence; but no Catholic wished to embarrass him.[705] Nevertheless,
the petition was resolved on; and it is clear that Fox encouraged the
petitioners rather from the hope of embarrassing Pitt than of carrying
Catholic Emancipation.[706]

In March 1805 Scully came to London, and saw Fox, Nepean, and Grey. Pitt
received him and others of the Irish deputation at Downing Street on the
12th. Scully noted in his diary: "He [Pitt] wore dirty boots