any observations on Mr. Tierney's conduct reproachful or in the smallest
degree unfavourable to him, being convinced that he does not merit
them." This is the letter of a spirited gentleman. Buckingham evidently
sympathized with Thomas Pitt; for he expressed his surprise that the
Prime Minister should risk his life against such a man as Tierney. A
more jocular tone was taken by the Earl of Mornington, soon to become
the Marquis Wellesley. Writing to Pitt from Fort St. George on 8th
August 1799 (three months after the capture of Seringapatam), he
expressed strong approval of his Irish policy and concluded as follows:
"I send you by Henry a pair of pistols found in the palace at
Seringapatam. They are mounted in gold and were given by the late King
of France to the 'citizen Sultan' (Tippoo). They will, I hope, answer
better for your next Jacobin duel than those you used under Abershaw's
gibbet."[473]--What became of those pistols?

The general opinion was adverse to Pitt's conduct. For at that time the
outlook in Ireland could scarcely have been gloomier, and Bonaparte's
armada at Toulon was believed to be destined for those shores. In such a
case, despite the nice punctilio of honour, neither ought Tierney to
have sent a challenge nor Pitt to have accepted it. The recklessness of
Pitt in this affair is, however, typical of the mood of the British
people in the spring and summer of that year. The victories of Jervis
and Duncan, the rejection of Pitt's offers of peace by the French
Directory, and its threats to invade these shores, aroused the fighting
spirit of the race. As the war became a struggle for existence, all
thoughts of surrender vanished. The prevalent feeling was one of
defiance. It was nurtured by Canning in the "Anti-Jacobin," in which he
lampooned the French democrats and their British well-wishers. Under
the thin disguise of "the Friend of Humanity" he satirized Tierney in
the poem, "The Knife-Grinder," a parody, in form, of Southey's "Widow,"
and, in meaning, of Tierney's philanthropic appeals. In a play, "The
Rovers," he sportfully satirized the romantic drama of Schiller, "The
Robbers." In one of the incidental poems he represented the hero, while
in prison, recalling the bright days

at the U-
-niversity of Goettingen,
-niversity of Goettingen.

Pitt was so charmed with this _jeu d'esprit_ that he is said to have
added the following verse in the same mock-heroic style:[