the suspicious features of the Fitzwilliam affair that he,
now Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, should urge Pitt to treat
Fitzwilliam with the confidence due to his prospective dignity. The
Attorney-General, Sir Richard Pepper Arden, sent to Pitt the following
caution:

_September 1794._[476]

... My wife says she dined the other day with Grattan at the
Chancellor's. I am sadly afraid that preferment in Ireland will
run too much in favour of those who have not been the most
staunch friends of Government; but, pray, for God's sake, take
care that the new Lord Lieutenant does not throw the Government
back into the hands of Lord Shannon and the Ponsonbys, nor turn
out those who behaved well during the King's illness to make way
for those who behaved directly the reverse. Excuse my anxiety on
this head but I fear there is good reason for it.

Arden was correctly informed. Now or a little later, Fitzwilliam formed
the resolve to dismiss Fitzgibbon and Beresford. On the other hand, the
lowering outlook in Holland in the autumn of 1794 induced in Pitt the
conviction that the time had not yet come for sweeping changes at
Dublin. Accordingly, late in October, or early in November, he and
Grenville thoroughly discussed this subject with the newly appointed
Ministers, Portland, Fitzwilliam, Spencer, and Windham. Grenville's
account of this conference, which has but recently seen the light,
refutes the oft repeated statement,[477] that Pitt accorded to
Fitzwilliam a free hand at Dublin. On the contrary, it was agreed,
apparently with the full consent of the Viceroy-elect, that he should
make no change of system.[478] Fully consonant with this decision was
the reply of Pitt to Sir John Parnell, Grattan, and the two Ponsonbys,
who in the third week of November 1794 begged him to lower the duties on
inter-insular imports. While expressing his complete sympathy with their
request, he declared the present critical time to be inopportune for a
change which must arouse clamour and prejudice.[479] The conduct of
Fitzwilliam was far different. Landing near Dublin on 4th January 1795,
he on the 7th sent Daly to request Beresford to retire from office.
Beresford refused, and sent off an appeal to his old friend, Auckland,
with the result that the Cabinet soon met to consider the questions
aroused by this and other curt dismissals. It being clear that
Fitzwilli