Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/450

CAULFIELD. 439 constitution from ministerial encroachment. By the mem- bers of the new Whig Club were proposed, and maintained with firmness and eloquence, a place bill, a pension bill, a responsibility bill, a bill to prevent revenue officers from vot- ing at elections; similar to those bills which had long been the law of England. Session after session were those bills resisted with effect by the administration and its adherents, but perseverance at length procured their adoptioh. Lord Charlemont attended all the arduous debates of that day, and spent more of his time in the commons than in the lords, where Lord Fitzgibbon began to rule with almost unlimited sway. A prineipal ground of attack on minis- ters in the house of commons, was the creation of fourteen new places for members of parliament, for the purpose of increasing an uneonstitutional influence in that house, and conferring the honours of the peerage for money, which was expended in the parchase of seats in the lower house, for the like unconstitutional purpose. This most criminating charge was büt feebly resisted by the minis- terial party, who were content to vindicate themselves by recrimination on their opponents, that similar practices had taken place during Lord Northington's administration, which some of the leading members of the present opposi- tion had advised and supported. The fact, however, serves to shew the system of expedients by which the ministers of the day were constrained to support their influence in parliament; but while the honours of the peerage were thus earried to market, and sold to the best bidder, who would only pledge bis support to ministers, it was deemed necessary to wound the feelings of a nobleman who had always proudly maintained the dignity of his own here- ditary rank, the independence of his principles, and the attachment of bis country. Lord Charlemont, whose an- cestors, for more than a century, had held the lieutenancy of the county of Armagh, had now joined with him in that office, Lord Gosfort, and this without any previous intimation, or any motive assigned: for the Grst intimation