interest it is to protect them.' On the other hand, he steadily opposed a reform of the tithe system such as Pitt advised in 1785 and as Grattan urged in the Irish parliament in 1787, 1788, and 1789 (Lecky, Hist. of England, vi. 401).
In the debates on the regency in 1789 the duty of advocating the case of the government rested mainly on Fitzgibbon. In his speeches, which Mr. Lecky has justly described as 'of admirable subtlety and power,' may be found probably the best defence which was made of Pitt's proposal. They show, however, that the idea of a union with England was already in his mind, though he spoke of it as only the least of two evils. Since the 'only security of your liberty,' he said, 'is your connection with Great Britain, he would prefer a union, however much to be deprecated, to separation.' During the debate on the lord-lieutenant's refusal to transmit to the Prince of Wales the address of the Irish parliament Fitzgibbon unguardedly said he recollected how a vote of censure on Lord Townshend had been followed by a vote of thanks which cost the nation half a million, and that therefore he would oppose the present censure, which might lead to an address which would cost half a million more (Plowden, Hist. of Ireland, ii. 286; Grattan, Memoirs, iii. 377. See Fitzgibbon's subsequent explanation in a speech of 19 Feb. 1798, reprinted after his reply to Lord Moira on the same day).
In 1789 Fitzgibbon succeeded Lord Lifford as lord chancellor of Ireland, with the title of Baron Fitzgibbon of Lower Connello. Thurlow for a long time opposed his appointment, partly on the ground that the office should not be held by an Irishman, and partly owing to reports of Fitzgibbon's unpopularity, but yielded at last to the pressure of Fitzgibbon himself, the Marquis of Buckingham, and others (Buckingham, Courts and Cabinets of George III, ii. 157; O'Flanagan, Lord Chancellors of Ireland, ii. 200). In 1793 he received the title of Viscount Fitzgibbon and in 1795 that of Earl of Clare, and in 1799 he was made a peer of Great Britain as Lord Fitzgibbon of Sidbury, Devonshire.
In his judicial capacity he displayed great rapidity of decision, which, though called precipitancy and attributed to his despotic habits, was rather the simple result of his extraordinary power of work and of concentration. An anonymous biographer says that he had heard Peter Burrowes [q. v.], an eminent counsel and strong political opponent, testify to the extraordinary correctness of Clare's judgments (Dublin University Mag. xxx. 682). With equal energy he devoted himself to the task of law reform, and down to the day of his death he sought every opportunity to remove legal abuses.
In politics he maintained an uncompromising resistance to all popular movements, and especially to all attempts to improve the position of the Roman catholics. A detailed record of his chancellorship would be a history of Ireland during the same period. His position and opinions can be most conveniently indicated by a reference to four speeches in the Irish House of Lords, published by himself or his friends, which are of great historical importance: 1. A speech on the prorogation of parliament in 1790, in which he angrily attacked the Whig Club for interfering in a question which had been raised concerning the election of the lord mayor (see pamphlet entitled Observations on the Vindication of the Whig Club; to which are subjoined the speech of the Lord Chancellor as it appeared in the newspapers, the Vindication of the Whig Club, &c., and see also Grattan, Miscellaneous Works, pp. 266, 270). 2. A speech on the second reading of a bill for the relief of his majesty's Roman catholic subjects in Ireland, 13 March 1793 (1798; reprinted in 1813). Reviewing at great length the history of the Roman catholic church in Ireland, and the claims of the catholic church in general, he urged vehemently the impolicy and danger of entrusting catholics with power in the state, but agreed that after the promises which had been made it might be essential to the momentary peace of the country that the bill should pass. His peculiar bitterness on this occasion was partly due to the fact that only a few months before he had vainly sought to dissuade the viceroy and the English government from any conciliatory language towards the catholics (Lecky, Hist. of England, vi. 528), and that as a member of the government he was speaking against a government measure. Comparing the speech with that of the Bishop of Killala, who preceded him, Grattan wrote to Richard Burke: 'The bishop who had no law was the statesman; the lawyer who had no religion was the bigot' (Memoirs, v. 557). The attempt at conciliation which Lord Fitzwilliam was allowed to make for a few months in 1794 and 1795 must have been intensely repugnant to him. Fitzwilliam had marked out the lord chancellor as one of the men who had to be got rid of (Buckingham, Courts and Cabinets, p. 312), and the influence of the chancellor had doubtless a good deal to do with the viceroy's recall. On the day of Lord Camden's arrival the Dublin mob attacked Clare's house, and he was saved only by the skill with which his sister led off the crowd to
