was succeeded by his equally talented son, who kept up the paternal alliance with the Speaker Ponsonby.
Meanwhile the patriotic party in the Irish Parliament, disgusted at their betrayal for honours and emoluments by their whilom friends in 1753, purged their ranks and defined their objects. In Dr. Lucas they found a leader of probity and perseverance whom persecution and physical infirmity could not daunt, nor bribes tempt; in Mr. Saxton Pery and Mr. John Fitzgibbon the elder they found eloquent expositors of their cause; their last and most valuable recruit was Henry Flood.
The first step necessary towards breaking the power of the oligarchy was to limit the duration of Parliament. This reform and a quam diu se bene gesserint tenure for the judges and the establishment of a national militia were the immediate objects which the patriotic party set before themselves, as not only desirable but attainable. At the general election which had followed the accession of George III., nearly all the candidates had been obliged to pledge themselves to vote for a Septennial Bill, and the adherents of the dominant Junto were forced with the rest to accept the pledge, though in their hearts they knew that by voting for it they would be sounding the knell of their own ascendancy. They hoped to get rid of the question indirectly, and as the patrons of boroughs who mostly belonged to the dominant party could nearly always count on a majority, they had abundant reasons to hope for success.[1]
Such was the state of affairs when, after the brief Lord-Lieutenancies of Hertford, Weymouth, and Bristol, Townshend came over in 1767 as Viceroy of Ireland under the administration of Chatham.
It had been decided by the English Ministers, though of this Townshend does not seem to have been informed, that the Lord-Lieutenant should in future be a constant resident, an arrangement in itself fatal to the power of the
- ↑ The borough system had been developed to such an extent that out of the 300 members who composed the Parliament 216 were returned for boroughs or manors. Of these borough members 200 were elected by too individuals and nearly fifty by ten."—Lecky, Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, p. 65.
