is pure in the source, flowing from the old-fashioned Whig principles; and if defective in discernment, very replete with conviction."[1]
While the above exchange of ideas was passing, and preparations were being made for a great Parliamentary struggle, news arrived that the proposed tax had been rejected in the Irish House of Commons by a majority of 20, notwithstanding the support of the Government. Most of the tenants who held leases had allowed clauses to be inserted in them stating that they would pay all new taxes, and they now threatened that if the absentee tax were held to come within the terms of their agreement, they would emigrate. Hence the tax had become generally unpopular, and it perished ignominiously. "If they could but have obtained the absentee tax," writes Mr. Beauclerk to the Earl of Charlemont, "the Irish Parliament would have been perfect. They would have voted themselves out of Parliament, and lessened their estates one-half of their value. This is patriotism with a vengeance!"[2]
The struggles of the Whigs were now renewed on a different field. Shelburne, feeling the injury which was being done to the popular cause in the City, by the want of character of Wilkes, had long resolved to oust him, if possible, from the position he had acquired. With this object he selected James Townshend, commonly known as Alderman Townshend, to be his instrument.
James Townshend was the son of Chauncey Townshend, for many years member for Wigton,[3] and a devoted adherent of the Court. The politics, however, of his two sons, Joseph and James, were very different from those of their father. The former was the "honest Joe Townshend," rector of Pewsey in Wiltshire, with whom in after-years Bentham swore eternal friendship at Bowood, on the basis of their both having nearly been Methodists, of their both being actually Utilitarians, and of their both
