“Many thanks for your letter, which it would have given me pleasure to receive anywhere, but particularly in the remote district of Munster where it found me, meditating upon the means of converting bogs into fields, rocks into quarries, and (not the least difficult of metamorphoses) Irish peasants into efficient labourers. We have, at the other extremity of the island, got into a more civilised region. Downshire is the Yorkshire of Ireland—the same universal appearance of wealth and industry, and even of neatness and comfort, prevails.
“The shops here are full of prints and songs against Castlereagh, the leavings of the election, which has produced a general effect throughout Ireland. I am far from thinking the elections here will be so completely under the controll of Govt. as many of their adversaries, as well as friends, suppose. There is in most counties a rising spirit of independence, and the weight of the Catholic interest will be strongly felt. I have been myself strongly sollicited by a number of freeholders of the Co. of Kerry to offer myself at the gen. election, nor should I have the least doubt of success, if I had not other views,
* Viscount Castlereagh [1769-1822] had been returned as Whig member for county Down in 1790, the election costing his father the almost incredible sum of £60,000. He joined the Tories in 1795, became Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1797, and incurred the hatred of many of his countrymen by the ardour and success with which he forwarded Pitt’s project of the Union, by buying up borough-mongers. But he was a strong advocate of Roman Catholic emancipation, and retired with Pitt when George III. set his veto upon the measure to which Pitt was pledged. He took office under Addington as President of the Board of Controul in 1802, and lost his seat on seeking re-election in 1805 when he was appointed War Minister under Pitt. |
| 44 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. II. |
“What great events are passing on the Continent. It is terrible to think that Pitt has so much of the fate of England and of Europe in his hands. I understand there has been some disagreement with Russia in consequence of the D. of Y. being intended for the command of a combined army of Russians and English, against which the Court of Petersburgh remonstrated. How disgracefull to be indebted to a foreign court for teaching us commonsense and our own interest at such a crisis!”
