He founded the "Annual Register," and was in its pages for many years to come the historian of contemporary Europe. Of all the many debts that Englishmen owe to Burke, the conception and inception of the "Annual Register" must not be reckoned as among the least important. It was at this point in his career that Burke's connection with public life began, not to end thenceforward until the end of his own life. Single-speech Hamilton, so called because out of a multitude of speeches he made one magnificent speech, was attracted to Burke by the fame of the "Vindication of Natural Society," sought his acquaintance, and when Hamilton went to Ireland as secretary to Lord Halifax, Burke accompanied him. For two years Burke remained with Hamilton in Ireland, studying the Irish question of that day, with the closeness of the acutest mind then at work and with the racial sympathy of the native. Then he quarrelled, and rightly quarrelled, with Hamilton, because Hamilton, to whom the aid of Burke was infinitely precious, sought to bind Burke forever to his service by a pension of three hundred a year. Burke demanded some leisure for the literature that had made his name. Hamilton justified Leland's description of him as a selfish, canker-hearted, envious reptile by refusing. Burke, who always spoke his mind roundly, described Hamilton as an infamous scoundrel, flung back his pension and returned to freedom, independence, and poverty. But he was soon to enter the service of another statesman under less galling terms, under less unreasonable conditions. Burke's name was brought before Lord Rockingham, probably by Burke's friend and namesake, though in all likelihood not kinsman, William Burke. Lord Rockingham {100} appointed Burke his private secretary, and by the simple integrity of his character bound Burke, to use his own words, "by an inviolable attachment to him from that time forward." But the alliance thus begun was threatened in its birth. A mysterious hostility attributed by Burke to "Hell-Kite" Hamilton brought certain charges to the notice of the Duke of Newcastle. The Duke of Newcastle hurried to Lord Rockingham to warn him that his newly appointed secretary was a disguised Jesuit, a disguised Jacobite. Lord Rockingham immediately communicated these accusations to Burke, who repelled them with a firmness and dignity which had the effect only of confirming Lord Rockingham's admiration of Burke and of drawing closer the friendship of the two men. Burke was promptly brought into Parliament as member for Wendover, and during the single year which Lord Rockingham's Administration lasted its leader had every reason to rejoice at the happy chance which had given to him such a follower and such an ally.