The Marquis of Buckingham, once a popular idol, and received as viceroy with acclamation, had no sooner dared to remonstrate with this imperious parliament, than he was overwhelmed with national rebuke. The idol was plucked from its pedestal; and the Viceroy, pursued by a thousand libels, was glad to escape across the Channel. He was succeeded by the Earl of Westmoreland, a man of some talent for business, and of some determination, but by no means of the order that "rides the whirlwind, and directs the storm." He, too, was driven away. In this dilemma, the British cabinet adopted the most unfortunate of all courses--concession; and for this purpose selected the most unfitting of all conceders, the Earl Fitzwilliam--a man of no public weight, though of much private amiability; sincere, but simple; honest in his own intentions, but perfectly incapable of detecting the intentions of others. His lordship advanced to the Irish shore with conciliation embroidered on his flag. His first step was to take the chief members of Opposition into his councils; and the immediate consequence was an outrageousness of demand which startled even his simple lordship. The British cabinet were suddenly awakened to the hazard of giving away the constitution by wholesale, and recalled the Viceroy. He returned forthwith, made a valedictory complaint in parliament, to which no one responded; published an explanatory pamphlet, which explained nothing; and then sat down on the back benches of the peerage for life, and was heard of no more. The Earl was succeeded by Lord Camden, son of the celebrated chief-justice, but inheriting less of the law than the temperament of his father. Graceful in manner, and even aristocratic in person, his councils were as undecided as his mission was undefined. The aspect of the times had grown darker hour by hour, yet his lordship speculated upon perpetual serenity. Conspiracy was notorious throughout the land, yet he moved as tranquilly as if there were not a traitor in the earth; and on the very eve of a conflagration, of which the materials were already laid in every county of Ireland, he relied on the silent spell of the statute-book! The secretary, Mr Pelham, afterwards Lord Chichester, wanted the meekness, or disdained the short-sightedness of his principal; and, on the first night of his official appearance in the House, he gave at once the strongest evidence of his own opinion, and the strongest condemnation of the past system; by boldly declaring that "concessions to the Catholics seemed only to increase their demands; that what they now sought was incompatible with the existence of a British constitution; that concession must stop somewhere; and that it had already reached its utmost limit, and could not be allowed to proceed. Here he would plant his foot, and never consent to recede an inch further."