Towards the close of the year, Nugent was made Vice Treasurer of Ireland, on the death of Potter, and was succeeded in the Treasury by Oswald. Pitt, in contradiction to the House of Manners, who solicited for Dr. Ewer, to Newcastle, who stickled for a Cambridge man, and to the opposition of the Episcopal Bench, made Warburton Bishop of Gloucester; whose doubtful Christianity, whose writings and turbulent arrogance, made him generally obnoxious. Warburton, inquiring of a friend what the Clergy thought of his promotion, and being told how much it offended them, said, “Tell them it was well for their cause that I did not embrace any other profession.”--We must now take a view of another scene. Mr. Pitt, as I have said, had endeavoured to instil apprehensions of an invasion into the Irish Parliament; at least, to encourage a spirit of raising troops, which might afterwards be applied to other services. It happened at that juncture that there was another point which alarmed the Irish more than the rumours of invasion. This was a jealousy that an union with England was intended, which they regarded as the means of subjecting them further to this Crown. This union was, indeed, a favourite object with Lord Hilsborough. He had hinted such a wish a year or two before in the Parliament of England; and being now in Ireland, let drop expressions of the same tendency. This was no sooner divulged than Dublin was in a flame. The mob grew outrageous, and assembled at the door of the House of Commons. Mr. Rigby[80] went forth and assured them there was no foundation for their jealousy; but _his_ word they would not take. Ponsonby, the Speaker, was at last obliged to go out and pacify them; and Mr. Rigby declared in the House, that if a Bill of Union was brought in, he would vote against it. The tumult then subsided; but Rigby soon after, in consequence of the representations from England, moving that the Lord Lieutenant might on an emergency, such as on an invasion, summon the Parliament to meet without an intervention of forty days, the former suspicions revived, and Rigby’s motion was interpreted as preparatory to some sudden scheme of union before measures could be taken to oppose it. The surmise was absurd; for were any surprise intended, the forms are so many before a Bill can be complete in Ireland, that time can never be wanted to withstand the most expeditious. A Bill must come from the Irish Privy Council to their House of Commons, must return to the Council, must then be transmitted to England and back again before it becomes a law.