I have dwelt minutely on the circumstances of this history, having learned from the best authorities, and being sure that few transactions deserve more to be remembered. A young Prince, warm, greedy of military glory, yet resigning all his passions to the interested dictates of a father’s pleasure, and then loaded with the imputation of having acted basely without authority: hurt with unmerited disgrace, yet never breaking out into the least unguarded expression; preserving dignity under oppression, and the utmost tenderness of duty under the utmost delicacy of honour--this an uncommon picture--for the sake of human nature, I hope the conduct of the father is uncommon too! When the Duke could tear himself from his favourite passion, the Army, one may judge how sharply he must have been wounded. When afterwards the King, perfidiously enough, broke that famous convention, mankind were so equitable as to impute it to the same unworthy politics, not to the disapprobation he had pretended to feel on its being made. In a former part of this history, I have said with regard to his eldest, that the King might have been an honest man, if he had never hated his father, or had ever loved his son--what double force has this truth, when it is again applied to him on his treachery to the best son that ever lived! Considering with what freedom I have spoken of the Duke’s faults in other parts of this work, I may be believed in the just praise bestowed on him here. We must now turn our eyes to Ireland, which Mr. Conway had left in a state of perfect tranquillity. The imprudence of the new Governors opened the wounds afresh. The Duke of Bedford set out for that Kingdom on the 20th of September, determined as he thought to observe a strict neutrality between the factions, and rigid uprightness in the conduct of his Administration. He began with exacting strict attendance on their posts from persons in employment, and with refusing leave of absence to officers and chaplains of regiments; and considering, too, how his new dominions had been loaded of late years to smooth the difficulties of the English Government, his Grace commenced his reign with strong declamations against Irish pensions. He had two difficulties to encounter before these fair views could be carried into execution: his own Court were far from being so disinterested as their master, and his new subjects were as little desirous of a reign of virtue. Nor had the Duke himself the art of reconciling them to it by his manner, which was shy, untractable, ungracious, ungenerous. The Duchess pleased universally; she had all her life been practising the part of a Queen; dignity and dissimulation were natural to her. The Irish were charmed with a woman who seemed to depart from her state from mere affability. But the person who influenced them both was the Secretary Rigby. He had ingratiated himself with the Duchess, and had acquired an absolute