on the improvements of the country, whereas they flowed notoriously from the late long prorogation of Parliament. This defeat alarmed the Court of England, but instead of recalling the culpable Viceroy, they granted him his full catalogue of pensions, excepting only 2000_l._ a-year to his secretary, Sir George Maccartney, who being son-in-law of Lord Bute, it was not thought advisable to furnish so unpopular a topic to either country.[209] The confirmation of their pensions soon recalled the stragglers, and procured a considerable majority to the Castle; but the debates were so long, and were followed by such zealous libations, that Dr. Lucas, the Wilkes of Ireland, fell a victim to his patriotic fatigues. Still the wanton intemperance of Lord Townshend’s tongue and conduct, and a further stretch of authority in erecting new wards of revenue for the sake of multiplying offices, once more turned the scale, and by the end of November he lost a question against a majority of 46, who voted that it appeared to the House by evidence that the former boards of Custom and Excise had been sufficient, and that there was no want of more commissioners. Many of the placed voted against the Castle. The late pension to Dyson had given much additional disgust, being a formal breach of the King’s promise given by the Duke of Northumberland that no more pensions for terms of years should be granted but on extraordinary occasions: and the Irish Attorney-General being asked what such occasions were, had replied, On such cases as Sir Edward Hawke’s and Prince Ferdinand’s. Was Dyson’s pension a violation of that engagement, or was such a prostitute tool of office a proper pendent to the victor of the Spanish navy, or to the hero of Minden? Those ill-humours, it was feared, would induce the House of Commons not to send over the money bills; yet so great was the attachment of the Irish Whigs to the English Government, that they did transmit the bills hither, content with resolving, by a majority of one vote only, that they would make no provision for Dyson’s pension. A fresh indiscretion, negligence, or trick, turned the scale once more against the Castle. Two copies of all bills, for fear of miscarriage, are always sent by different roads to Dublin. In one copy of the returned bills which happened to arrive first, the English Attorney-General, to whom they were referred, had omitted the word “cottons.” The Irish Commons, who deny the Crown’s right of altering a money bill, flamed at the omission, and though the exact copy arrived four days after the former, and was offered to the House by the Lord-Lieutenant, the tenacious Commons adhered to their rejection. The English Government immediately abandoned the alteration, but, to preserve the King’s pretensions to a power of altering a money bill, they changed the monosyllable _and_ for _or_, which was accepted in Ireland, and returned time enough to save the expiration of the