Great as was Lord Redesdale as a judge, there were other duties of his office which militated against his being a success in Ireland. He was a devoted Church of England man and a bitter opponent of Catholic emancipation, and it was abhorrent to him that any office, even that of justice of the peace, should be held by a Roman Catholic. A letter addressed by him to the Earl of Fingal on appointing him to the Commission of the Peace provoked a correspondence which inflamed the Roman Catholics against him, and was fiercely blamed in the House of Commons by Fox and Canning. The final crisis was brought about by his treatment of Lord Cloncurry, who had twice been arrested for high treason, imprisoned under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act in 1799, and very harshly treated in the Tower of London. When the Habeas Corpus Act was restored, he regained his liberty after two years all but a few days, and went abroad for four years. On his return, a Mr. Burne, a King’s Counsel, applied on Lord Cloncurry’s behalf for his admission to the Commission of the Peace. Lord Redesdale resented this interference of a third person, and wrote Mr. Burne an angry and not very judicious answer, in which Lord Cloncurry’s past history was raked up as a ground of refusal. This drew a furious letter from Lord Cloncurry himself, in which he recited the illegality and cruelty under which he had suffered, and made a violent attack upon the bigotry and prejudice of the Chancellor. The Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Hardwicke, at once ordered the Chancellor to insert Lord Cloncurry’s name in the magistracy of the two Counties of Kildare and Dublin, and further offered to recommend that nobleman for promotion in the Peerage. The Viscount’s coronet was refused, but the indignity placed upon the Chancellor was complete. Mr. Ponsonby was appointed to hold the Great Seal of Ireland, and pending his arrival, the Great Seal was put in Commission and Lord Redesdale was not even allowed to sit in the Court of Chancery—his own court. This, in his farewell speech to the Bar, he described as “a personal insult.” His final letter to Lord Cloncurry was characteristic. “My Lord, I have desired instructions with respect to the insertion of your lordship’s name in the Commission of the Peace for the Counties of Dublin and Kildare, and I have to request that your lordship will be pleased to apply to Mr. Ponsonby, whom His Majesty has appointed Chancellor of Ireland, and to whom the Great Seal will be delivered as soon as he shall arrive in the country. I have, etc. (sgd.) Redesdale.” So the stout old Lord stuck to his colours, and without bending left Ireland in 1806, having held his office for four years.