The removal of Westmoreland, the friend of the Protestant minority, was followed by the brief but sensational viceroyalty of the second Earl Fitzwilliam. Pitt's avowed policy was to win the sympathies of the majority, and Lord Fitzwilliam was considered the best man to give effect to the policy of the Government. He was gazetted, therefore, to Ireland in December, 1794, and a month later appeared in Dublin. His wife was a daughter of the Earl of Bessborough, and both were very popular in Court circles. Possessed of great wealth, it was thought that Fitzwilliam would be the less independent of the support of the Castle bureaucracy, which was fighting with venom the battle for its existence. No sooner was Fitzwilliam in Dublin than he received instructions to continue Westmoreland's policy. But he had started the work of reform before these reached him. One morning Beresford, who had married Barbara Montgomery, a sister of Lady Townshend, was dismissed from his post of Commissioner of the Customs; Toler, Attorney-General--afterwards the notorious Lord Norbury--Wolfe, the Solicitor-General, and Cooke, the Military Secretary, also received notice that their services were no longer required. The Castle people were panic-stricken; their occupations seemed to be {200} gone, but even Fitzwilliam, with all the prestige of great birth and wealth, could not overwhelm the bureaucracy. Beresford appealed to Pitt and the king, and within a few days the dismissed officers were all reinstated. This was too much for the viceroy, and on March 25, 1795, he left Ireland, to the accompaniment of a demonstration of mourning absolutely unique in the history of the country. Dublin proclaimed it a day of humiliation; all the shops were closed, and the citizens lined the streets. Grattan gave voice to the general regret, and fiercely denounced the treachery of Pitt, who had assured him that Lord Fitzwilliam was to adopt an essentially Catholic policy. [Illustration: Earl Fitzwilliam] In the circumstances the strongest of men might have hesitated before undertaking the ominous task of carrying on the Government. Unfortunately, there was a total ignorance of Ireland and its affairs amongst the English nobility, and when Lord Camden was offered the post he accepted it without demur, and confidently travelled to the Irish metropolis. Ireland knew nothing of the viceroy, and certainly the latter knew even less of the country he was called upon to rule. He was thirty-six years of age, but possessed all the pompous prejudices of a man twice his age. On his coming of age he had been appointed Teller of the Exchequer, and held it for sixty years--1780 to 1840--though after drawing about three-quarters of a million sterling from the Treasury, he 'patriotically' consented in 1812 to forego the income of the office. {201} CHAPTER XIII