c and Dissenting clergy was secured by a grant of
some provision to both on the part of the State. To win over the
Episcopal Church to such an equality measures were added for
strengthening its modes of discipline, as well as for increasing the
stipends of its poorer ministers, while a commutation of tithes was
planned as a means of removing a constant source of quarrel between the
Protestant clergy and the Irish people.

[Sidenote: Pitt's resignation.]

But the scheme was too large and statesmanlike to secure the immediate
assent of the Cabinet; and before that assent could be won or the plan
laid with full ministerial sanction before the king, it was communicated
through the treachery of the Chancellor, Lord Loughborough, to George
the Third. "I count any man my personal enemy," George broke out angrily
to Dundas, "who proposes any such measure." Pitt answered this outburst
by submitting his whole plan to the king. "The political circumstances
under which the exclusive laws originated," he wrote, "arising either
from the conflicting power of hostile and nearly balanced sects, from
the apprehension of a Popish queen as successor, a disputed succession
and a foreign pretender, a division in Europe between Catholic and
Protestant Powers, are no longer applicable to the present state of
things." But argument was wasted upon George the Third. In spite of the
decision of the lawyers whom he consulted, the king declared himself
bound by his Coronation Oath to maintain the tests; and his obstinacy
was only strengthened by a knowledge that such a refusal must drive Pitt
from office. George was weary of his minister's supremacy. He was
longing for servants who would leave him more than a show of power, and
he chose his ground for a struggle with all the cunning of his earlier
years. It was by his command of public opinion that Pitt had been able
to force his measures on the king. But in the question of Catholic
Emancipation George knew that opinion was not with his minister, but
with himself. On this point his bigotry was at one with the bigotry of
the bulk of his subjects, as well as with their political distrust of
Catholics and Irishmen. He persisted therefore in his refusal; and it
was followed by the event he foresaw. In February 1801, at the moment of
the Peace of Luneville, William Pitt resigned his office into the hands
of the king.

[Sidenote: The Addington Ministry.]

It was with a sense of relief that George foun