speeches he made one magnificent speech, was attracted to Burke by the
fame of the "Vindication of Natural Society," sought his acquaintance,
and when Hamilton went to Ireland as secretary to Lord Halifax, Burke
accompanied him. For two years Burke remained with Hamilton in
Ireland, studying the Irish question of that day, with the closeness of
the acutest mind then at work and with the racial sympathy of the
native. Then he quarrelled, and rightly quarrelled, with Hamilton,
because Hamilton, to whom the aid of Burke was infinitely precious,
sought to bind Burke forever to his service by a pension of three
hundred a year. Burke demanded some leisure for the literature that
had made his name. Hamilton justified Leland's description of him as a
selfish, canker-hearted, envious reptile by refusing. Burke, who
always spoke his mind roundly, described Hamilton as an infamous
scoundrel, flung back his pension and returned to freedom,
independence, and poverty. But he was soon to enter the service of
another statesman under less galling terms, under less unreasonable
conditions.

Burke's name was brought before Lord Rockingham, probably by Burke's
friend and namesake, though in all likelihood not kinsman, William
Burke. Lord Rockingham {100} appointed Burke his private secretary,
and by the simple integrity of his character bound Burke, to use his
own words, "by an inviolable attachment to him from that time forward."
But the alliance thus begun was threatened in its birth. A mysterious
hostility attributed by Burke to "Hell-Kite" Hamilton brought certain
charges to the notice of the Duke of Newcastle. The Duke of Newcastle
hurried to Lord Rockingham to warn him that his newly appointed
secretary was a disguised Jesuit, a disguised Jacobite. Lord
Rockingham immediately communicated these accusations to Burke, who
repelled them with a firmness and dignity which had the effect only of
confirming Lord Rockingham's admiration of Burke and of drawing closer
the friendship of the two men. Burke was promptly brought into
Parliament as member for Wendover, and during the single year which
Lord Rockingham's Administration lasted its leader had every reason to
rejoice at the happy chance which had given to him such a follower and
such an ally.

Burke delivered his maiden speech in the House of Commons on January
27, 1766, a few days after the opening of the session, on the subject
of the dissatisfaction in the American co