m told he entirely neglects his duty. Pole readily
admits his hopeless stupidity and unfitness for office.'

'I do not think your son,' Peel wrote to his Under-Secretary, 'can
make a more inefficient member of the Board of Stamps than Mr. T. has
done. I am perfectly ready, therefore, to acquiesce in the exchange.'
'I make a great sacrifice,' he wrote to Lord Whitworth, 'when I say
that I doubt whether O.'s habits would qualify him for such practical
duties as the Collector of Belfast at least ought to perform. Belfast
is so flourishing a town, and contributes so much to the revenue, that
I fear the Collectorship of it is too prominent a situation to place
in it a young man ... we must admit to be a ruined man by gambling.
Considering how careless he has been of his own money, perhaps some
office not connected with the collection of the public money ... would
be more suited to him.... What do you think of the following
arrangement? Make J. collector for this very bad and very good reason,
that he is the most inefficient Commissioner, and therefore the public
service will suffer least from his appointment. Make Colonel H. a
Commissioner. He will be about as inefficient as J. Make R.M. junior,
the most inefficient of the three, Surveyor of Lands, _vice_ H., which
(though he will lose 200_l._ a year) will greatly oblige his father,
the member; and, lastly, fulfil your good intentions towards O. by
making him a Commissioner of Accounts, _vice_ M.'

Many other characteristic pictures pass before us. There were officers
of the revenue who were recommended to 'the marked favour' of the
Government because they had shown what Peel somewhat rashly called
'the common honesty' of refusing bribes. There was an official who
scandalously connived at an abuse of justice by which innocent women
were condemned to transportation, though taking measures that the
Government should indirectly hear of the transaction. There were
shameful abuses in the sale of the office of gaoler, shameful frauds
in the collection of taxes, in the Customs, in the barrack charges.

'My most decided opinion,' Peel wrote about one of these culprits, 'is
in favour of his dismissal. I am quite tired of, and disgusted with,
the shameful corruptions which every Irish inquiry brings to
light.'[23]

Much trouble was given by newspapers which were subsidised by the
Government, and at the same time conducted in a manner which no honest
Government could approve of.[24