there was no man more eagerly desirous than you, that
that faith so pledged, and upon that principle so explained,
should be religiously adhered to and maintained, as the national
honour and national interest required it should be maintained,
sacred and inviolable."

This brought up Lord Beauchamp, who began by assuring and
protesting that the part he had taken was upon the best motives,
&c., &c. He then went into the question of the writ of error,
how far it could have been rejected, and how useless it was in
Ireland, &c., &c. He then said that it was a point of
parliamentary fairness, that when one person had given notice of
a motion, it should be left to him, and not taken up in the
meantime by any other person.

I answered, that as to the noble Lord's motives, he must do me
the justice to say that _I_ had been perfectly silent on that
head. That with respect to the question about the writ of error,
neither did I conceive this to be a proper time for that
discussion. But that with regard to parliamentary fairness, I
did not imagine that His Majesty's Government would think
themselves justified in postponing so important a question, and
which would have been brought on before the recess if there had
been time, merely because the noble Lord meant to move something
about it at a distant day.

This ended the conversation on the subject; except that I added
that the noble Lord had misunderstood me when he imagined that
_I_ was to move the business on the 21st, as I _apprehended_
that it was the intention of Government to do it.

I cannot help thinking that by this, which has been done
entirely without the concurrence or even knowledge of Lord
Shelburne, we have gained a great point. By giving such a
notice, speaking from the Treasury bench in the hearing of, and
backed by Townshend and Pitt, I have most undoubtedly pledged
Government to do something on that day. If that is short of your
wishes, see in what a situation they stand; if not, you are
landed. In the meantime the notice and the explicit declaration
made in your name must surely be infinitely useful to you in
Ireland.

I wait with great impatience the final decision of the Cabinet.
Conway's expression was, that he conceived there was no
objection to any preamble which had not a retrospect. If we can