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revolt of the colonies; the propriety and expediency of the measure were therefore universally admitted, the bill received the royal assent, and the act has been continued by various subsequent acts of parliament.

In 1778 Mr. Eden went to North America, as one of his Majesty's Commissioners for the purpose of restoring peace. The other Commissioners were the Earl of Carlisle, Lord Howe, Sir Henry Clinton, and George Johnston, Esq.

The public were disappointed in the hoped-for success of this commission, and Mr. Eden returned to England in January 1779, and took a part in the debates of that session, and in the inquiries respecting the conduct of the American war. In the same session he brought forward a bill (the act 19 Geo. 3. cap. 74.) to amend the laws relating to the transportation, imprisonment, and other punishments of certain offenders. He was understood to have had the friendly assistance of the late Mr. Howard and ' Sir William Blackstone in framing that bill, the principal objects of which were to enforce a strict and salutary attention both to the health and morals of prisoners; to introduce a system of solitary imprisonment for certain crimes, and to establish penitentiary houses. This bill, founded in true wisdom, sound policy, and genuine humanity, reflects great honour on the parties concerned in drawing it, and on the legislature which passed it into a law; experience having long since proved not only the truth of the old maxim, that "evil communication corrupts good manners," but also that persons in a slight degree de

praved,

praved, in those nurseries of the most atrocious crimes, the common gaols of the kingdom, (to which persons accused of common assaults, and felonies of every description, arc promiscuously committed) may be hardened in vice, and converted into wretches capable of the most heinous and horrid offences against the laws of the land, and the personal safety of the subject.

In November 1779 Mr. Eden published his four Letters addressed to the Earl of Carlisle, on the spirit of party; on the circumstances of the war; on the means of raising the supplies; and on the representations of Ireland respecting a free trade. This publication, at once ably and candidly written, called forth a considerable degree of public attention at the time it was read with great avidity by every man who either mixed or took an interest in the political disquisitions of the period, and gave rise to a good deal of party reasoning in print.

These Letters were followed by a short controversy with Dr. Price on the population of England. The discussion and inquiry were pursued by others with much ability.

In the year 1780 Mr. Eden was appointed chief Secretary in Ireland, in the viceroyalty of the Earl of Carlisle: he was soon afterwards sworn of the Irish privy council, and elected a member of the Irish parliament. He remained in Ireland during a period of much fermentation and anxiety, till April 1782, pursuing measures equally calculated to conduce to the happiness and prosperity of that part of his Ma

jesty's dominions, and to increase and further the general interests of the British empire. Among the various acts of his administration which warrant this eulogium, not the least useful and important was his framing and bringing forward a bill for establishing a national bank.

While Mr. Eden continued in Ireland, he sedulously studied the genius and character of the people; he endeavoured to discover the true political interests of the island, to ascertain its local advantages, its commercial capacities, and to acquire a certain degree of knowledge of the manners, habits, humours, passions, and even prejudices of the different descriptions of its inhabitants. In no European country are they so opposite and so different, owing chiefly to the difference of religion, the want of encouragement in respect to agriculture and manufactures, and the extreme distance at which the yeomanry and peasants are kept from the gentry and superior landholders. Viewing the whole with a comprehensive and statesman-like eye, Mr. Eden was able to form the outline of a pretty correct notion upon these important subjects; but, though gifted with perceptions peculiarly quick, and a judgment uncommonly ready, he could not, in the short period that he continued in Ireland, have learnt enough to have enabled him to have conducted his administration with the ability and success with which it was attended, if he had not, at the same time, formed connections and friendships with the first men in that kingdom, those who were esteemed to be the most profoundly skilled in the

science of its government, to know all the local and relative interests of the country, and to be thoroughly conversant and experienced in its powers and resources, its revenue, its commerce, and its police. From such valuable and intelligent friends, the active and inquiring mind of Mr. Eden derived all the information that he sought for, and to these connections, honourable equally to himself and to all who formed them, we are to ascribe the essential services he was found qualified to render the British empire, when he was called upon to contribute all that his abilities and knowledge could furnish, towards settling and adjusting the principles of that important transaction-the UNION which has recently taken place between Great Britain and Ireland, and which promises to add so much to the stability and permanence of the British empire.

Towards the end of March 1782 the ministry was changed, and Lord North with his friends went out of office, in deference to the sense of the House of Commons, expressed by its vote on a popular question decided adverse to the existing administration. In April Mr. Eden came from Ireland, and appeared on Monday the 8th of that month in his place in the House of Commons; whence, having been called upon, as the minister of Ireland, to give some account of the state of affairs in that country, he rose and detailed the history of them for some years past, describing their existing situation, the feelings of the Irish respecting the question of legislating for themselves, and the expectations from the liberality

of Great Britain on that head. He concluded with moving for leave to bring in a bill "to repeal so much of the 6th of George the 1st as affected the legislative independency of Ireland," solemnly declaring that he believed the house's compliance with such a motion would give perfect quiet to Ireland. This occasioned a warm and animated debate of some hours, at the end of which Mr. Eden said, "that as he saw there was a fair and anxious disposition to comply with the wishes of Ireland, he would at least infer that his motion would not be excluded as a part of the proposed plan." [Mr. Fox, then Secretary of State, indicating his assent,] Mr. Eden, after a few more observations as to his solemn belief "that the motion before the house would be satis

factory," concluded with saying, "that he must give way to the sense of the house, for his withdrawing the motion; but he begged to have it remembered, that it was a deference to their wish, and not the sentiment of his own mind, that induced him to do so."*

* In order to explain to the reader the cause and nature of this transaction, it is necessary that he should be apprized that the Earl of Carlisle was appointed Lord-lieutenant of Ireland in a very critical and arduous period. The first session of parliament while the Earl was Viceroy presented many and daily difficulties to be surmounted; the administration of that kingdom had nevertheless the good fortune, by an equal share of candour and firmness, to conduct it smoothly and safely as far as they remained in power. A system of wise and constitutional changes was projected, countenanced by the government at home, acknowledged to be highly satisfactory by fuch of the leading persons in Ireland, to whom

they