Lord Naas tried to comfort his mother in her painful suspense about her son by a mixture of religious consolation and the doctrine of chances. "Keep up, and hope in G.o.d he may be safe. Two thousand men are about one in seven killed or wounded of those engaged; so even human chances are in our favour. But it is in the G.o.d of battles we must trust." Then a few days later, "My dearest {42} Mother,--The list of killed and wounded has just arrived. Thank G.o.d, our dear Johnny is safe. It is the greatest mercy our family has ever received, and I trust we may be thankful for it to the end of our lives. What an awful list!"
How the ever present anxiety of those winters penetrated the smallest details of life! "I went to Ballinasloe last Monday," he writes, "and bought thirty-one heifers. The cost was enormous, 15 pounds 15_s._, and they never can pay unless prices keep up. But they were as cheap as any in the fair. I went over to Lord Cloncurry"s for the night.
John Burke, of Johnny"s regiment, was there. He told me a great deal about him. He said he did his work well. He says he saw him telling off his company, after the battle of Inkermann, as coolly as if he had been on parade."
Meanwhile Lord Naas was doing good work for his party during their six years in opposition. He had won the liking and confidence of the Irish Conservatives in the House; and Lord Derby, when he came into power in 1858, again offered Lord Naas the Chief Secretaryship for Ireland. A long list of measures in that and the following year bears witness to his activity.
One who was officially connected with him in two of his princ.i.p.al Bills thus writes: "What struck me in my communications with him on these matters was this. After the Bills had been settled by those conversant with the legal part of the subject, he would detect errors which had escaped us all. He {43} swooped down upon a flaw like a scholar on a false quant.i.ty, and would sometimes break up a whole set of clauses with his own hand, and re-write them himself, saying, "There, now; you may put it into legal language, but that is the sense of the thing I want." Again, when a draftsman would produce something very symmetrical and beautiful in theory, he would say: "That"s all very fine, but the House of Commons won"t look at it." At this time he began to feel almost a despair of accomplishing any real work for Ireland, owing to the factions within herself and in Parliament. I do not think he had more respect for the ultra-Orange party than he had for the Fenians. He believed they were alike hurtful to the country, and that the opposition to be expected from one, or it might chance from both, made it hopeless to attempt anything sound or moderate.
"This feeling especially oppressed him with regard to his Tenant-Right Bills and his educational measures. He had at the same time so warm a regard for many friends of various shades of opinion, that it hurt him sorely when he felt it his duty to propose a policy which he knew they would not approve of. He would say to them: "Well, if you don"t like my Bill, you"ll have to swallow something much worse from the Radicals next year." His love for Ireland was inexhaustible, and alone carried him through the vexations of trying to work for her. He loved the people, he liked the climate (he hated an east wind or a frosty day), he liked the sport, and he loved his {44} friends and neighbours. I recollect his saying to me when a political opponent, Lord Dunkellin, died: "Dunkellin is a great loss; he loved Ireland so truly, and understood her so well, that he would have done real good for us all some day.""
A colleague, who afterwards came into the closest relations with Lord Naas in his Parliamentary work, writes to me thus: "Lord Mayo lived too far ahead of his party for his own comfort. Though he was a member of a Tory Cabinet, I think that his opinions were shared to the full by only one member of that Cabinet, Mr. Disraeli. He was not entirely a Conservative of his own day; neither was he a Liberal, according to the tenets of the Liberal party of his time. He was a large-minded politician, who felt the necessity of belonging to one party or another if he were to effect anything practical. While revering the Established Church, he admitted the right of every man to choose his own creed, and denied to no faith a power to save.
While he desired to maintain all rights essential to the security of landed property, he was anxious to do away with the legal or technical difficulties that stand between the tillers of the soil and the full enjoyment of the results of their labour. If he could only see a real reform in the state of the land and of the cultivator, he cared not whence or how it came. He believed that any permanent improvement of the land ought to be for the benefit alike of the owner and of the tiller of the soil. His idea was, "If you really improve my land, you shall {45} not lose by so doing, and any rule or law that says otherwise shall be done away with." He used to argue that, if you prevent such reforms you injure yourself as landlord, and you act unjustly to your fellow-men. Liberty of thought, of faith, and of action he loved more than life itself. The exercise of either spiritual or temporal power for purposes of intimidation or wrongful coercion was to him hateful. He had an unresting sympathy for all in want or in misery. For the lunatic poor, for prisoners, and for the fallen, his heart was always urging him to work; and for them he _did_ work, and did good work."
Another of his colleagues, the Earl of Derby, has touched off his character as an official: "I have known other men, though not very many, who were perhaps his equals in industry, in clearsightedness, and in the a.s.semblage of qualities which, united, form what we call a good man of business; and I have known men, though but few, who possessed perhaps to an equal extent that generosity of disposition, that unfeigned good-humour and good temper, which were among the most marked characteristics of our lamented friend: but I do not know if I ever met any one in whom those two sets of qualities were so equally and so happily united. No discussion could be so dry, but Lord Mayo would enliven it with the unforced humour which was one of his greatest social charms. No question could be so complicated, but that his simple, straightforward way of looking at it was {46} quite sure of suggesting something of which you had not thought before."
"He understood thoroughly," continues Lord Derby, "how important an element of administrative success is the conciliation of those with whom you have to deal; but the exercise of that power was with him not a matter of calculation, but the result of nature. He did and said generous things, not because it was politic, not because it was to his political interest, but because it was his nature, and he could not help it. I do not think he had in the world a personal enemy; and so far as it is possible to speak of that which is pa.s.sing in another man"s mind, I should say he had never known what it was to harbour against any person a feeling of resentment. We who acted with him in Irish matters can bear witness to his firmness when firmness was necessary, to the soundness of his judgment in difficulties--and difficulties just then were not unfrequent--and, above all, to that coolness which was never more marked than in critical moments."
"As the chief of a great office," writes one well competent to speak, "he had the finest qualities. Early in his habits, regular in his work, and unceasing in industry, he set a great example; and he knew, somehow or other, the secret of getting out of every one under him the maximum of work which each might be capable of. He had a faculty which I have never observed so fully developed in any one else, of detecting a single blunder in the papers before {47} him. I have seen him open a large file of doc.u.ments, and almost immediately hit upon an inaccuracy, either in the text or in the subject-matter. I once handed him a long Bill, revised with great care by the Crown lawyers, and saw him discover in almost an instant of time what proved to be the only clerical error in it. He was my idea of a great head of a department, knowing every branch of the work, familiar with almost everything that had been done by his predecessors, and always ready to meet and to overcome difficulties."
This facility of work was no doubt largely due to the fact that Lord Naas held only one office, and that he held it each time when his party came into power during twenty years. He made Ireland his speciality from the first, and the Chief Secretaryship, with its rules, precedents, and every detail of its duties, sat as familiarly on him as the clothes he wore.
In 1859 his party went out, and during the next seven years Lord Naas was again the Parliamentary leader of the Irish Conservatives in opposition. He had no enemies except among the more extreme parties of his countrymen on either side. His political opponents frequently consulted him, and have been ready to acknowledge the practical hints which they obtained from him. The truth is, as the colleague already quoted says, that he was more anxious to obtain good measures for Ireland than careful as to the party whence they might come. Indeed, his maiden speech in 1849 had been in support of the {48} Ministry to whom he was politically opposed; and although his official connection with his own party afterwards placed a fitting reticence on his words when he disagreed with it, he was ever willing to help any one whom he thought was doing real work for Ireland.
During these years of opposition, he spoke vigorously upon the Irish prison system, poor relief, national and mixed education, police, agricultural statistics, registration Acts, and many other questions connected with his own country. He was not a brilliant orator, but he put forward his views with sense and firmness, and always spoke with a perfect knowledge of the facts. When the Conservatives again came into power in 1866, Lord Derby for the third time offered him the Chief Secretaryship, with a seat in the Cabinet, and in that office he remained until he left for India in 1868. This marks the period of his greatest political activity. A bare list of the measures which he introduced into Parliament, or carried out in his executive capacity, would fill many pages. The subjects were the same as before, and they dealt with almost every side of the condition and wants of Ireland.
These years are chiefly remembered in England by the Fenian agitations, which, both before and after that time have, under one name or another, perplexed Irish Ministers. But in Ireland they are known as years of well-planned improvement in the practical administration.
"In 1867," writes one of his colleagues during this {49} trying period, "he had no fewer than thirty-five Bills in preparation. I often wondered how one man could carry so much in his head about matters so different in their nature and so difficult in themselves.
Yet I always found him perfectly conversant with each, prepared on the moment to discuss any change I might suggest, and ready with a reason why he had not framed his instructions on the plan I might propose. He never lost his presence of mind. I well remember one morning in March, 1867, I received a message at an early hour from Lord Naas, saying that he would like to see me. When I entered his room at the Irish Office, he was sitting at a table writing a letter, looking uncommonly well and fresh, and quite composed and quiet. He handed me a telegram, and went on with his writing. I read that during the night there had been a rising of Fenians near Dublin. I confess I was considerably agitated, and did not conceal it. I shall never forget the demeanour of Lord Naas. He had lost not a moment in sending a copy of the telegram to Her Majesty, and preparing the case for the Cabinet. What puzzled him more than anything was the sudden stoppage of any further news. We telegraphed again and again, but it was not till late in the afternoon that any clear answers were received. He issued all the orders with the same quiet and precision as if dealing with ordinary work. He had at once determined to go that night to Ireland, and to remain there till order was restored.
{50} "He had perfect confidence in his arrangements, and he declared that the insurrection could never a.s.sume any serious importance. But he was uneasy for the safety of persons living in isolated parts, and about the small bands of villains who would use a political disturbance as a shelter for local crimes. He said: "I dread more than anything else that a panic will be fed by newspaper reports, and that an outcry may get up that Ireland ought to be declared in a state of siege, and military law proclaimed. To this I will never yield, although I know my refusal will be misrepresented, and may for the moment intensify the alarm.""
It is unnecessary in a personal narrative to repeat what followed in the Fenian camp. "The insurrection," continues his colleague, "if it may be dignified by that name, was immediately stamped out. Lord Naas put it down in his own way, yielding neither to threats nor entreaties; acting wisely and firmly, and allowing himself to be influenced neither by newspaper panics, nor by patriots in the House of Commons, nor by rebels outside it. When he returned to London, he went on with his Government Bills precisely as if nothing had happened, and no fewer than eighteen of his measures prepared in that year received the Royal a.s.sent."
In January, 1867, his mother died. His father survived her only six months, and on 12th August, 1867, Lord Naas succeeded as sixth Earl of Mayo.
Meanwhile, the Conservative Ministry were in a {51} minority in the House of Commons. It became clear in 1868 that a general attack might be expected, and that the Opposition would select Irish ground.
Accordingly, in that session Mr. Maguire, then member for Cork, moved for a committee of the whole House to consider the state of Ireland.
On this occasion Lord Mayo was made the mouthpiece of the Government.
His speech, although not successful as a Parliamentary utterance at the moment, forms a most valuable contribution to the political history of Ireland.
"This speech," writes one who was then a.s.sociated with him, "required very careful preparation. Lord Mayo proposed to show how, notwithstanding Fenianism and local disaffection, the general prosperity of Ireland was steadily increasing. This he unquestionably proved by facts, statistics, and arguments. The collecting and arranging of the facts would have tried a man in full health. And unhappily, Lord Mayo was at that time very far from well. The day before, he could not leave his house, and the day of his speech he was only a trifle better. He spent the whole twelve hours in checking his materials and figures, and, according to his custom while thus engaged, ate nothing. When he rose to speak, he was both ill and weak, and at one time could hardly proceed. It may be easily understood that he failed to give life or pleasantness to the dry details with which he had to trouble the House. As a matter of fact, the speech, although sound and complete in {52} itself, proved a long and heavy one to the listeners. But when read afterwards, it struck us all as forming, in point of knowledge, truth, care, and logic, a complete answer to the charges brought by the Opposition."
Lord Mayo himself felt very unhappy about it for some days. The fact seems to have been, that it was one of those speeches which, from the number and complexity of the details involved, are better read than heard. It is now an accepted authority regarding the state of Ireland, and a permanent storehouse of facts to which both parties resort.[9] At the time it led to a rumour that Lord Mayo was leading on to the policy known as "levelling up." "It was his wish," writes one who knew his mind, "that grants of public money might be made to inst.i.tutions without respect to creed, whether Catholic or Protestant, established for the education, relief, or succour of his fellow-countrymen; and that no school, hospital, or asylum should languish because of the religious teaching it afforded, or because of the religion of those who conducted it. He would even, I think, have gladly seen such of the revenues of the Irish Church as might not be absolutely wanted for its maintenance applied to these purposes. So far, but so far only, he was for levelling up."
[Footnote 9: See, for example, Earl Russell"s _Recollections and Suggestions_, p. 344.]
The feeling which, ten years before, forced itself on him during his second tenure of office, as to the difficulty of doing any real good for Ireland, had {53} deepened since. The interval in opposition, and his experience as Chief Secretary for the third time, impressed him more strongly than ever with the necessity of Irish reform, and at the same time more keenly with the unlikelihood of his being permitted to effect it. So far as I am competent to hazard an opinion, it seems to me that his views went too far for his own friends, and not far enough to take the matter out of the hands of the other great party, to whom the task of more radical legislation for Ireland soon afterwards fell.
The sense of the English nation, moreover, appears to have been that the work would be best done by those whose general policy identified them with liberal measures. Lord Mayo believed intensely in the need of such measures for Ireland; but he did not belong to the reforming party in England, nor was it possible for him to frame a plan which would satisfy that party and at the same time retain the support of his own. It only remained for him to go on with his work faithfully, with however heavy a heart. Estimated by the number of Acts which he prepared and pa.s.sed through Parliament, or by the executive improvements made in the Irish Administration, these three years (1866-68) were the most useful ones in his English career. But, judged by what he had hoped to effect, and what he now felt it impossible to accomplish, they were years of frustration and painful self-questioning. Shortly afterwards, with the bitterness of this period fresh in his memory, he {54} wrote to a brother who had just entered Parliament for an English const.i.tuency: "I advise you to leave Ireland alone. There is no credit to be got by interfering with her politics, and your position does not make it your duty to do so."
But the way in which he bore up amid these difficulties, and the actual work which he managed to do in spite of them, had won the admiration of administrators unconnected with the party government of England. In the first half of 1868, one of the leading members of the India Council, a man of tried experience both in India and in the direction of her affairs at home, spoke to a brother of Lord Mayo as to the likelihood of his succeeding Lord Lawrence as Viceroy. He said that the feeling in the Indian Council pointed to him as the fittest man. On this being repeated to Lord Mayo, he replied: "Not a bit.
So-and-so is as fit as I am, and has a better claim." But, later in the session, he one day said to his brother: "Well, Disraeli has spoken to me about India! He mentioned that Her Majesty had asked him whom he thought of nominating for the office of Viceroy, should we still be in office when it became vacant; that he had brought forward my name among others, and that Her Majesty had expressed herself very graciously about the way I had conducted Irish affairs." About the same time the Prime Minister mentioned to Lord Mayo that the Governor-Generalship of Canada would also be vacant, and gave him to understand that he might have that at once, {55} while it was by no means certain that the Ministry would be in power next January, when the Viceroyalty of India actually demitted.
So the matter remained for some weeks. Lord Mayo struggled between his love for his children, whom he could take with him to Canada, and the more splendid sphere of activity offered in India, where he would be separated from them. At length he decided on the wider and more independent career, and made up his mind to refuse Canada on the chance of India being offered to him when the time arrived. A few months afterwards the offer was made, and Lord Mayo"s Parliamentary life came to an end.
Mr. Disraeli, in addressing the Buckinghamshire electors in the same November, thus spoke of the recent labours of that life, and of the reasons which had induced Her Majesty to reward them: "With regard to Ireland, I say that a state of affairs so dangerous was never encountered with more firmness, but at the same time with greater magnanimity; that never were foreign efforts so completely controlled, and baffled, and defeated, as was this Fenian conspiracy, by the Government of Ireland, by the Lord-Lieutenant, and by the Earl of Mayo. Upon that n.o.bleman, for his sagacity, for his judgment, fine temper, and knowledge of men, Her Majesty has been pleased to confer the office of Viceroy of India. And as Viceroy of India, I believe he will earn a reputation that his country will honour; and that he has before him a career which will equal that {56} of the most eminent Governor-General who has preceded him."
During his twenty-one years of Parliamentary life (1847-68), Lord Mayo spoke upwards of 140 times, filled the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland thrice, prepared and introduced 36 Bills, and carried 33 Acts to completion through the House. His 133 princ.i.p.al speeches fill 524 columns of Hansard, and deal with every subject connected with the administration of his native country.
It was, however, in the executive details of that administration, rather than in his Parliamentary appearances, that the value of Lord Mayo to his party lay. In his legislative measures the apprehension constantly hara.s.sed him that he was going farther than many of his friends would approve of, and yet not far enough to disarm their political opponents. This divergence from formerly warm allies grieved him deeply, and drew from him several letters, in which self-reliance is curiously mingled with regret and pain. In one such letter to Lord C----, in 1868, he defends his catholicity of spirit towards the conflicting creeds of his native country. The paper is too lengthy to be reproduced in full, but it reads like an amplification of Matthew Arnold"s maxim, that the State should be of the religion of all its subjects, and of the bigotry of none of them.
To the outward world, Lord Mayo"s career had seemed a fortunate one.
Elected for his own county on his first start in public life; appointed Chief {57} Secretary for Ireland while still a very young man; re-appointed to that post on each of the two occasions on which his party had subsequently held power; a favourite in Parliament and among his country neighbours; a Cabinet Minister, with considerable patronage pa.s.sing through his hands; he had succeeded to his family estates while still in the prime of life, and become the head of an ancient and a n.o.ble house. With a well-knit frame, and unwearied power alike of physical and mental enjoyment, he now possessed a fortune adequate to his place in the world, but not involving the responsibilities incident to the administration of one of the great incomes of the English peerage.
Yet the divergence steadily widening between Lord Mayo and the party with whom he had set out in life, made him at this period a very unhappy man. "I remember," writes a friend, "one summer evening we sat till late together, and for the first time he let me see his inner self. I felt much for him, for I knew how well and hard he had worked for Ireland, and how poor had been the acknowledgment. Then, too, I saw how greatly he longed for some sphere of usefulness in which he could show the world what he was made of, and test the strength which he felt in him, but never had had the chance of putting forth as he wished." In such moods Lord Mayo turned towards his family as a refuge from the frustrations which beset his public life. He had always tried to make himself the friend of his children; and in 1868 his letters breathe a peculiar tender playfulness which, {58} considering his own state of mind at the time, is not without pathos.
Wherever he might be, and whatever the pressure of his anxieties or his work, he always found time for his boys. Some of his notes are scribbled from the House of Commons, others from his office; many from country houses where he had run down for a day"s hunting or shooting. Throughout they bear the impress of a kindly, genial man, who had the sense to see the policy of making his children his companions and allies.
One of his sons is always "My dear old b.u.t.tons," another "My dear old President," or "My darling old Boy," and so forth. From one who appears to be starting on a rowing-excursion on the Thames, he wishes to know, "What day do you go on your great voyage?" and so, "Good-bye to my Powder Monkey, and tell me what day you leave Eton." To another he is "very sorry to hear that you are in the Lower School, as it will keep you back sadly hereafter; but the only thing now is to work very hard, and get a remove every half, or even a double remove." "I send you my Address," he writes from the Conservative borough of c.o.c.kermouth; "stick it up in your room, and lick any Radical boy that laughs at it." "I am glad you like your school, though I am somewhat afraid, by your liking it so much, that you are neither worked very hard in your head nor birched on the other end." To another, "I send you thirty shillings for your subscription. The Eton beagles will have to {59} go precious slow if your old toes can carry you up to them."
He could give advice when needful. "My dear old Boy," he writes to one of his sons, who he heard was making some not quite desirable acquaintances, and who had replied in a spirited letter that he could not desert his friends, "I liked your letter very much, because you spoke out your mind, and told me what you thought. I do not want you to give up your friends, or to do anything mean; but I did hear that you were intimate with one or two fellows who were not thought much of in the school, and not your own sort at all. This annoyed me; for I should hate to think any boy of mine was not able to hold his own with his equals. I think that you had better extend your acquaintance, and, without giving up any of your old friends, mix more generally with the boys, and let them see you are as good as any of them. It is a bad thing to be always chumming up with one or two chaps, as it leads to jealousy and observation, and prevents you from studying the characters of many whom you will have in after life to a.s.sociate with or to struggle with. Those are my sentiments. I know you will try and follow them."
Lord Mayo found another resource against the vexations of a public career in his love of country life and field sports. In England he was an ordinary politician, not distinguished by commanding wealth or by any great hereditary influence, and deficient rather than otherwise in oratorical graces, who made {60} his mark by strong common sense, and the power of mastering details and of doing hard work. In Ireland he was known as an indefatigable sportsman and a most joyous country neighbour, whose time and purse were always at the service of his friends. His famine-work had made a name for him in County Kildare, and his genuine kindliness of heart, with a happy Irish way of adapting himself to his company, steadily increased his popularity as he went on in life. No sketch of Lord Mayo would be complete which overlooked this side of his character. It was the aspect in which he was best known to a large proportion of his friends; and his country tastes helped in no unimportant way to keep his temper sweet and his nature wholesome, at a time when he began to feel somewhat keenly the difference between what he had hoped to do for Ireland, and what he would be permitted to accomplish.
Lord Mayo was a sportsman in more than the ordinary sense. To a keen physical relish for many forms of manly exercise, he added a less common industry in the branches of knowledge collateral with them. He was not content with enjoying hunting; he studied it. At Palmerstown he set on foot and personally managed an a.s.sociation for improving the breed of horses and cattle. His work as M. F. H. will be presently noticed. He familiarised himself with the country which he hunted, as a general would study a district which he had to hold or to invade; and, indeed, he used to say laughingly, that he thought {61} he might do very well some day as Commander of the Forces in County Kildare.
When Lord Naas accepted the Mastership of the Kildare Foxhounds in 1857, he found that a succession of hard winters had left the hunting country dest.i.tute of good coverts, the severe frosts having killed the gorse. Just before he became Master, the huntsman, after a blank day in the centre of the county, had declared that he could not tell where they should find a fox the next season; and gentlemen who knew Kildare felt that it would not afford two days" hunting a week for many years to come.
Lord Naas set himself to bring about an equilibrium in the finances, and to do this he felt he must give value to the subscribers for their money. He rejected a friendly proposal to hunt only twice a week for the first season, declaring that Kildare should never sink into a two-day-a-week county in his time, and he laboured to make up for the poverty of the coverts by good management and hard work. One day, during his first season, a firm supporter said to him: "Well, you have now drawn two turnip-fields, three hedgerows, and one highroad. Have you a covert for the evening?" He said he had, and gave a fine run. His industry and popularity soon began to tell on the funds. By the end of his first season the subscriptions had risen from 900 pounds to 1450 pounds, and the field-money from 250 pounds to 358 pounds, thus quenching a deficit of 500 pounds, and leaving a surplus of 150 pounds instead.
More than twenty new coverts were formed during {62} his five years, and at least thirty others rehabilitated. "In fact," writes a Kildare gentleman, "the whole country was re-made during Lord Naas"
Mastership, through his personal exertions, and by means of the great enthusiasm which he created among his supporters." Before he gave up the hounds, in 1862, he had placed the hunt on such a basis as to warrant the expenditure being fixed at 1900 pounds a year, and to enable his successor to hunt seven days a fortnight from the first.
"As Master of the Kildare hounds," writes one of his brother sportsmen, "Naas had a good deal against him in his public capacity as a politician, with the farmers and others; but his innate goodness of heart, his thorough love of Ireland and Irishmen, and his wondrous enthusiasm for sport, soon made him loved by all who knew him. There are many farmers who have not hunted since his time, and he made many a man hunt who never thought of it before. He was never once in a field without knowing it ever afterwards, and how to get out of it.
He remembered every fence in the country; and one day, having lost his watch in a run, he next day walked over the ground, part of which he had crossed alone, and found it. He reckoned that the greatest compliment paid to him while Master was by the farmers of the Maynooth country. One of them gave the land, and they all turned out with men and horses, and made a stick covert for him in a single day.
Nothing ever gratified him more. But, indeed, there were men in {63} Kildare among all cla.s.ses who were devoted to him, and with whom he had marvellous influence--men of different religion and of different politics from himself.
"Lord Naas drew very late, and was always delighted, when it was very late, if somebody asked him to draw again. He often went to the meet when the country was deep with snow and hard frost; but if it was thawing he always hunted, even with no one out. He never had a very bad fall; and when he had an ordinary one, he never cared. Those who saw him at Downshire jump into a trap filled with water will not easily forget his joyous whoop when we ran to ground, and his fine manly figure and happy face as he sc.r.a.ped the mud off his coat.
"To sum up: Lord Naas took the country in 1857 with poor funds, no coverts, and few foxes. In five years he gave it up with all the coverts restored, full of foxes, and with a balance of money in hand--the subscriptions having increased by 500 pounds a year. The gentlemen of the county are solely indebted to him for the present satisfactory state of the county as a great hunting country. He advocated the admission of members who would not have been admitted under the old rules, and did much thereby to popularise the Hunt."
The same friend remarks in a private letter:[10] "We are indebted to Lord Naas for Kildare as it is--for its good sport and good-fellowship." Perhaps a too enthusiastic estimate of the services of any single man; but Lord Mayo {64} carried so intense a vitality alike into his work and his play, that he was apt to infect with enthusiasm all who came near him.
[Footnote 10: Written in 1874.]
To return to his public career. As the session of 1868 gradually disintegrated his party, Lord Mayo"s difficulties increased. It may well be imagined, therefore, how he began to look forward to the independence held out by the Indian viceroyalty. "He had but a single regret," writes a colleague; "he feared that his appointment would mortify a friend who (he thought) wanted it. I was struck by the manly self-reliance, and at the same time the becoming modesty, of his bearing. How strong he felt himself, and yet how fully he realised the responsibilities and difficulties before him! But the one great feeling which seemed to animate him was joy at being at last free--to do, to think, and to act as he himself found to be wisest. He seemed to me to be like a man who, having been for some time denied the light of the sun, was suddenly brought into the open day. The only expression which could give utterance to all that was pa.s.sing within him were the two words, "At last.""
The tottering state of the Ministry throughout the session of 1868 strongly directed public criticism to their having appointed one of themselves to a great office which would not fall in till January 1869. The reason of its being intimated early in the autumn was that Lord Mayo desired to visit the chief political centres in India before a.s.suming office, with a view {65} to studying on the spot certain large questions then pending. How thoroughly he accomplished his purpose was realised by every one who, during the early months of his Viceroyalty, had to discuss those topics--ranging from the Suez Ca.n.a.l to the state of local feeling on important matters in Bombay and Madras. The moment the appointment was made, and while still in England, he threw himself into his new destiny. He denied his heart its last wish to spend the remaining weeks in Ireland; attended the India Office at all hours; held daily consultations with the leading Indian authorities; toiled till late in the night on the doc.u.ments with which they supplied him; and employed those about him in collecting books and papers bearing upon India.
To the public, however, it seemed doubtful whether the Conservatives would be in power when the Indian Viceroyalty actually demitted; and, as a matter of fact, they had resigned before that event took place.