must perpetually remain; that they were bound to consult the will of the majority of the nation, and that the will of the majority was the foundation of all law. Castlereagh denounced the speech as an incitement to rebellion and compared Saurin to Thomas Paine. Others noted that by "the nation" Saurin meant the Protestant ruling class with whose interests he wholly identified: never, according to his critics, did he admit that the Catholic majority had any rights at all. That he was appointed Attorney-General for Ireland despite his opposition to the Union and his repeated refusal to stand for the post-Union Parliament is a tribute to his legal eminence (although Daniel O'Connell inevitably accused him of political time-serving). Attorney-General for Ireland His tenure as Attorney-General is remarkable not only for its length, but also for his effective dominance of the Irish administration, a position never equalled by any other holder of the office (with the possible exception of Philip Tisdall, Attorney General 1760–1777). The fact that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was usually an absentee appointment and that the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Lord Manners, was not familiar with the Irish political scene, gave Saurin the opportunity to direct the Irish Government, an opportunity of which he took full advantage. Sir Robert Peel, Chief Secretary for Ireland 1812–1818, was said to be wholly in sympathy with Saurin, although Peel was later to radically alter his own position on Catholic Emancipation. As an Ulster Protestant, of Huguenot origin, it was perhaps natural that he should combine sympathy for the Orange Order with hostility to Catholic emancipation; but his perceived bias against Catholics destroyed his popularity. As early as 1813 his enemy Daniel O'Connell tried to turn the trial of the publisher John Magee for libel into an indictment of Saurin's anti-Catholic bias, although at the time these attacks did not greatly damage him; indeed O'Connell's personal attacks on Saurin, whom he called "stupid and vulgar", may have aroused sympathy for him. Saurin's prejudice against Catholics, sharpened by his personal feud with O'Connell, grew stronger until it became a matter of serious political concern; and while the Crown succeeded in convicting Magee, it failed to secure convictions in other related trials such as that of Dr. Sheridan. Dismissal Saurin's effective control of the Dublin administration was well known to, and for many years taken for granted by the British Government; in