In 1763 Hamilton, who had found him an invaluable auxiliary, procured for him, principally with the aid of the Primate Stone, a pension of three hundred pounds a year from the Irish Treasury.

In thanking him for this service, Burke proceeded to bargain that the obligation should not bind him to give to his patron the whole of his time.

He insisted on being left with a discreet liberty to continue a little work which he had as a rent-charge upon his thoughts.

Whatever advantages he had acquired, he says, had been due to literary reputation, and he could only hope for a continuance of such advantages on condition of doing something to keep the same reputation alive.

What this literary design was, we do not know with certainty.