In the same year Lord Lifford resigned the chancellorship, and Fitzgibbon was appointed in his place, being raised to the peerage as Baron Fitzgibbon. His removal to the House of Lords greatly increased his power. In the Commons, though he had exercised great influence as attorney-general, his position had been secondary; in the House of Lords and in the privy council he was little less than despotic. "He was," says Lecky, "by far the ablest Irishman who had adopted without restriction the doctrine that the Irish legislature must be maintained in a condition of permanent and unvarying subjection to the English executive." But the English ministry were now embarking on a policy of conciliation in Ireland. The Catholic Relief Bill of 1793 was forced on the Irish executive by the cabinet in London, but it passed rapidly and easily through the Irish parliament. Lord Fitzgibbon, while accepting the bill as inevitable under the circumstances that had arisen, made a most violent though exceedingly able speech against the principle of concession, which did much to destroy the conciliatory effect of the measure; and as a consequence of this act he began persistently to urge the necessity for a legislative union. From this date until the union was carried, the career of Fitzgibbon is practically the history of Ireland. True to his inveterate hostility to the popular claims, he was opposed to the appointment of Lord Fitzwilliam (q.v.) as viceroy in 1795, and was probably the chief influence in procuring his recall; and it was Fitzgibbon who first put it into the head of George III. that the king would violate his coronation oath if he consented to the admission of Catholics to parliament. When Lord Camden, Fitzwilliam's successor in the viceroyalty, arrived in Dublin on the 31st of March 1795, Fitzgibbon's carriage was violently assaulted by the mob, and he himself was wounded; and in the riots that ensued his house was also attacked. But as if to impress upon the Catholics the hopelessness of their case, the government who had made Fitzgibbon a viscount immediately after his attack on the Catholics in 1793 now bestowed on him a further mark of honour. In June 1795 he was created earl of Clare. On the eve of the rebellion he warned the government that while emancipation and reform might be the objects aimed at by the better classes, the mass of the disaffected had in view "the separation of the country from her connexion with Great Britain, and a fraternal alliance with the French Republic." Clare advocated stringent measures to prevent an outbreak; but he was neither cruel nor immoderate, and was inclined to mercy in dealing with individuals. He attempted to save Lord Edward Fitzgerald (q.v.) from his fate by giving a friendly warning to his friends, and promising to facilitate his escape from the country; and Lord Edward's aunt, Lady Louisa Conolly, who was conducted to his death-bed in prison by the chancellor in person, declared that "nothing could exceed Lord Clare's kindness." His moderation and humanity after the rebellion was extolled by Cornwallis. He threw his great influence on the side of clemency, and it was through his intervention that Oliver Bond, when sentenced to death, was reprieved; and that an arrangement was made by which Arthur O'Connor, Thomas Emmet and other state prisoners were allowed to leave the country.