libels on the principle of the measure. Identity was promifed as the grand object; yet every thing fpoke diftinctnefs. Another feature ftruck him in the minifterial arrangement. The general parliament, it was fuppofed, would be a paragon of purity and worth; yet the minifter acknowledged that it ought not to be trufted; and he therefore fhackled and reftrained its omnipotence. Mr. Saurin conceived the measure fatal to the interefts of Ireland, and difclaimed any refponfibility in the calamitous confequences.

The Attorney General re-afferted the neceffity of an Union, which was alfo fupported by Mr. Monck Mason and Mr. Ormfby. Mr. Serjeant Stanley on the fame fide panegyrised the British minister for boldly striking at the root, from which the diforders and calamities of Ireland had fprung, and bringing forward that great measure of imperial policy, which the best friends of this country had long anxiously defired rather than confidently expected. The question was then put on the motion of adjournment, which being rejected, the first day of the following January was fixed for the commencement of the Union of the kingdoms, and the article which related to the fettlement of the crown was also voted by the committee.

On the 24th of February, Mr. Shaw having warmly oppofed the profecution of the scheme, a divifion took place, when there appeared 56 for the speaker's leaving the chair, and 48 against it.

Some further converfations, in which nothing new occurred, took place, and in compliance with fome of the petitions against the measure, several gentlemen of the law appeared at the bar to oppofe various parts of the commercial scheme, and witnesses were brought forward to give evidence against it. On the 4th of March Mr. G. Ponfonby alleging, that the fovereign would not have perfifted in recommending the present measure, unless he had firmly believed, that the fentiments of the public on the subject had undergone a great change, urged the houfe to remove fo injurious a delufion by an intimation of the truth. A knowledge of the number of anti-union petitions would, he said, correct that error; and he therefore propofed an address, stating, that in conformity with the constitutional rights of the people, petitions against a Legislative Union had been presented to the parliament from twenty-fix counties, and from various cities and towns.

Lord Caftlereagh affirmed, that the public opinion had really undergone a change friendly to the measure, and that seventy-four declarations, nineteen of which were of those counties, had been prefented in its favor. Even

if this were not the cafe, he would oppofe a motion, which derogated from the deliberative power of parliament, and tended to encourage a popular interference pregnant in these critical times with danger and alarm.

Mr. Saurin and feveral other gentlemen of the bar maintained the conftitutionality of fuch appeals to the people; and the Lords Corry and Cole and fome others fupported the question, which was met by a motion for adjournment. On the oppofite fide fpoke Lord Charles Fitzgerald, Mr. Fox, Mr. Ormfby, and feveral other members; between feven and eight in the morning the house divided on the queftion of adjournment, ayes 155, noes 107.

On the 10th of March, the, fubject of parliamentary representation was difcuffed, and carried by a majority of 19.

A converfation then arofe on the topic of compenfation for the lofs of the patronage of boroughs. Lord Caftlereagh perfifted in the intention of propofing a recompence, though Meffis. Plunket and Goold inveighed with great warmth against the idea of rewarding the profligate invaders of the rights of the people, and expreffed their astonishment at the fhameless inconfiftency and abfurdity of thofe, who could affert the omnipotence of parliament, when the members had once been chosen by the people, yet avowed that the majority were not the fair reprefentatives of the nation, but merely the creatures of borough proprietors.

To difprove the affertion that Cork favored the Union, Sir John Freke prefented a petition against it from eighteen hundred of the inhabitants of that city; but General Hutchinson affirmed, that this was not the fenfe of the majority of the traders or freemen of Cork. Colonel Longfield and Mr. May concurred in that declaration. Sir John Parnell again recommended a diffolution of the parliament, that the opinions of the people might be more certainly known; but Mr. Corry reprobated that appeal as unneceffary and imprudent.

The difcuffion was renewed on the 13th of March, when Sir John Parnell moved in form, that the king fhould be addreffed to convoke a new parliament before any final arrangement of Union fhould be adopted. Mr. A. Moore feconded this propofal as wife and honeft; and Sir Laurence Parsons, though fenfible of the great influence of the crown in the choice of members, declared his willingness to put the fate of the queftion on the election of a new parliament. Mr. Alexander oppofed the motion; but Major Osborne was zealous in its fupport, as was alfo Mr. Saurin, who urged the expediency

VOL. II.

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of attending to the fenfe of the nation, and maintained, that if laws should be enacted in oppofition to the public will, conftitutionally expreffed, they would not be obligatory, and the right of refiftance would revert to the people. The folicitor general could not hear fuch doctrine without horror; and he accufed the father of the bar of unfurling the bloody flag of rebellion; but Mr. Egan hinted, that the miniftry had unfurled the flag of proftitution and corruption. Mr. Saurin's opinions were ftrongly combated by Dr. Duigenan, as unconstitutional and mischievous. Mr. Serjeant Stanley, Lord Caftlereagh, Mr. May, and Sir John Blaquiere declaimed against the propofal of appealing to the public, and urged the house to ftigmatize with decifive effect the alarming invitation to popular refiftance. Mr. Grattan, on the other hand, vindicated the fentiments of the barrifter, and recommended the appeal, not as a reference to the mere multitude, but to the constituent body. On a divifion for the addrefs, there appeared 150 votes against the motion, and only 104 for it. The houfe adjourned at four o'clock in the morning.

On the following day, the prime ferjeant ftated the expediency of an identification of the churches as well as of the parliaments of the two countries; and obferved, that whatever indulgence after that might be extended to the Catholics, there would then be no danger of the fubverfion of the Proteftant church of Ireland. This article was quickly voted, and that which refpected the exifting laws and courts of both countries paffed without oppofition.

The fixth article, which had been postponed on account of the complexity of the fubject, was brought forward on the 19th of March by the right honorable Mr. Beresford, who entered very ably into all the calculations, eftimates, and revolutions upon this commercial article, which without any oppofition received the affent of the committee.

When it was propofed that the house should be refumed for the reception of the report, Mr. O'Hara stated fome objections to the affigned rate of contribution for Ireland, which he deemed too high; and Mr. Grattan again expatiated on the impolicy and injuftice of the Union.

Mr. Fofter and Lord Caftlereagh both spoke with great animofity. Mr. G. Ponsonby, Mr. Saurin, and fome others warmly oppofed the report of the refolutions, but it was carried by a fimilar majority as the former questions. When the report was prefented to the houfe on the 21ft, Sir Laurence Par

fons

fons then expreffed his hope, that when the fcheme fhould appear in the form of a bill, thofe gentlemen who had no nobly ftood forward in defence of the country would again affail it with the most determined energy. Sir John Freke reprefented the terms as fo difadvantageous, that they had not made a convert of a fingle member, who had cenfured the principle of the measure. After fome defultory converfation, the refolutions received the fanction of the house.

A meffage was then fent to the House of Lords, importing that the commons had agreed to the articles* of the Union; and on the 27th, the peers intimated to the other house, that they had adopted them with some alterations and additions. Thefe amendments were readily approved by the commons; and Lord Caftlereagh immediately proposed an address to his majefty, in which both houses concurred. In this addrefs they declared, that they cordially embraced the principle of incorporating Great Britain and Ireland into one kingdom, by a complete and entire Union of their legiflatures; that they confidered the refolutions of the British parliament as wifely calculated to form the basis of such a settlement; that by those propofitions they had been guided in their proceedings; and that the refolutions now offered were those articles which, if approved by the lords and commons of Great Britain, they were ready to confirm and ratify, in order that the fame might be established for ever by the mutual confent of both parliaments.

On the day (the 22d of March) on which the articles were carried up to the lords, Lord Farnham oppofed the fourth article, alleging, that the representation of the Irish peerage was a mere mockery to cover the folly and injustice of the Union. Lord Chief Baron Yelverton in favor of the Union entered very fully into the fubject. The great value, he said, of the arrangement of 1782, which he had affifted in forming, was, that it placed the Irish on a proud footing of legislative independence, and enabled them to fay upon what terms they were willing to unite; whereas, if that adjustment had not occurred, they would perhaps before this time have yielded to an union of subjection, not an union of equality. Their independence had never fince been violated, and they were not now defired to give up their legislative rights, but to perpetuate them by Union: their liberties would not be annihilated, but would be rendered immortal, by being placed on the fame broad

* These articles are to be feen in the Appendix, No. CXIX.

bafe with thofe of Great Britain. The Hibernian parliament would fo far be annihilated, as to be no longer a distinct legislature, and so would that of Great Britain be extinguished; but out of the two a third would arife, neither British nor Irish, but a compound body, more competent than either to promote and fecure the freedom, the profperity, and the happiness of the whole.

If an idle fondness for independence had prevailed from the beginning, no political affociation could ever have been framed, and mankind must have remained in a ftate of nature. But prudence and policy taught two or more families to form a fociety, focieties to form a nation, and small nations to form a great one, by facrificing diftinct independence to common fecurity.

His lordship combated the conclufion drawn against the Union from the interpofition of the fea as a phyfical barrier between Ireland and Britain, by alleging, that the commercial utility of the fea was rather an argument for an Union. He then afferted the competence of the two parliaments to enact the propofed measure, faying, that union was only a law common to two states, and that to doubt the competency of two legislatures to frame fuch a law was to doubt their competency to answer the ends of their inftitution.

Then the question, whether twenty-eight temporal and four spiritual peers should represent Ireland in the imperial parliament, was carried by a majority of thirty-four. Two amendments were proposed by the Earl of Clare, and adopted; importing, that on the extinction of three Irish peerages one might be created, till the number fhould be reduced to 100, and afterwards one for every failure; and that the qualifications of the Irish for the imperial parliament should be the fame in point of property with those of the British

members.

All the articles having been confented to in the committee, the report was offered on the 26th of March, and confirmed by the house. A meffage to the commons was then propofed, when the Earl of Bellamont renewed his op pofition to the general measure.

The Earl of Defart thought the propofitions too advantageous to Ireland to justify refusal. Vifcount Powerfcourt confidered them in an oppofite light: and the Duke of Leinster apprehended, that difunion and perpetual feparation would be the ultimate refult of the projected scheme. A motion for delay was put by the Anti-unionifts, and negatived by 47 against 18 votes.

The