liament, and incurs every objection to an Union, without obtaining the only object which an Union profeffes: it is an extinction of the constitution, and an exclufion of the people."

What was the language of the minister's advocates to the Catholic body? "You were before the Union, as three to one; you will be by the Union as "one to four." Thus he founds their hopes of political power on the extinction of physical confequence, and makes the inanity of their body and the non-entity of their country the pillars of their future ambition. He afterwards obferved, that the minifter, by his firft plan, as detailed by his advocates, not only excluded the Catholics from parliament, but also deprived the Proteftants of a due reprefentation in that affembly; that he ftruck off one half of the reprefentatives of counties, and preferved the proportion of boroughs as two to one; thus difmiffing for ever the queftions of Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform: that, instead of reforming abuses in church and state, he wished to entail them on pofterity; that, in lieu of Protestant afcendancy and Catholic participation, he proposed to constitute borough afcendancy in perpetual abuse and dominion; that it was his aim to reform the British parliament by nearly fixty boroughs, and that of Ireland by nearly five hundred and fifty-eight English and Scotch members, and thus by mutual mif-representation frame an imperial House of Commons, who would become the host of minifters, not the reprefentatives of the people.

Of the predicament in which the new members would be placed, he faid, never was there a fituation, in which men would have fo much temptation to act ill, and fo little to act well. Subject to great expence and confequent diftreffes, having no fupport from the voice of an Irish public, no check, they would be in fituation a fort of gentlemen of the empire, that is to fay, gentlemen at large, unowned by one country, and unelected by the other, fufpended between both, false to both, and belonging to neither. The fagacious British fecretary of state had remarked, how great would be the advantage to the talents of Ireland, to have this opportunity in the British empire thus opened! that was what they dreaded: that the market of St. Stephen would be opened to the individual, and the talents of the country, like its property, draughted from the kingdom of Ireland to be fold in London. These men, from their fituation (man was the child of fituation), though their native honor might struggle, would be the adventurers of a most expenfive kind, adventurers with pretenfions, dreffed and fold, as it were, in the throuds and grave-clothes of

the Irish parliament, and playing for hire their tricks on her tomb, the only repository the minifter would allow to an Irish conftitution; the images of degradation and the reprefentatives of nothing; he then noticed the bribes offered by Mr. Pitt. To the Proteftant Church perpetual fecurity was promised; but a measure that would annihilate the parliament by which that church was upholden, and disfranchise the people who fupported that establishment, would rather tend, he said, to its difgrace and ruin.

To the Catholic clergy falaries were promifed. Thofe who had been ftrongly accused of difloyalty were to be rewarded for imputed treafons against the king, if they would commit real treasons against the people. Salaries, he allowed, might reasonably be given to thofe fectaries for the exercife of religious duty; but he could not appprove the grant of wages for political apoftacy. According to this plan, the Catholic religion would seem to disqualify its followers from receiving the bleffings of the constitution, while their hoftility to that conftitution qualified them to receive a falary for the exercise of their religion, which would thus be at once punished by civil difability and encouraged by ecclesiastical provision: as good Catholics they would be difqualified, and, as bad citizens, would be rewarded.

A commutation of tithes formed another bribe. It had formerly been obferved by fome of the king's minifters, in oppofition to a propofal of that kind from Mr. Grattan, that it would tend to the overthrow of the church; but now, he faid, the premier was not unwilling to overturn the church, if he could at the fame time overturn the constitution.

Bribes were also offered to the mercantile body. Commercial benefits were holden out for political annihilation; and an abundance of capital was promised; but first, a great part of the landed capital of the country would be taken away by the neceffary operations of an Union. This rival being removed, commercial capital, it was fuppofed, would quickly take its place. But thefe and other promifes of the minifter would probably be found vifionary. He goes on (faid Mr. Grattan) afferting with great eafe to himself, and without any obligation to fact, upon the subject. Icarian imagination is the region in which he delights to sport. Where he is to take away your parliament, where he is to take away your first judicature, where he is to take away your money, where he is to increase your taxes, where he is to get an Irish tribute, there he is a plain direct matter-of-fact man; but where he is to pay you for all this, there he is poetic and prophetic; no longer a third-hand

financier,

financier, but an infpired accountant. Fancy gives him her wand; Amalthea takes him by the hand; Ceres is in his train. The English capitalist, he thinks, will fettle his family in the midst of those Irish Catholics, whom he does not think it fafe to admit into parliament; as fubjects, he thinks them dangerous; as a neighbouring multitude, fafe. The English manufacturer. will make this distinction: he will dread them as individuals, but will confide in them as a body, and fettle his family and his property in the midst of them; he will therefore, the minifter fuppofes, leave his mines, leave his machinery, leave his comforts, leave his habits, conquer his prejudices, and come over to Ireland to meet his taxes, and mifs his conftitution. The manufacturers did not do this when the taxes of Ireland were few, or when there was no military government in Ireland: however, as prejudices against this country increase, he fuppofes that commercial confidence may increase likewife. There is no contradicting all this, because arguments which reafon does not suggest reafon cannot remove. Befides, the minifter in all this does not argue, but foretell; now you cannot answer a prophet, you can only difbelieve him. The premier finds a great abfentee draught: he gives you another; and, having fecured to you two complaints, he engages to cure both. Among the principal caufes of complaint, we may reckon another effect arifing from the non-refidence of the Irish landlords, whofe prefence on their own estates is neceffary for the fuccour, as well as the improvement of their tenantry; that the peasants may not perish for want of medicines, of cordial, or of cure, which they can only find in the administration of the landlord, who civilizes them, and regulates them in the capacity of a magiftrate, while he covers them and husbands them in that of a protector, improving not only them but himfelf by the exercife of his virtues, as well as by the difpenfation of his property, drawing together the two orders of fociety, the rich and the poor, until each may adminifter to the other, and civilize the one by giving, and the other by receiving; fo that ariftocracy and democracy may have a head and body; fo that the rich may bring on the poor, and the poor may fupport the rich; and both contributing to the ftrength, order, and beauty of the state, may form that pillar of fociety where all below is strength, and all above is grace. How does the minifter's plan accomplish this? He withdraws the landed gentlemen, and then improves Irish manners by English factors. The minifter proposes to you to give up the ancient inheritance of your country, to proclaim an utter and blank incapacity to make laws for your own people,

and

and to register this proclamation in an act, which inflicts on this ancient nation an eternal difability; and he accompanies these monftrous proposals by undisguised terror and unqualified bribery; and this he calls no attack on the honor and dignity of the kingdom. The thing which he proposes to buy is what cannot be fold---liberty. For it he has nothing to give. Every thing of value which you poffefs you obtained under a free conftitution: if you refign this, you must not only be flaves but idiots. His propofitions are built upon nothing but your dishonor. dishonor. He tells you (it is his main argument) that you are unfit to exercise a free conftitution; and he affects to prove it by the experiment. Jacobinifm grows, he fays, out of the very state and condition of Ireland. I have heard of parliament impeaching ministers; but here is a minifter impeaching parliament. He does more; he impeaches the parliamentary conftitution itself. The abufes in that constitution he has protected; it is only its existence that he deftroys: and on what ground? Your exports fince your emancipation, under that conftitution, and in a great meafure by it, have been nearly doubled; commercially therefore it has worked well. Your concord with England fince the emancipation, as far as it relates to parliament, on the subject of war, has been not only improved, but has been productive; imperially, therefore, it has worked well. To what then does the minifter in fact object? that you have fupported him, that you have concurred in his fyftem: therefore he propofes to the people to abolish the parliament, and to continue the minifter. He does more; he proposes to you to fubftitute the British parliament in your place, to destroy the body that reftored your liberties, and restore that body, which destroyed them. Against fuch a propofition, were I expiring on the floor, I should beg to utter my last breath, and to record my dying teftimony.”

Mr. Corry replied at large to Mr. Grattan. The inferiority of the Irish conftitution was obvious in the want of that power of controlling the exercife of the royal prerogative in queftions of peace and war, which the British lords and commons poffeffed. Where, he might afk, was the control of the Hibernian parliament over the British minifter advifing the king to declare war, when even with respect to the minifter in Ireland the power of that body was totally inoperative over what the honorable gentleman himself had fo often expreffively termed the fugacious refponfibility of thofe, who could elude the grafp of parliament, and scoff at its authority by stepping on board of the packet?

On

On the divifion about ten o'clock in the morning, 96 voted for the amendment, 138 against it. This majority of 42 exceeded the warmest expectations of government; and the viceroy hoped to increase it by allowing an interval of fome weeks to pafs, before he fent to either house a copy of the refolutions of the parliament of Great Britain.

The defeat of the Anti-Unionifts by a majority of 42, flushed the minister with confidence, and drove their opponents almoft to desperation. The members were now fo far marfhalled into their ranks, that confiderable changes or conversions were not to be expected on either fide: fome folitary inftances of converfions did appear. No means of converfion or confirmation were omitted on either fide. In order to counteract the firft effects of this ministerial triumph in the capital, within an hour or two after the adjournment of the Houfe of Commons (at ten o'clock on the 16th of January) an aggregate meeting of the freemen and freeholders of the city of Dublin was convened by inftant requifition, at which they paffed very ftrong refolutions,* and

amongst

* The following were the proceedings of the meeting, which fhew the spirit of that day. AGGREGATE MEETING.

16th January 1800.

At a most numerous and refpectable meeting of the freemen and freeholders of the city of Dublin, affembled this day by requifition, at the Seffions-house,

The HIGH SHERIFFS in the Chair,

The following gentlemen were conftituted a committee, who reported the following refolutions and addrefs, which were unanimously agreed to by the meeting; Mr. Hartley, Mr. Deafe, Mr. Rawlins, Mr. R. M'Donnell, Mr. Moore, and Mr. Alderman Howison.

"1. That the constitution of Ireland, as established at the memorable period of 1782, is the indefeasible and unalienable right of ourfelves and our pofterity.

"2. That we do moft folemnly and firmly protest against any act, which in destroying that con"ftitution, exceeds the powers with which our reprefentatives in parliament have been invested; "and we do affert, that they have no right to adopt the difgraceful proposal of this our extinction " for ever. Their powers are limited in time and extent, but the rights of the people are unprefcriptable and immortal.

"3. That the re-propofal of the measure of a Legislative Union with Great Britain to the same "parliament, which not a year fince rejected even its difcuffion with indignation, is as infulting, "as its confequences may be dreadful.

4. That the means reforted to for the purpofe of procuring a parliamentary concurrence in this "measure, and a delufive approbation of the people, are base and unconstitutional; and we call

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