gratifying privileges. John Foster,1 on the contrary, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, was opposed to a Union, and he had the Irish Bar on his side. One hundred and ninety-eight members of the latter met together to discuss the question on December 9, 1798, and by a majority of 134 they decided to oppose the suggestion at the present juncture on the following grounds. They alleged that the payment of priests and the commutation of tithes could be effected without the accomplishment of a Union-an argument not to be despised; that such a measure would bring in its train an increase of taxation, as the debt of England was much greater than that of the smaller island; that the Loyalists of Ireland were already as loyal as they could be, and that a Union could not make them more so; that an increase of disaffection would be caused among those classes already disaffected to the British rule; that the parallel urged between the Scottish and Irish Unions was fallacious, as the conditions were entirely different in the present case; and that the Irish Parliament would be utterly unable to carry a legislative Union in the teeth of national opposition. The opponents of a Union did not recognize, however, how greatly the revived religious and social antagonism produced by the rebellion had aggravated the difficulty of self-government in Ireland. The Catholics before 1785 had been ready to support a measure of the kind, as they looked forward to their own emancipation, the darling of their hopes, which they believed would accompany it; but after the recall of Fitzwilliam, they veered round, and between the end of 1798 and the beginning of 1799 realized that there was no chance of the boon of freedom being given to them. And they were right, for, as we have seen, Clare had influenced Pitt to effect a Union on a purely Protestant basis. This change of opinion caused Sir George Shee in 1799, one of the most active and loyal of the Irish magistrates, to advise a postponement of the measure until the agitation caused by the idea of it had subsided. But the English Government were aware that the unusual ferment consequent upon rebellion was their opportunity, and they instructed the LordLieutenant to make it known that a Union would on the contrary be pressed forward. The next move was a proposal on the part of the Government to endow the Irish Catholic priests in order to gain their support for the intended Bill. The bribe would have proved insufficient in any case, but the Government were afraid of their own proposal and the suggestion was not carried out. The Irish Parliament met in January 1799, and an amendment to the Address proposed by George Ponsonby,2 and

1 Afterwards Lord Oriel.

2 George Ponsonby, afterwards member for Wicklow County in the Imperial Parliament, and made Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1806. Died in 1817.

seconded by Sir Lawrence Parsons, advocating separate Legislatures was rejected by a majority of only one, whilst the clause in the Address respecting the intended Union was, on the motion of Parsons, defeated by five votes. Thus the independent members of the Irish Parliament were clearly opposed to a Union with Great Britain. Thereupon Ponsonby moved"That this House will ever maintain the undoubted birthright of Irishmen, by preserving an independent Parliament of Lords and Commons residing in this kingdom, as stated and approved by His Majesty and the British Parliament in 1782." But, although Ponsonby's supporters had voted against the Union clause of the Address, they flinched at the last moment. They were afraid of estranging the Court party for ever and were tempted by Government bribes, and having observed with chagrin the change of the tide, Ponsonby decided to withdraw his motion. As Sir Henry Cavendish remarked-" It was a retreat after a victory." During the same Session the Loyalist Claim Bill was passed which charged Ireland with more than a million sterling to compensate "Loyalists" who had suffered by the insurrection. An attempt was also made to pass a "Rebel Disqualification Bill" for preventing persons who had ever taken the oath of the United Irishmen from voting for members to serve in Parliament; but the proposed disfranchisement was defeated at the second reading. Before the adjournment of the Irish Parliament the anti-Unionists introduced a Regency Bill providing that the Regency in Ireland should always be exercised by the same person who should be Regent of England. They thought thus to deprive the Unionists of their argument; but Castlereagh opposed the proposal, and the measure was rejected. It was about this time that Castlereagh wrote to Portland enumerating the Irish votes at the disposal of the Government. Although the letter was suppressed in the "Cornwallis Correspondence" as derogatory to the dignity of Government, an analysis is given of it there

Voted with Government on the Address, or on the Report. 113 Friends absent.

Voted against, who had been expected to vote for (most

of them having distinctly promised support)

Voted against or absent enemies

Of these might be bought off

Vacancies.

39

152

22

129

20

7

178

Thus leaving, according to Castlereagh, a majority of at least nineteen against the Union.

During the same year the question was debated in the English Parliament. On the 22nd of January, 1799, a message from the Sovereign recommending a Union had been delivered to the Upper House by Lord Grenville, and the same day a similar one was presented to the Commons by Henry Dundas.1 On the strength of these Pitt brought forward the measure of the Union on January 31, and his resolutions having passed through both Houses were embodied in an address which was finally adopted by Parliament. During his speech on this occasion he betrayed a remarkable want of prescience. He said

"Among the great and known defects of Ireland, one of the most prominent features is its want of industry and of capital. How are these wants to be supplied, but by blending more closely with Ireland the industry and capital of Great Britain?""

How well the blend has succeeded may be seen throughout the whole history of the nineteenth century. But Pitt possessed a curiously small measure of political foresight for such an astute politician, and this instance of his shortsightedness does not stand alone. For he was the statesman who reduced the revenue of his country and the resources of the Exchequer a few months before the most expensive war in English history, and the financial prophet who cut such a sorry figure in the sinking-fund scheme. Has the reader perchance ever perused the younger Pitt's speeches? If not, let him pause before adventuring upon them. The author unfortunately has read them hoping to find therein some matter of entertainment or instruction; but hardly a sentence or a phrase has remained even involuntarily in his recollection. Cold, formal, stately verbiage, they were the image of the man himself-intellect without genius, ambition without enthusiasm, scholarship without originality, pride without passion, and morality without love.

The English Government were now beginning to be afraid lest the Castle should make concessions to the Catholics, and thus neutralize one of the reasons which inclined the latter to support a Union. They also feared lest the Protestants should join hands with the Catholics and promise to secure emancipation for them in return for Catholic help in fighting the Union. These considerations made Ministers all the more anxious to accelerate the negotiations with the Irish Parliament and effect their desired object before any complications could arise.

1 Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville. Impeached by the Commons in 1805, but acquitted by the Peers.

Castlereagh, therefore, who had succeeded Pelham as Chief Secretary, followed in Pitt's footsteps, and argued in favour of a Union that in the future England could not defend Ireland for nothing, and that the latter country would have to contribute towards the cost of wars and other eventualities, which she would not willingly do, unless she possessed members sitting in the Parliament of England who would represent her on the spot and be able to influence the discussion of those matters which touched her interests. Foster, on the other hand, keeping to his original opinions, maintained that the legislation of 1782 and 1783 was a final adjustment of the relations between the two countries; that, as the Cabinet in England was answerable to the British nation that no Irish law injurious to the Empire should receive the Royal Assent, the Union was unnecessary as a safeguard in this respect; that an Irish Parliament on the spot was much more alive to the welfare of the Irish people than any number of Irish members sitting many miles away in London; and that, as there had been enormous commercial progress since the Act of Independence of 1782, there was sufficient evidence on this score alone to prove that the Irish Constitution since that date was all that could be wished for.

It was about this time that the old houghing outrages reappeared, and many districts suffered severely from them. They were largely owing to the memory of the military enormities during the suppression of the rebellion, as well as to the rack-rents, and the insatiable greed of the middlemen who devoured the substance of the poorer classes. As a consequence of the disorder a Coercion Act was passed in 1799, which placed Ireland at the will of the Lord-Lieutenant formally and legally under martial law, notwithstanding the activity of the ordinary courts of justice which remained open as usual. Soon afterwards, in the same year, a Regency Bill was brought forward in the Irish Parliament in order to supply an omission in the law observable in 1798 and also for the purpose of destroying part of the case for a Union. It asserted in the strongest terms the dependence of the Crown of Ireland on that of England and the inseparable connection of the two countries, and enacted that the person who was ipso facto Regent of England should always be, with the same powers, Regent de jure in Ireland. The Bill was, however, on the motion of Castlereagh, who particularly disliked any addition of argument to the armoury of the anti-Unionists, ultimately postponed.

Shortly before the prorogation of the Irish Parliament an Act of Indemnity had been passed at the instance of the Government, and without the least opposition, for the purpose of shielding such miscreants as Thomas Judkin Fitzgerald from the penalties of the law. This scoundrel, a Protestant magistrate

of Tipperary, had made it his usual practice during the rebellion to whip, torture, and murder Catholics without the slightest semblance of proof or even probability of guilt. His customary method was to seize persons whom he chose to suspect of revolutionary tendencies, or whom he wished from a coldblooded malice to maltreat, and by dint of the lash and threats of a horrible death to extort from them in their agony of mind and body confessions of imaginary guilt or accusations of other persons. In the case of a certain Mr. Wright he commanded his victim to be torn with 500 lashes and then to be shot; but during the actual process of scourging it turned out from a paper found upon the person of the sufferer that the latter was wholly innocent of the offences imputed to him. Fitzgerald, nevertheless, ordered the lashing to be continued, till at length the quivering entrails of the victim became visible through the lacerated flesh. The hangman was then urged to apply his thongs to a part of the body that had not yet been flayed, while Fitzgerald himself hurried off to procure an order from the commanding officer to put his prisoner to death.1 This, however, was not granted, and Wright was ultimately set at liberty. When Fitzgerald stood at length upon his trial for his manifold offences, the character of the man became even more apparent than before. He had the shameless audacity to name with exultation several persons whom he had flogged under still more aggravated circumstances, and mentioned one man who had cut his own throat in order to escape the horrors and ignominy of undeserved torture. But in spite of this phenomenal depravity he was acquitted. The Act of Indemnity, thanks to the maudlin compassion of a Protestant Parliament, shielded him from the arm of justice, and on being recommended for his signal services to the special favour of the Crown he was created a Baronet of the United Kingdom with a considerable pension. Although Fitzgerald's case was peculiarly notorious, it was proved beyond a doubt that many other Protestants in a position of authority had caused Catholics to be cruelly tortured, and that the custom was a common one.2

Complaints now arose that the priests were forcing Catholic peasants to withdraw their children from Protestant schools, and whether these were well founded or not, they contributed to the fuel which was feeding the desire of the English Government for a settlement of the great question, and an Address in favour of the Union passed the English Parliament about this time without any opposition. The instrument of bribery was also employed with unscrupulous and unflagging zeal. Cornwallis

1 An order as cruel as that ascribed to Caligula by Suetonius-" Ita feri ut se mori sentiat."

2 Appendix XVIB, quotations from W. N. Massey, Dr. Madden, and Lord Cornwallis.