The Union of the Parliaments

The last event of the insurrection was the arrival of a small French fleet off the Irish coast (October, 1798). On board one of the ships was the unconquerable Wolfe Tone, whose spirit had not been subdued even by the crushing defeats of Vinegar Hill and Wexford. The French fleet was encountered by some English men-of-war, and an obstinate sea-fight ensued. The Hoche, the ship which carried Tone, coped gallantly with four English frigates at once. The result of the battle, however, was the utter defeat of the invading fleet. Tone was taken prisoner, and attempted to pass himself off as a French officer. But he was soon recognized, and carried captive to Dublin. He was condemned to be hung. But his proud soul revolted from a death so disgraceful, and he cut his throat in his cell. The last spark of the insurrection went out with Tone's heroic life. The United Irishmen ceased to exist, and in every part of the island submission was made to the English power.

Meanwhile William Pitt, the English prime minister, had made up his mind that the time had come to execute a design which had for some time occupied his thoughts. This was, to abolish the Irish Parliament altogether, to make the British Parliament the sole law-making body for the three kingdoms, and to give Ireland the right to send members to the British Houses of Lords and Commons. His decision was undoubtedly hastened by the great insurrection which had now been so bloodily subdued. But his object could only be carried out by consent of the Irish Parliament itself. The Irish Parliament must be persuaded to take its own life, since no act of the British Parliament alone could bind it or destroy it. With a view to carrying out his purpose, Pitt recalled Lord Camden, who had been lord-lieutenant through the insurrection, and who was lacking in energy, and appointed in his place the marquis Cornwallis (the same who hail surrendered to Washington at Yorktown). Lord Castlereagh, a selfish and ambitious Irishman, was named as Cornwallis's chief secretary; and Lord Clare, who was a resolute supporter of Pitt's plan, was continued in the office of Irish lord-chancellor.

Cornwallis was not only an able, but a kind-hearted and justly disposed man. He revolted from the brutal methods by which vengeance had been visited upon the conquered Irish. He hated the floggings, the burnings, the plundering, the wholesale executions, which were going on in Ireland. He resolved upon a milder course. He proclaimed that all rebels, except the leaders, who would take the oath of allegiance and submit to the government, should be protected. He caused an act of amnesty to be passed, which gave pardon to the great mass of those who had been in insurrection. He restored, as far as possible, order and discipline among the English troops in Ireland; and resolutely put a stop to the acts of violence in which the English soldiers had been reveling. So lenient and humane, indeed, was the rule of Cornwallis, that he roused the easily-evoked gratitude of the Irish people, who cried out, "God bless you!" as he passed through the Dublin streets.

The project of William Pitt to get rid of the Irish Parliament, and to make the British Parliament the sole legislative body for the three kingdoms, aroused intense opposition in Ireland. Protestants and Catholics, peers and landowners, tradesmen, farmers, and peasants alike, protested against it. It would reduce the power of the nobility; it would ruin trade; it would bind Ireland hand and foot to England; it would take away the last vestiges of Irish independence. These were among the reasons urged by Irishmen of both faiths, and of every social rank, against the "union." On the other hand, Pitt promised that, if the union were achieved, the Irish Catholics should not only have the vote, but should be "emancipated," that is, should be admitted as members of Parliament, and should have the right to hold military and civil offices. The chief reason which he gave for the union was, that it would secure England from an invasion of the French by way of Ireland; but this reason he urged to obtain English, and not Irish, support to his design.

Cornwallis, the lord-lieutenant, Clare, the lord-chancellor, and Castlereagh, the chief secretary of Ireland, were the three agents upon whom Pitt relied to induce the Irish Parliament to give up its existence, and to assent to the legislative union. Cornwallis hated the work thus committed to him, but undertook it because he was convinced that the union was necessary to the power of the British empire. His two colleagues were less scrupulous, and entered upon their task with eager energy. The method by which the Irish Parliament was to be extinguished, was one of sheer bribery and corruption. The union was to be obtained by downright force and fraud. No means, however bad, were to be left untried to compel or induce the Irish members in both Houses to agree to it. What removal from office, threats, the grant of peerages, could not do, Irish money was to be freely spent in doing.

Never did the officials of a great nation descend to methods more base to reach the end they had in view. The wish of the overwhelming majority of the Irish people, who ardently longed to retain what liberties they had, was to be overcome by pandering to the fears and the avarice of their representatives. The first attempt to bring about the union, however, failed. The Irish Parliament was summoned (Jan. 22, 1799); and in the "speech from the throne," delivered at the opening of its session, the project of the union was vaguely mentioned. This at once aroused its patriotic opponents. A long and tempestuous debate followed. Among the ardent speakers against the measure was sir John Parnell,—a name destined to be identified, in later years, with a far more formidable struggle in behalf of Irish liberty.

At last a vote was taken, and the project of union was defeated by five majority. For a while it seemed as if Pitt's plan would fail; and there was great rejoicing among the Irish patriots everywhere. But now began the vigorous application of fraud, force, and corruption. Those officials who were opposed to the union were turned out of their places. A large number of the boroughs, which chose members to the Irish Parliament, were in reality owned by noblemen and great land-owners; and the seats had long been purchased and sold for money. Castlereagh agreed to buy out these owners of seats, and to pay for each seat the sum of £15,000.

In this way, no less than eighty-five seats were bought by the government, at a cost of £1,950,000; and this sum was charged upon the Irish revenue. One nobleman, the marquis of Ely, received £45,000 for the six boroughs he owned; and another, the Marquis of Downshire, received £52,000 for his seven. Twenty-two opponents of the union were bribed by English titles of nobility; twenty-two more were raised in rank in the Irish peerage; and many were rewarded for betraying their country, and favoring the union, by judgeships, offices, pensions, and army commissions. Even some of the bishops and clergy, both Protestant and Catholic, were bribed by rectorships, stipends, and other appointments. The Protestant church was persuaded by the promise that it should be established forever as the state church of Ireland. The way being thus prepared, the Irish Parliament was once more called together (January, 1800), and the subject of the union was once more promptly brought before it.

For a long time, little had been heard or seen of Henry Grattan, the eloquent patriot who had secured the independence of the Irish Parliament eight years before. He had held aloof from the United Irishmen, and had taken no part in the great insurrection. He had become broken in health, and had nearly passed out of the minds of men. But now, at this great crisis in Ireland's history, when the liberties for which he had successfully fought were about to be wrested from her, Grattan once more appeared upon the scene. A seat in the House of Commons was secured for him at Wicklow. Feeble with illness, the great patriot dragged himself into the House to make a last appeal for his unhappy country. He was too weak to stand, and so spoke sitting in his chair. As he went on, his voice gradually gathered strength, and he poured forth his vehement sentences with all his wonted fire.

But Grattan's fervid eloquence was of no avail. After a series of hot debates, and after vote after vote had shown that the unionists were in a large majority, the bill abolishing the Irish Parliament, and merging it in that of Great Britain, was adopted by the Irish House of Commons by a vote of one hundred and fifty-three to eighty-eight. It soon after passed the Irish House of Lords, was signed by the king, and thereby became a law. Thus the Irish Parliament ceased to exist. It had never truly represented the Irish people, but only the Protestant and English minority in Ireland. In its later years, it had become very corrupt and inefficient. Its final act was base and treacherous. Yet patriotic Irishmen mourned to see it become extinct, since it had been the only feeble barrier against complete English ascendancy.

The most important conditions of the union of the two Parliaments into one, were as follows. Ireland now sent one hundred members to the British House of Commons. In the British House of Lords, Ireland was represented by four bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and by twenty-eight peers, elected for life by the whole body of Irish peers. The number of Irish members of the Commons has since been increased to one hundred and three. The Protestant-Episcopal church was established as the state church of Ireland. Irish peers, not elected among the twenty-eight, were given the right to be elected and to sit as members of the British House of Commons. The British House of Lords was made the final court of appeal from Irish as well as English courts. The national debts of the two islands were kept separate, and Ireland was now required to raise two-fifths of the revenue of the United Kingdom. The debt created after the union was made a joint one. Commercial equality was established between the two islands. Each was forbidden to impose any duty on the goods produced by the other. The act of union went into actual operation on the 1st of January succeeding its passage