several of the West India Islands, have their local parliaments;" he also concedes, as was the fact, "that the thirteen states of America had each a local parliament." Notwithstanding this,

it was their highest ambition to be, as Ireland now is, in the words of Flood, "embosomed in the body of the state."

"We are near to England," said Flood, in 1784-" I hear my countrymen lament, and often have I lamented it myself; yet indulge me, my countrymen, while I explain my paradox. On that proximity does the weal of Ireland depend. It is a perpetual guarantee against the oppression of any self-created protector; it is perpetual, because it depends not on the policy or caprice of kings or of nations. It is fixed in the nature of things."

Since the days of Franklin and of Flood, and in the hour of her peril, the winds were styled "the ancient and unsubsidised allies of England;" but she is now independent of their alliance. "Man," it was said, "could not remove the barriers of the creation." Steam has done it. Since the Union was

ordained, Providence, with an apparent design to its consummation, has blessed these islands with that almost miraculous endowment. Steam connects the two countries, as it were by floating bridges, and, disregarding space, almost annihilates the distinctions which were stamped upon them by the hand of nature.

CHAPTER IV.

OUR illustrious countryman, Edmund Burke, not only the greatest man Ireland, but his age produced, whose mind was the condensation of all philosophical, political, and prophetic wisdom, thus expressed himself: "I think, indeed, that Great Britain would be ruined by the separation of Ireland; but, as there are degrees even in ruin, it would fall the most heavily on Ireland. By such a separation, Ireland would be the most completely undone country in the world: the most wretched, the most distracted, the most desolate part of the habitable globe. Little do many people in Ireland conceive how much

• Dublin Corporation Discussion, p. 21.

of its prosperity has been owing to, and still depends upon, its intimate connection with this country."

"I never," said Curran, speaking on illegal attachments, in the Irish House of Commons,more strongly felt the necessity, of a perfect union with Britain-of standing or falling with her in fortune, or constitution. She was the parent, the archetype of Irish liberty, which she has preserved inviolate in all its great points; while amongst us it has been violated and debased." "If," said he, on another occasion, you wish to be really united with Great Britain, teach her to respect you; and do so, by showing that you are capable of raising yourselves to a proud equality with her, in the exercise of social duties and civil virtues."

*

Junius has been pressed into the service by the antiunionists, as an authority against it. As it seems now generally believed that Lord George Sackville, who was designated by Lord Chatham "as a most extraordinary man," was the author of these celebrated letters, we are justified in appealing from the secret sneer of the anonymous partizan, to the avowed declarations of the deliberate statesman. The following were his observations, in the debate on the Irish Commercial Propositions, in the British House of Lords, on the 18th of July, 1785: "He thought it required no great foresight, to predict the consequences which they (the propositions) must produce. Should this system finally be adopted, many of their Lordships, he made no doubt, would live to curse the day that gave it birth. He saw in its aspect incurable jealousies, and endless discord. And should a rupture happen between the two nations, though he easily could foresee which would prevail, the end would prove fatal to both." And again: "Was an equal representation in the House of Commons the only obstacle which Ireland would have to a union with Great Britain. * Indeed, he saw nothing

*

*

impracticable in the proposition. Was it not for the interest of both, to draw the connection as close as possible? Was not Ireland sensible of the benefits she derived from the patronage and assistance of England? Had she not improved to a very considerable height of prosperity, under her fostering care. Would France or Spain do for her what we had done? Could she expect independence, free trade, civil liberty, or religious toleration, under them? But all these she enjoyed from us; we protected her in the enjoyment of them! But where two nations were one only on commercial principles, he knew not by * See Chambers' Journal, No. 606, for the 9th of Sept., 1843.

what means they could agree or harmonise with each other. But where all their dependence was placed in one and the same legislature, every source of jealousy, suspicion, or distrust, was at an end. He looked forward to this great, interesting, and desperate event with anxiety; and should be happy to see commissioners appointed by His Majesty to negociate and adjust this important object, to the satisfaction and for the infinite good of all parties concerned. It was not probable it would take place in his time; but he hoped the time when it would was not very far distant; and, happen when it might, it would ensure to both countries, the most inestimable and permanent advantages. And were there no other noble Lord in the House who would undertake the business, if these resolutions could now be withdrawn, old as he was, he would himself move for an address to His Majesty, that steps might be taken for accomplishing that union, on which the prosperity both of England and the empire so much depended."*

* * *

We now proceed to two eminent Scottish authorities, who, conscious of the advantages which their country had derived from the Union, recommended a similar measure for Ireland. Lord Hailes, a distinguished judge, in his Memoirs, published in 1776, reasons thus: "If," said he, "under separate and independent legislatures peace shall long continue between Ireland and England, it will be the only instance of the kind since the beginning of the world." And after pointing out the then existing evils, he adds, "There is one, and but one engine, to break the force of these circumstances, an incorporated union, by which I repeat, that I mean a union of parliament, taxes, and trade. When that is obtained, then all the fears such as those of the Scotch at the time of their union, and of the ablest of them all, Mr. Fletcher of Saltown, that their 45 members would be out-voted by above 450, on all questions which related to the interest of Scotland-will be found as vain in Ireland as they have proved to be in Scotland."

"By a union with Great Britain," said the celebrated Adam Smith in his "Wealth of Nations," "Ireland would gain, besides the freedom of trade, other advantages much more important, and which would much more than compensate any increase of taxes which might accompany that union. By the union with England, the middling and inferior ranks of people in Scotland gained a complete deliverance from the power of an aristocracy which had always before oppressed them. By Hansard's Parliamentary History, vol. xxv. p. 875.

a union with Great Britain, the greater part of the people of all ranks in Ireland, would gain an equally complete deliverance from a much more oppressive aristocracy—an aristocracy not formed like that of Scotland, in the natural and respectable distinctions of birth and fortune, but in the most odious of all distinctions, those of religious and political prejudicedistinctions which, more than any other, made both the insolence of the oppressor, and indignation of the oppressed; and which commonly render the inhabitants of the same country more hostile to one another than those of different countries are. Without a union with Great Britain, the inhabitants of Ireland are not likely, for many ages, to consider themselves as one people."* No observations ever displayed more prophetic sagacity. The power of the Irish landed aristocracy declined from the date of the Union; it yielded to popular impulse on many occasions; it reeled under the blows it received at the Waterford, Louth, and Clare elections, and finally capitulated on the passing of the Reform Bill.

"The democratic principle," said Grattan, "was getting on and on like a mist at the heels of his countrymen, small at first and lowly, but soon ascending to the hills and overcasting the hemisphere." The storm which burst in the Rebellion had been long gathering; as the clouds cleared away, the Union appeared in the horizon. The scene is sketched with such effect by a master hand, that its insertion here may be excused.+ "In 1798 the conflagration was general; war on every sidein Ulster, of politics; elsewhere, of bigotry. The Dissenter fought; the Catholic massacred; the Loyalist cut down both.

*The details of this rebellion, realising all we read of 1641, I bequeath to the bigotry of both parties. Its objects are interesting to the enlightened, that of the Dissenter, a republic; that of the Catholic, ascendancy; of both, connexion with France, separation from England. Its results, too, are important; union with England, separation from France, and both it would seem eternal. * * The aversion to the Union was almost unanimous, and twice victorious; but the minister was undaunted. Intelligent and intrepid, he saw that this vital measure once proposed must be carried or the country lost; on the object he was fixed, and of the means not scrupulous,-deceit of the good, intimidation of the weak, exasperation of parties, and a wide corruption. Nor did his opponents, while denouncing, decline to imitate his practices. Both parties let us own, addressed themselves to the best passions of

* Vol. 2, page 286.

† Past and Present State of Ireland
E

mankind and to the worst, but with different success.

The honest preferred England to France; the base, possession to expectancy, and the Act of Union was passed, strange to say, without bloodshed. * * *The victory was without triumph and the defeat without dejection."

It is undeniable, that at the time the Union was effected, there was no choice between French dominion and British connexion. If we had not accepted the only alternative, and that alternative was union, Ireland would have been for years the battle field of civil as well as general war. The colossal power of republican or imperial France, allied to intestine disaffection, might, for a while, have crushed the combined efforts of native loyalty and British arms; but hosts of foreign mercenaries would have crowded to the rescue. The star of England would, in the end, have risen ascendant; but it would have risen in crimson horror. Those of the present and rising generations, as they read the details of those wars which, in our times, have devastated the fertile plains of Italy and Germany, ought to be grateful to the omniscient disposer of events, that the Union should have resulted in the incalculable good of rescuing our native land from the horrors of similar desolation.

Mr. O'Connell has lately raked from the ashes the obsolete question of the competency of both legislatures to coalesce. The objection was raised upon the discussion, and settled by the decision on the Scottish Union. It was revived, as a desperate argument, in the Irish Parliament, only to be triumphantly refuted; its assertors even borrowed the phraseology of the Scotch, and afterwards abandoned the ground in despair. He is now endeavouring to mend "the broken tools," which even the frantic orators of '99 cast away as useless. "That doctrine," said Mr., afterwards Sir William C. Smith, “would shake the fabric of our rights and liberties to its foundation, would go to cancel the title-deed of 1706, by which His Majesty holds his Scottish Crown; would question the legitimacy of that mixed assembly which was formed by the coalition of the Scotch and English legislatures, and impeach the force of every statute which has been enacted since their junction, and would confound and violate the very elements of our constitution, by transferring the supreme authority from the parliament to the people."

"Union," said Lord Avonmore, "is only a law common to two states; and to say that the parliaments of both are incompetent to frame such a law, is to say that they are incompetent to answer the ends of their institution. A dis