whilst the debate was proceeding, Mr. Cooke, the Under-Secretary, was observed in close communication with Mr. Trench, afterwards Lord Ashtown, who, having spoken strongly for the amendment, voted against it; and such things had been far from rare in that assembly. Sir Henry Cavendish was famous for the accuracy of the reports which he was in the habit of sending from the House to the Castle. One evening the Lord-Lieutenant asked Sir Hercules Langrishe whether Sir Henry had been taking notes? 'I believe,' said Sir Hercules, he has been taking either NOTES or ready money, but I don't know which.'

6

The day following, on Sir Lawrence Parsons moving to expunge a paragraph from the Address, the contest was renewed with increased asperity, the Castle party accusing the Opposition of having unfurled the bloody flag of rebellion,' and the Opposition denouncing Ministers for 'flinging abroad the banner of prostitution, corruption, and apostacy.' Lord Castlereagh made a speech which, in the opinion of his friends, demolished Ponsonby, and, in the opinion of Ponsonby's, was a dead failure. In the course of the debate,' writes Lord Cornwallis, 'Mr. Smith, son to one of the Barons of the Exchequer, delivered a very fine and complete argument, which made very great impression.' Barrington says:

Mr. Egan trampled down the metaphorical sophistries of Mr. William Smith. Such reasoning he called rubbish, and such reasoners were scavengers. Like a dray horse he galloped over all his opponents, plunging and kicking and overthrowing all before him. No member on that night pronounced a more sincere, clumsy, and powerful oration. Of matter he had abundance-of language he made no selection; and he was aptly compared to the Trojan horse, sounding as if he had armed men within him.'

6

The debate again lasted through the night, and it was on the morning of the 25th that the House divided. The Ministers had only 105; the Opposition, who had withdrawn to the Court of Requests, 111. Egan, the 'dray horse' of the debate—a coarse, bluff, red-faced fellow-was the last who entered. His exultation,' says Barrington, 'knew no bounds. As No. 110 was announced, he stopped a moment at the bar, flourished a great stick which he had in his hand over his head, and with the voice of a Stentor cried out, "And I'm a hundred and eleven!"'

In the exultation of the moment, and in evil hour for his cause,

Another version was that Trench had stood out for a peerage, and that, shortly before the division, Lord Castlereagh handed him a scrap of paper containing merely the name of the place from which the title, as originally proposed, was to be taken. Trench wrote Ashtown' instead, and returned the paper. Lord Castlereagh nodded, and the bargain was complete. D 2

Mr.

Mr. Ponsonby attempted to improve his victory by pledging the House never to give up the undoubted birthright of Irishmen, an Independent Parliament; and he was on the verge of success when one of the 111, Mr. W. C. Fortescue, objected to such a pledge, and carried with him three or four others of the band. Ponsonby found his flank turned, and withdrew his resolution amidst the sneers and taunts of the adverse phalanx. 'It was a retreat after a victory,' exclaimed Sir Henry Cavendish, and Plunkett murmured as they broke up

The over-daring Ponsonby

Has sullied all his gloss of former honour

By this unheeding, rash, and desperate enterprise.'

The House of Lords had favourably entertained the project; yet, without waiting for the Ministerial defeat on the 25th, Lord Cornwallis had come to the conclusion that the attempt must be abandoned for the present. On January 23rd he had written to the Duke of Portland to this effect. But his energies rose as the difficulties increased, and although he never ceased complaining of the disagreeable work forced upon him, he went through it manfully and with an unalterable determination to succeed. Government influence was strained to the uttermost ; prompt compliance was demanded as the condition of remaining in office, and both bribes and promises were distributed with unprecedented profusion. Lord Cornwallis knew that what Walpole said of the English Jacobites, was true of the noisiest of the Irish patriots, All these men have their price;' and he had made up his mind to pay it rather than be baffled in a scheme on which, like the English Minister, he had set his heart and staked his reputation. In a memorandum drawn up by Lord Castlereagh, the interested Opposition is resolved into its elements the borough proprietors; the primary and secondary interests in the county representation; the holders of seats by purchase; the barristers in Parliament, fifty in number; and individuals connected by residence or property with Dublin. His calculation was that, after saving some of these interests as much as possible by alterations in the details of the measure, rather less than a million and a half would be required to buy them off. No less a sum than 1,260,000l. was subsequently voted to compensate the boroughholders; and the mode of distribution gave plausibility to the charge that most of it was meant and accepted as a bribe.

Each borough was valued at 15,0007., which was proportionally distributed. Thus, of the 15,000l. paid for Tuam, Lord Clanmorris got 14,0007. and the Hon. W. Yelverton 10007.; of that for Knocklofty, Sir Hercules Langrishe 13,8627. 10s., Sir George

Shee

Shee 11377. 10s. Lord Downshire received for seven seats, and Lord Ely for six. The 45,0007., payable for those boroughs in which members of the Episcopal body were interested in right of their sees, was paid to the Commissioners of First Fruits.

There is an audacity in this proceeding which startles us. Junius, indeed, argued that the patrons of places, like Gatton and Old Sarum, might be bought off; but this is a very different thing from treating the entire borough representation of a nation as private property, and descending to the valuation of shares and fractions. The transaction was sanctioned by the British Parliament, and bears testimony both to the lax notions of the times and the supremacy of Pitt. Place-holders, with various other possessors or claimants of vested interests likely to suffer from the Union, were also compensated; and Mr. H. Grattan states, on his father's authority, that of all the eventual supporters of the Union in the House of Commons, there were only seven who were not bribed in some shape. Certain it seems that, out of the barristers who stood by the Ministry, three-fourths were promoted or preferred, sooner or later. It was currently, though absurdly, reported that nearly three hundred Peerages were promised to carry the English Reform Bill. How many promises of this sort were given by different agents of the Castle to carry the Union, we cannot pretend to calculate; but we know that forty-two Irish Peerages or promotions in the Irish Peerage, besides five English, were conferred on its supporters.

By the opening of the next session, the last of the Irish Parliament, the preparations were complete; but the Ministers had resolved to feel their way before committing themselves, and the Viceroy's speech was silent on the all-absorbing subject. The Opposition were the first to break ground and challenge the conflict, by moving an amendment declaratory of the resolution of Parliament to abide by the Constitution of 1782. A debate ensued, in which the appeals to reason were almost all on one side; but it must be admitted that in this and the subsequent debates some of the finest specimens of invective and declamation that exist in any language were called forth on the other. Plunkett pre-eminently distinguished himself in this line:—

'The two Parliaments may clash! So in Great Britain may King and Parliament; but we see they never. do so injuriously. There are principles of repulsion! yes; but there are principles of attraction, and from these the enlightened statesman extracts the principle by which the countries are to be harmoniously governed. As soon would I listen to the shallow observer of nature, who should say there is a centrifugal force impressed on our globe, and therefore, lest we should be hurried

into the void of space, we ought to rush into the centre to be consumed there. No; I say to this rash arraigner of the dispensations of the Almighty, there are impulses from whose wholesome opposition eternal wisdom has declared the law by which we revolve in our proper sphere, and at our proper distance. So I say to the political visionary-from the opposite forces which you object to I see the wholesome law of imperial connexion derived-I see the two countries preserving their due distance from each other, generating and imparting heat, and light, and life, and health, and vigour; and I will abide by the wisdom and experience of the ages which are passed, in preference to the speculations of any modern philosopher.'

The freedom of speech then allowed or taken may be inferred from such language as this:

The example of the Prime Minister of England, inimitable in its vices, may deceive the noble Lord (Castlereagh). The Minister of England has his faults; he abandoned in his latter years the principles of reform, by professing which he had obtained the early confidence of the people of England, and in the whole of his political conduct he has shown himself haughty and intractable; but it must be admitted that he has shown himself by nature endowed with a towering and transcendant intellect, and that the vastness of his moral resources keeps pace with the magnificence and unboundedness of his projects. I thank God that it is much more easy for him to transfer his apostacy and his insolence, than his comprehension and sagacity; and I feel the safety of my country in the wretched feebleness of her enemy. I cannot fear that the Constitution, which has been formed by the wisdom of sages and cemented by the blood of patriots and of heroes, is to be smitten to its centre by such a green and limber twig as this.'

This 'green and limber twig' had been eight years in Parliament, and continued rising in reputation and authority till he was one of the four or five real arbiters of the destinies of Europe.

Mr. H. Grattan states as a fact within his own knowledge that Bushe, afterwards Chief Justice, thus pourtrayed his own feelings after rejecting the overtures of the Treasury: 'I threw myself in my chair, and for a moment almost doubted whether it was right in me to keep in such a state so many human beings, when I thought of the splendid offers I had refused-offers that astonished, almost bewildered me.' His talents prevented him from suffering for his integrity, and they were never displayed to greater advantage than in these debates. We can only spare room for a single

extract:

'What is it we are called upon to give up? I speak not of national pride or dignity; I declaim not upon theoretical advantages; but I tell you that you are called upon to give up that municipal parliament which has procured you within the memory of you all municipal advantages which no foreign parliament can supply. We hear of nothing but

imperial

imperial topics. Good God! is the Parliament nothing but an instrument of taxation? Is nothing understood of a House of Commons but that it is an engine for raising money out of the pockets of the subject, and throwing it into the coffers of the Crown? Take up any volume of your statutes upon that table, you will find the Municipal Acts of Parliament in the proportion of more than forty to one to the Imperial. What has, within the memory of many men alive, changed the face of your land? What has covered a country of pasture with tillage? What has intersected an impassable country with roads? What has nearly connected by inland navigation the eastern channel with the western ocean? A resident parliament. This is not theory: look at your statutes and your journals, and there is not one of those improvements which you cannot trace to some document of your own public spirit now upon that table, and to no other source or cause under heaven. Can this be supplied in Westminster? Could a Committee of this House make a road in Yorkshire? No; nothing can supply a resident parliament watching over national improvement, seizing opportunities, encouraging manufacture, commerce, science, education, and agriculture, applying instant remedy to instant mischief, mixing with the constituent body, catching the sentiment of the public mind, reflecting public opinion, acting upon its impulse and regulating its excess.'

The remarkable feature of this sitting was the entry of Grattan, who had been out of parliament since 1797. He had been elected for Wicklow while the debate was proceeding. The return was signed between twelve and one of that very morning. According to his son, the messenger arrived at his house in Dublin about five. Grattan had been very ill, and was then in bed, and turning round, he exclaimed, 'Oh! have they come? why will they not let me die in peace?' With difficulty he was got out of bed and dressed. He went into the parlour, loaded his pistols, and put them into his pocket, apprehending, it is alleged, that he might be attacked by the Union party and be assassinated.' He was wrapped in a blanket and put into a sedan-chair. He entered the House about seven, supported by Mr. W. B. Ponsonby and Mr. Arthur Moore, and took his seat on the second opposition bench. It was remembered that Lord Chatham entered the House of Lords for the last time leaning on his son, William, and his son-in-law, Lord Mahon; and Grattan's enemies laughed at the scene as theatrical and got up. His friends recriminated that his late arrival was the result of a conspiracy to delay the return. He rose about seven and delivered, sitting, an obviously premeditated oration, marked by many of his wonted merits and defects: his mastery of his subject, his splendid imagination, his close logic, his earnestness, his love of antithesis, his redundancy of metaphor, not unfrequently