to attend every arrangement between the kingdoms, such conduct must excite diffidence and distrust.

"This proportion of their respective permanent debts is to be attained by increasing our debt, which we must do, and by Britain lessening her's, which she is in the actual course of reducing, as rapidly, at least, as that of Ireland increases; the absurdity, therefore, of the position, is self-evident, for it says, that Ireland, by increasing her debt and its annual charges, will become more wealthy and more able to bear equal taxes with Britain; but that Britain by decreasing her's will be less able to pay her contribution, and can only pay equal taxes.

"Another delusion (omitted however in the articles proposed) has been also plausibly offered, still further to deceive Your Majesty's subjects of Ireland into an approbation of this destructive measure, and a promise has been authoritatively announced, or artfully insinuated, by Your ministers in this kingdom, that Ireland is to save by it, or that Great Britain is to give her a million a year of revenue in time of war, and half a million a year in time of peace.

"But we know, that during a war like the present, such a promise is impracticable, and both kingdoms must strain every nerve, and draw forth every resource. We seek not to load our sister kingdom unnecessarily, by lessening our own burden; and our loyalty forbids us to listen to arguments which offer to save our purse at the expense of Britain; but it is all a delusion, for we see nothing in the uniting the two Parliaments, which can change the course of the war, or lessen the total mass of expense of both nations; and we assert, most confidently, that no gift can be made, or saving ensue in our expenses, by the Union, however they may be attempted to be increased by the unfounded and unfair proportion ascertained for us to bear of the general expenditure; but were "the offer founded, were it effectual and desirable, its advantages rest on the misfortunes of war, and we should feel ourselves unworthy of the trust reposed in us, if we could suffer a hope, arising from the continuation of such a dreadful calamity, to direct our conduct in any measure, much less in one which calls on us to give up our constitution for ever.

"Neither can we look forward to any proposed saving from the union in peace, for we are not told, nor could we believe it, if Your Majesty's ministers did tell us, that a bill professing to unite the two kingdoms, inseparably united without a bill, can have an influence on the situation of the affairs of Europe, or that it can allow us, during the next peace, to dispense with keeping up the same military force as during the last; and we are further given to understand, that Your Majesty's royal court, and all its establishments, the courts of law, the exchequer, and all the revenue expences are to be continued without the Parliament equally aswith it; but were the saving practicable, we feel it is our own duty to make it without a Union, and we know that no Parliament can do it for Ireland, with the same knowledge, the same efficacy, and the same safety as the resident Parliament of Ireland,

"But it is not only in respect to these delusions held out as to trade and revenue that we feel it our duty to lay before Your Majesty the conduct of Your ministers on this measure; we must state the means by which they have endeavoured to carry it. That in the first instance, admitting the necessity of conforming to the sense of the Parliament and the people, they took the sense of the Commons, and found that sense to be against it; that they then affected to appeal against the Parliament to the people, at the same time endeavouring, by their choice of sheriffs, to obstruct the regular and constitutional mode whereby the sense of the people has been usually collected; that on the contrary, they did use or abet and encourage the using of various arts and stratagems to procure from individuals of the lowest order, some of whom were their prisoners and felons, scandalous signatures against the constitution; that notwithstanding these attempts to procure a fallacious appearance of strength and muster against Parliament, the people have expressed their sentiments decidedly against the union, and twenty-one counties at public meetings legally convened, and also many other counties by petitions signed by the freeholders, and many cities and towns, have expressed, either to Your Majesty or to this House, or to both, their decided and unalterable hostility to this union, yet your ministers have, as we believe, taken upon them to state to Your Majesty and your ministers in Britain, in defiance of all these facts, that the sense of the nation is not adverse to the measure; that if there could be any doubt that Your Majesty's ministers in the appointment of sheriffs did consider how they might obstruct the people in delivering their opinion regarding the union, that doubt is fully explained by their continuing in office the sheriff of the former year in more than one instance, whence it also appears how decidedly the sense of the country is against this measure, when Your Majesty's ministers found it difficult to procure any person to serve the office of sheriff who was properly qualified, and was also a friend to the measure; that finding the sense of the people as well as the Parliament to be against it, Your Majesty's ministers attempted to change the Parliament itself, and refusing to take the sense of the nation by a general election, they procured a partial dissolution, and did so publicly abuse the disqualifying clause in the place bill (which was enacted for the express purpose of preserving the freedom and independence of Parliament,) that by vacating seats under its authority, very many new returns were made to this House, for the purpose of carrying it, and thus did they change the Parliament without resorting to the people; that before the ministry had perverted the place bill, the sense of Parliament was against their union, and if that bill had not been so perverted, that sense had remained unaltered; that of those who voted for the union, we beg leave to inform Your Majesty, that seventy-six had places or pensions under the Crown, and others were under the immediate influence of constituents who held great offices under the Crown; that the practices of influence above mentioned were accompanied by the removal from office of various servants of the

crown who had seats in Parliament, particularly the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Prime Serjeant, three Commissioners of the Revenue, a Commissioner of Accounts, a Commissioner of Barracks, and the Cursitor of the Court of Chancery, because they would not vote away the Parliament; also by their withdrawing their confidence from others of Your Majesty's faithful and able Counsellors for the same reason; that they procured or encouraged the purchase of seats in this House, to return members to vote for the Union, also the introduction of persons unconnected with this country to vote away her Parliament; that they have also attempted to prostitute the peerage, by promising to persons, not even commoners in Parliament, her sacred honours, if they would come into this House and vote for the Union; and that, finally, they have annexed to their plan of Union an artful device, whereby a million and a half of money is to be given to private persons possessing returns, who are to receive said sum on the event of the Union, for the carrying of which, to such an amount said persons are to be paid; and this nation is to make good the sale by which she is thus disinherited of her Parliament, and is to be taxed for ever to raise the whole amount, although if your ministers shall persevere in such a flagrant, unconstitutional scheme, and the money is to be raised, it is for the Union, and being therefore an imperial concern ought to be borne in the proportion already laid down for imperial expenses, that is, two seventeenths by Ireland, and fifteen seventeenths by Britain; that under these unconstitutional circumstances Your Majesty's ministers have endeavoured, against the declared sense of the people, to impose upon them a new constitution, subverting the old one.

"That when we consider the peculiar situation of this kingdom, with the annual drains of money from it by persons possessing property in it who do not reside, to the estimated amount of at least two millions annually; when we advert to the further inevitable drain of a million a year by the public revenue, to be remitted to Britain for the annual charges of our public debt, and that to countervail these great and tremendous issues of money, amounting to three millions, we have only our general balance of trade, not 600,000l. a year, to set against them, we look with dread at a measure which must, on the one hand, necessarily add to those drains, by adding a new and large portion of our wealthiest fellow-subjects to the present absentees, and which must, on the other hand, decrease that balance, by encouraging and promoting new imports of manufacture in the room of those which will decline here.

"We look to it with the more dread, because, notwithstanding the great loans from England, to the amount of six millions in the last three years, we have not been able to counterbalance the existing drains from hence, and the exchange has been, and still continues, regularly and uniformly against us.

"And further, because our inability to raise the necessary loans within this kingdom, even to the small extent that has been expected, is unfortunately now too evident, and the continuing to

supply our treasury by loans from Britain, though it may afford some temporary relief, will regularly increase the evil.

"Your Majesty's ministers, therefore, if they promise to themselves, or to the British nation, any easement to their own taxes from the supposed accession of power over our wealth and over our resources, will find themselves most thoroughly disappointed; and if the difficulty of remittance shall increase, the manufacturers of Britain, who have hitherto supplied this kingdom, will find the demand for their goods decrease in proportion as that difficulty shall rise.

"That we understand one benefit which they hold out from the proposed measure is, what your ministers affect to call tranquillizing Ireland, but that when we look to our Parliament, and see with what efficacy and promptness it has contributed to put down the late unfortunate rebellion, how inadequate a Parliament not resident would have been; when we reflect, that in a kingdom containing four and a half millions of people, a resident Parliament must possess the quick and authoritative means of giving energy to the executive which a Parliament in another country cannot have; that the removing the Parliament tends to remove with it from the kingdom those men of large property and influence, of talents and respectability, whose presence is at all times essential to tranquillity, and may, at some conjuncture, be alone capable of preserving it; that their absence will leave room for political agitators and men of talents, without principle or property, to disturb and irritate the public mind; we tremble for the consequences of a measure at once the most rash and unnecessary that ever was brought forward by any ministers, and at a time most fitted to produce every evil dreaded, and least fitted to promote any one benefit held forth.

"That when we consider the time chosen to introduce such a measure, we feel additional repugnance, it being the moment of our weakness and distress, when the country is of course less free to deliver its full and heartfelt sentiments against the illiberality of such an attempt; peculiarly mortifying to those, Your Majesty's subjects, who had recently exerted themselves in defence of that constitution which they are now called upon to surrender ; and, at a time too, when the spirit of innovation is abroad, and likely to be much encouraged by the example of Your Majesty's ministers in this their proceeding against the ancient liberties of the people, who may be rendered an unprofitable or dangerous part of the British empire, whether, in consequence of this Union, they become slavish and abject, or restless and dissatisfied.

"That when we reflect on the great value of the acts for trying controverted elections, how eminently and effectually they have been framed for preserving the purity of election, without which the purity of Parliament cannot exist; and when we see that your ministers, well knowing the value we set on them, have proposed various means to continue those benefits to us in the few elections which will remain to be held here after the Union, and have withdrawn them all, from their inefficacy and insufficiency,

almost as soon as they were proposed, and have now abandoned all hope of framing any; we foresee and dread the formidable power which the measure of the Union will give to the minister in all Irish elections, by destroying the beneficial operation of these acts; for the expense, trouble, and delay, of trying controverted Irish elections in London, will deter many candidates, entitled to be returned, from seeking redress; the sheriffs, who are all appointed by the minister, will, in fact, nominate the members; and many of them having already obeyed the wishes of the minister, in endeavouring to stifle the constitutional voice of the people, give us too sure an omen of the conduct which may be expected from them in elections.

"That whether we rest on this incontrovertible and self-evident truth, that no Parliament in another kingdom can have the local information or knowledge of the manners, habits, wants, or wishes of the nation, which its own Parliament naturally possesses, and which is requisite for beneficial legislation; nor can be supplied with the necessary information, either as promptly or accurately; or whether we look to the clear proofs of that truth, which the progress of this measure has afforded, by your ministers having called to their assistance, in London, the great officers of this kingdom, most likely, from their station, to give full information for framing their measure; and though all their talents, and all their own information, and what they obtained by letters while it was pending, were employed for months there, yet, when they brought it back, a few hours', or rather a few minutes' enquiry on the spot, in Dublin, forced them to alter their project in very many articles, complete and perfect as they thought it. We have strong additional reason to feel and to represent the manifest and irreparable injuries which this kingdom must sustain by the want of a resident Parliament, and the impossibility of legislation being carried on for it as it ought to be.

"Therefore, inasmuch as the measure of an Union is an unnecessary innovation, and innovations, at all times hazardous, are rendered peculiarly so now by the awful situation of the times;

"Inasmuch too, as far from being an innocent experiment, it is replete with changes injurious to our trade and manufactures, and

our revenues;

"Inasmuch also, as it destroys our constitution which has worked well, and substitutes a new one, the benefits of which we cannot see, but the numerous evil and dangers of which are apparent, and which, in every change it offers, militates against some known and established principle of the British constitution;

"Inasmuch, also, as it so far endangers the constitution of Britain as not to leave us the certainty of enjoying a free constitution there when our own shall be destroyed;

"Inasmuch as it tends to impoverish and subjugate Ireland, without giving wealth or strength to Britain;

"Inasmuch as it tends to raise and perpetuate discontent and jealousies, to create new and strengthen old distinctnesses of in