An equally important and more difficult matter to adjust to the satisfaction of both Parliaments was the apportionment of the financial burdens between the two nations. It would be tiresome as well as superfluous to enter into minute details; the more so as the arrangement proposed was of a temporary character. After a long and minute discussion, Pitt's appraisement was admitted to come as near to strict fairness and equity as any that could be made; the separate discharge of its public debt already incurred was left to each kingdom; and it was farther settled that for twenty years fifteen parts of the expense of the nation out of seventeen should be borne by Great Britain and two by Ireland.
Other articles provided that the laws and courts of both kingdoms, civil and ecclesiastical, should remain in their existing condition, subject, of course, to such alterations as the united Legislature might hereafter deem desirable.
The resolutions, when adopted—as they speedily were—were embodied in a bill, which passed through the last stage by receiving the royal assent at the beginning of July. The state of public feeling in Ireland was not yet sufficiently calmed down after the Rebellion for it to be prudent to venture on a general election, and it was, consequently, ordained that the members for the Irish counties and for those Irish boroughs which had been selected for the retention of representation should take their seats in the united Parliament on its next meeting. On the 22d of January, 1801, the united, or, to give it its more proper designation, the Imperial Parliament held its first meeting, being, although in its sixth session, so far regarded as a new Parliament, that the King directed a fresh election of a Speaker.
The Union, as thus effected, was so far a vital change in the constitution of both Great Britain and Ireland, that it greatly altered the situation in which each kingdom had previously stood to the other. Till 1782 the position of Ireland toward England had been one of entire political subordination; and, though that had in appearance been modified by the repeal of Poynings' Act, yet no one doubted or could doubt that, whenever the resolutions of the two Parliaments came into conflict, the Irish Parliament would find submission unavoidable. But by the Union that subordination was terminated forever. The character of the Union—of the conditions, that is, on which the two countries were united—was one of perfect and complete equality on all important points, indeed, in all matters whatever, except one or two of minor consequence, where some irremovable difference between them compelled some trifling variations. It was not a connection of domination on the one side and subordination on the other, where every concomitant circumstance might tempt the one to overbearing arrogance, while the other could not escape a feeling of humiliation. It was rather—to quote the eloquent peroration of Pitt, when, in the preceding year, he first introduced the subject to the consideration of the House of Commons—"a free and voluntary association of two great countries, joining for their common benefit in one empire, where each retained its proportionate weight and importance, under the security of equal laws, reciprocal affection, and inseparable interests; and which wanted nothing but that indissoluble connection to render both invincible."
On that occasion Pitt had argued, from the great subsequent increase in the population and wealth of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and in the prosperity of the whole country of Scotland, that a similar result might be looked for in Ireland. And the general trade of Ireland, and especially the linen manufacture, within a very few years began to realize his prediction. So that it is strange to find Fox, on the great minister's death, five years afterward, reiterating his disapproval of the Union as a plea for refusing him the appellation of a great statesman.[[146]] In one point alone the intrigues of a colleague prevented Pitt from carrying out to the full his liberal and enlightened views, and compelled him to leave the Union incomplete in a matter of such pre-eminent importance, that it may be said that all the subsequent disquietudes which have prevented Ireland from reaping the full benefit he desired from the Union are traceable to his disappointment on that subject.[[147]] We have seen that he contemplated, as a natural and necessary consequence or even part of the Union, an extensive reform of the laws affecting the Roman Catholics. Indeed, the understanding that he was prepared to introduce a measure with that object had no small weight in conciliating in some quarters support to the Act of Union. Accordingly, when describing the arrangements which he had in view for the Church of Ireland, he indicated his intention with sufficient plainness by the statement, that "it might be proper to leave to Parliament an opportunity of considering what might be fit to be done for his Majesty's Catholic subjects;" words which were generally understood to express his feeling, that both justice and policy required the removal of the restrictions which debarred the Roman Catholics from the complete enjoyment of political privileges. But the history and different bearings of that question it will be more convenient to discuss in , when we shall have arrived at the time when it was partially dealt with by the ministry of the Duke of Wellington.
Notes:
[ [!-- Note Anchor 125 --][Footnote 125: Mr. Froude says four great families—the Fitzgeralds of Kildare, the Boyles, the Ponsonbys, and the Beresfords—returned a majority of the House of Commons ("English in Ireland," ii., 5); and besides those peers, the arrangement for the Union proved that the influence of the Loftuses and the Hills fell little short of them.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 126 --][Footnote 126: Such a system actually had existed in France, where articles of ordinary trade could not be transported from one province to another without payment of a heavy duty; but Colbert had abolished that system in France above one hundred years before the time of which we are speaking.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 127 --][Footnote 127: "History of England," vol. v., c. xxiii., p. 57.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 128 --][Footnote 128: "The English in Ireland," ii., 39.]