fixed upon as the proportion to be paid by Ireland, is far beyond what her resources will enable her to discharge. Should Ireland undertake to pay more than she shall be able to answer, the act will be irrevocable, and the necessary consequence will be a gradual diminution of her capital, the decline of her trade, a failure in the produce of her taxes, and finally, her total bankruptcy. Should Ireland fall, Great Britain must necessarily be involved in her ruin, and we will have to lament that our great and glorious empire will be brought to the brink of destruction, by the dangerous and visionary speculation of substituting a new system of Government for Ireland, in the place of that Constitution which she has experienced to be the firmest security for the preservation of her liberties. We think it proper to observe, that if the ministers had any plausible grounds, whereupon they have calculated the said proportion, they have not deigned to lay them before Parliament, nor have the usual and established forms of proceeding to investigate matters of intricate and extended calculations been resorted to, by appointing committees for their examination, neither have commissioners been appointed, as was done upon the Union with Scotland. Had the minister applied his attention to that very necessary inquiry, of ascertaining the relative ability of the two nations, he would have compared the balance which Great Britain has in her favour, from her trade with all the world, amounting to 14,800,000l., with that of Ireland upon the whole of her trade, amounting to 509,3127., bearing a proportion to each other of about twenty-nine to one. He would have examined into the amount of revenue, out of which the said proportions must naturally be paid, namely, the produce of the permanent taxes of each nation, which he would have found to have produced in Great Britain, in the year ending the 5th of January, 1799, the sum of 26,000,000l., and the permanent taxes of Ireland, in the corresponding year, did not exceed 2,000,000l., bearing a proportion to each other of about thirteen to one. He would have been informed that the only influx of money into Ireland which can be discovered, is the said balance of her trade of 500,000l., and that she remits to Great Britain annually 724,7531., a sum exceeding by upwards of 215,000l. the amount of such balance; that the remittances to her absentees (as stated by Mr. Pitt) amount to one million, but are computed really to amount to double that sum, and must necessarily greatly increase, should a Union take place, such drains exhausting in a great degree the resources of this kingdom, and adding to the opulence of Great Britain. The facility with which large sums of money have lately been raised in Great Britain, compared with the unsuccessful attempt to raise so small a sum in this kingdom as one million and a half, would have afforded to him the strongest

proof of the opulence of the one, and the poverty of the other. From the Irish minister's own statement, he has computed that the sum for which this kingdom shall be called upon annually in time of war, as her contribution, will amount to 4,492,6807., but has not attempted to point out the means by which she can raise so enormous a sum. When the minister shall find that the circumstances of Ireland are such as have been herein stated, and shall recollect that this new project has been suggested by him, and forced upon this nation, he will feel the immense responsibility which falls upon him for the disastrous consequences which it may produce, not only upon this kingdom, but upon the whole empire. He will be alarmed at the discontents, which an imposition of taxes beyond the abilities of the people to pay must produce, and the fatal consequences that they may occasion.

Eighth. Because the transfer of our legislature to another kingdom, will deprive us of the only security we have for the enjoyment of our liberties, and being against the sense of the people, amounts to a gross breach of trust; and we consider the substitute for our constitution, namely, the return of the proposed number of persons to the United Parliament, as delusive, amounting, indeed, to an acknowledgment of the necessity of representation, but in no sort supplying it, inasmuch as the thirty-two Peers, and the one hundred Commoners will be merged in the vast disproportion of British members, who will in fact be the legislators of Ireland; and when we consider that all the establishments of the two separate governments are to continue, which must add to the influence of the minister over the conduct of Parliament, and advert to his power in the return of Irish members to Parliament, we conceive that such portion is more likely to overturn the constitution of Great Britain than to preserve our own.

Niuth. Because we consider the intended Union a direct breach of trust, not only by the Parliament with the people, but by the Parliament of Great Britain with that of Ireland, inasmuch as the tenour and purport of the settlement of 1782 did intentionally and expressly exclude the re-investigation of constitutional questions between the two countries, and did establish the exclusive legislative authority of the Irish Parliament, without the interference of any other; that the breach of such a solemn contract, founded on the internal weakness of the country, and its inability at the time to withstand the destructive designs of the minister, must tend to destroy the future harmony of both, by forming a precedent and generating a principle of mutual encroachment in terms of mutual difficulties.

Tenth. Because, that when we consider the weakness of the

kingdom and the time that the measure was brought forward, and her inability to withstand the destructive designs of the minister, and couple to the act itself the means that have been employed to accomplish it; such as the abuse of the Place Bill, for the purpose of modelling the Parliament; the appointment of sheriffs to prevent county meetings; the dismissal of the old stedfast friends of constitutional government for their adhering to the constitution, and the return of persons to Parliament who had neither connexion nor stake in the country, and were, therefore, selected to decide upon her fate. When we consider the armed force of the minister, added to his powers and practices of corruption, when we couple these things together, we are warranted to say, that the basest means have been used to accomplish this great innovation, and that the measure of Union tends to dishonour the ancient peerage for ever, to disqualify both Houses of Parliament, and subjugate the people of Ireland for ever; such circumstances, we apprehend, will be recollected with abhorrence, and will create jealousy between the two nations in the place of that harmony which for so many centuries has been the cement of the Union.

Eleventh. Because the argument made use of in favour of the Union, namely, that the sense of the people of Ireland is in its favour, we know to be untrue, and as the minister has declared that they would not pass the measure against the sense of the people, and as the people have pronounced, and under all difficulties, their judgment against it. We have, together with the sense of the country, the authority of the minister to enter our protest against the project of Union, against the yoke which it imposes, the dishonour which it inflicts, the disqualification passed upon the peerage, the stigma thereby branded on the realm, the disproportionate principle of expenses it introduces, the means employed to effect it, the discontents it has excited and must continue to excite, against all these, and the fatal consequences they may produce, we have endeavoured to interpose our votes; and, failing, we transmit to after times our names, and our solemn protest on behalf of the parliamentary constitution of this realm; the liberty which it secured the trade which it protected-the connexion which it preserved-and the constitution which it supplied and fortified. This we feel ourselves called upon to do, in support of our characters, our honour, and whatever is left to us worthy to be transmitted to posterity. LEINSTER.

MEATH.

GRANARD.

MOIRA (by proxy), for 8th,

10th, and 11th reasons.

LUDLOW (by proxy).

ARRAN.

CHARLEMONT.
KINGSTON (by proxy).
RIVERSDALE (by proxy).
MOUNTCASHEL.

FARNHAM.

BELMORE (by proxy).
MASSY (by proxy).
STRANGFORD.
POWERSCOURT.
DE VESCI.

WM. DOWN AND CONNOR.
R. WATERFORD AND LISMore.
SUNDERLIN, except for the 7th

reason.

LISMORE (by proxy).

No. 3.

PROTEST AGAINST THE UNION, DRAWN UP BY
MR. GRATTAN.

Being an address moved by Lord Corry in the Irish House of
Commons, on the 6th of June, 1800.

We, your Majesty's loyal and dutiful subjects, the Commons of Ireland, at all times sensible of the numerous and essential advantages which we, in common with your subjects in Ireland, have derived under your auspicious reign, beg leave to assure you that none have more impressed the hearts of your Majesty's subjects than the adjustment, at your Majesty's recommendation, entered into by the Parliaments of Great Britain and Ire land in 1782; thereby forming the most solid compact which can subsist between two countries and a common Sovereign; but the result of that compact and adjustment was the increase of our trade and of our revenue, together with the harmony of the two Parliaments and the support of the connexion. That the said compact, on the part of your Majesty's Parliament of Ireland, has been religiously and beneficially adhered to, insomuch that a final termination of all constitutional questions between the two nations took place, and the commercial points which at that time remained to be settled have since, without agitation or ferment, been gradually and satisfactorily disposed of.

That, under these circumstances, it is with the deepest concern and the greatest surprise we have seen a measure propounded under the name of Union, to set aside the most important and sacred covenant,—to deprive this country of her Parliament in time to come, and in lieu thereof to introduce an innovation consisting of a separate Irish Government without an Irish Parliament, whose power is to be transferred to a British Parliament, without an availing Irish representation therein; an innovation such as may impair and corrupt the constitution of Britain, without preserving the liberties of Ireland; so that this country shall be in time to come taxed without being duly represented, and legislated for by a body out of the realm, incapable of applying proper remedies and remote from the means of knowing her wants, her wishes, and her interests.

;

That giving the name of Union to the measure is a delusion the two kingdoms are already united to each other in one common empire, one in unity of interest and unity of constitution, as has been emphatically pronounced from the throne by your Majesty's former viceroy; bound together by law, and what is more effectual than law, by mutual interest, mutual affection, and mutual duty to promote the common prosperity of the empire; and it is our glory and our happiness that we form an inseparable part of it.

That this Union has stood the test of ages, unbroke by the many foreign wars, civil commotions, and rebellions which have assailed it; and we dread the rash and desperate innovation which now would wantonly and unnecessarily put it to the hazard,—an innovation which does not affect to strengthen the unalterable interest of each country in supporting the revolution that placed your Majesty's illustrious family on the throne; for that interest cannot be increased by any law, it is implanted in our hearts, it is interwoven with our prosperity, it grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength.

Neither does it profess to create an interest in either country to preserve their connexion together, because that interest already exists, and we know and feel that such connexion includes all that is dear to us and is essential to the common business or to the existence of both nations-we therefore do with all humility implore your royal protection of that Glorious Revolution, and of an impartial connexion against the perseverance of your Majesty's Ministers in their endeavours to force this ruinous measure.

Their avowed object is a Union of the two nations; but the only Union they attempt is a union of the two Parliaments, and the articles which are to attend their partial and defective Union are all so many enumerations of existing distinct interests in the two kingdoms, which it cannot identify, and which require separate Parliaments resident in each, duly to attend to them.

In respect to taxes, the purse of each nation is vested in its own House of Commons by the principles of the constitution; the security of our liberty, and the great constitutional balance of the powers of the state, lie in its being left there; but the articles acknowledge a separate purse, and a separate interest in that purse, by providing for a separate proportion of expense, separate modes and laws of taxation, separate debts, separate sinking funds, separate treasury, separate exchequer, separate accounts of revenue to be kept, and separate articles of produce to be placed in the way of debtor and creditor between the two kingdoms, as between two unconnected parties; and though the state acknowledge and attempt to form regulations for all