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Many people will think that this is a sufficiently weighty condemnation of the Union, but what follows is a still graver reflection on that untoward measure.

“In truth the harmonious co-operation of Ireland with England depends much less upon the framework of the institutions of the former country than upon the dispositions of its people and upon the classes who guide its political life. With a warm and loyal attachment to the connection pervading the nation, the largest amount of self-government might be safely conceded, and the most defective political arrangement might prove innocuous. This is the true cement of nations, and no change, however plausible in theory, can be really advantageous which contributes to diminish it. Theorists may argue that it would be better for Ireland to become in every respect a province of England; they may contend that a union of Legislatures, accompanied by a corresponding fusion of characters and identification of hopes, interests, and desires, would strengthen the empire; but as a matter of fact this was not what was effected in 1800. The measure of Pitt centralized, but it did not unite, or rather, by uniting the Legislatures it divided the nations. In a country where the sentiment of nationality was as intense as in any part of Europe, it destroyed the national Legislature contrary to the manifest wish of the people, and by means so corrupt, treacherous, and shameful that they are never likely to be forgotten. In a country where, owing to the religious difference, it was peculiarly necessary that a vigorous lay public opinion should be fostered to dilute or restrain the sectarian spirit, it suppressed the centre and organ of political life, directed the energies of the community into the channels of sectarianism, drove its humours inwards, and thus began a perversion of public opinion which has almost destroyed the elements of political progress. In a country where the people have always been singularly destitute of self-reliance, and at the same time eminently faithful to their leaders, it withdrew the guidance of affairs from the hands of the resident gentry, and, by breaking their power, prepared the ascendency of the demagogue or the rebel. In two plain ways it was dangerous to the connection: it incalculably increased the aggregate disloyalty of the people, and it destroyed the political supremacy of the class that is most attached to the connection. The Irish Parliament, with all its faults, was an eminently loyal body. The Irish people through the eighteenth century, in spite of great provocations, were on the whole a loyal people till the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, and even then a few very moderate measures of reform might have reclaimed them. Burke, in his Letters on a Regicide Peace, when reviewing the elements of strength on which England could confide in her struggle with revolutionary France, placed in the very first rank the co-operation of Ireland. At the present day, it is to be feared that most impartial men would regard Ireland, in the event of a great European war, rather as a source of weakness than of strength. More than seventy years have passed since the boasted measure of Pitt, and it is unfortunately incontestable that the lower orders in Ireland are as hostile to the system of government under which they live as the Hungarian people have ever been to Austrian, or the Roman to Papal rule; that Irish disloyalty is multiplying enemies of England wherever the English tongue is spoken; and that the national sentiment runs so strongly that multitudes of Irish Catholics look back with deep affection to the Irish Parliament, although no Catholic could sit within its walls, and although it was only during the last seven years of its independent existence that Catholics could vote for its members. Among the opponents of the Union were many of the most loyal, as well as nearly all the ablest men in Ireland; and Lord Charlemont, who died shortly before the measure was consummated, summed up the feelings of many in the emphatic sentence with which he protested against it. ‘It would more than any other measure,’ he said, ‘contribute to the separation of two countries the perpetual connection of which is one of the warmest wishes of my heart.’