were at least as great as those which, a century before, had kept down Scotland.  Another of his arguments has been remarkably falsified by the event.  With a boldness in putting forward what was manifestly, indeed avowedly, a party objection, and which, as such, must be looked upon as somewhat singular, he found a reason for resisting the addition of a hundred Irish members to the British House of Commons in the probability that they would, as a general rule, be subservient to the minister.  He instanced “the uniform support which the members for Scotland had given to every act of ministers,” and saw in that example “reason to apprehend that the Irish members would become a no less regular band of ministerial adherents.”  It would be superfluous to point out how entirely contrary the result has been to the prediction.

It is, however, beside the purpose of this work to dwell on the arguments by which the minister supported his proposal, or on those with which the Opposition resisted it, whether apparently founded on practical considerations, such as those brought forward by Mr. Grey, or those of a more sentimental character, which rested on the loss of national “dignity and honor,” which, it was assumed, would be the consequence of the measure.  It seems desirable rather to explain the principal conditions on which the Union was to be effected, as Pitt explained it to the House of Commons in April, 1800.  In the preceding year he had confined himself to moving a series of resolutions in favor of the principle, which, though they were adopted by both Houses in England, he did not at that time endeavor to carry farther, since in the Irish House of Commons the utmost exertions of the government could only prevail by a single vote;[142] and he naturally thought such a majority far too slender to justify his relying on it so far as to proceed farther with a measure of such vast importance.  But, during the recess, he had introduced some modifications into his original draft of the measure, which, though slight, were sufficient to conciliate much additional support; and the consequence was, that in February of this year both the Irish Houses accepted it by sufficient majorities;[143] and, therefore, he now felt able to lay the details of the measure before the English Parliament.  To take them in the order in which he enumerated them, that which had appeared to the Irish Parliament “the first and most important, was the share which the Irish constituencies ought to have in the representation of the House of Commons.”  On this point, “the Parliament of Ireland was of opinion that the number of representatives for Ireland ought to be one hundred.”  And he was not disposed to differ from the conclusion to which it had come.  He regarded it, indeed, as “a matter of but small importance whether the number of representatives from one part of the united empire were greater or less.  If they were enough to make known the local wants, to state the interests and convey the sentiments of the part of