of present unavoidable necessity.”  He was even able to add (and he must have felt peculiar satisfaction in making the statement, since the change in the feelings of the English manufacturers on the subject must have been mainly the fruit of his own teaching, and was a practical recognition of the benefits which they had derived from his commercial policy taken as a whole), that “the English manufacturers did not wish for any protective duties; all they desired was free intercourse with all the world; and, though the want of protective duties might occasion them partial loss, they thought it amply compensated by the general advantage.”  He even thought the arrangements now to be made “would encourage the growth of wool in Ireland, and that England would be able to draw supplies of it from thence; and he did not fear that there would be trade enough for both countries in the markets of the world, and in the market which each country would afford to the other.”  The English manufacturers did not, however, acquiesce very cheerfully in every part of his commercial arrangements.  On the contrary, against the clause which repealed all prohibitions of or bounties on exportation of different articles grown or manufactured in either country, they petitioned, and even set up a claim, which was granted, to be heard by counsel and to produce witnesses.  But Pitt steadily refused the least modification of this part of his measure, not merely on account of its intrinsic reasonableness and justice, but because there was scarcely any condition to which the Irish themselves attached greater importance.

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.