Directory, and, still expecting aid from France, planning a fresh outbreak.  Religious animosities were more violent than ever.  Government was becoming impossible; for the Roman Catholic population, now thoroughly disaffected, would not continue to submit to the rule of the Protestant oligarchy; but the only way to put an end to it would be by another rebellion which if successful would (as the Roman Catholic bishops and educated laymen fully realized) probably result in the establishment of a Jacobin republic; clear-headed men of all parties were beginning to think that there was but one solution of the problem; and that was—­the Union.

CHAPTER IX.

THE UNION.

We come now to the great turning point in the modern history of Ireland—­the Union.  It has been so constantly and so vehemently asserted that this momentous event was prompted by the wicked desire of England to ruin Ireland, and was carried out by fraud, bribery, intimidation, and every form of political crime, that not only ordinary readers, but even writers who are content to receive their information at second hand without investigating evidence for themselves, generally assume that no other view is possible.  Thus O’Connell boldly asserted that the Irish Catholics never assented to the Union.  Others have blindly repeated his words; and from those reiterated statements has been developed an argument that as the Catholics did not assent to the Union, they cannot be bound by it.

I believe that there has been as much exaggeration about this as about most other episodes of Irish history; and that anyone who, fairly and without prejudice, takes the trouble to go through the history of the Union as it may be gathered from contemporary documents, will come to the conclusion that it was devised by great and earnest statesmen who had the good of both countries at heart.  As to the means by which it was carried, there is much to be said on both sides of the question; Lecky has stated the case against the Union ably and temperately; other writers, equally honourable, have taken the opposite side.  There is at any rate very much to be said for the opinion, that, considering the circumstances and the peculiar constitution of the Irish Parliament, there was nothing which the Government did that was not perfectly justifiable.  As to whether it was in accordance with the wish of the people or not, there are several points which ought to be borne in mind but to which sufficient attention is not usually given.  A very large part of the nation were ignorant peasants, who did not and could not properly understand the question; and as a matter of fact cared little about it.  Then of those who were against the measure, many opposed it not because they wished the existing state of things to continue, but because they thought that the Union would prevent the one object of their ambition—­total separation and the establishment of a republic; their opinion