their country respectable.’ The friends
of Ireland, profiting by England’s growing consideration
for the sister country, now obtained for her great
benefits for which they had long been striving, and
Mr. Grattan moved an address to the throne asserting
the legislative independence of Ireland. The
address passed the House, and, as his daughter tells
us, Mr. Edgeworth immediately published a pamphlet.
Miss Edgeworth continues as follows, describing his
excellent course of action: ’My father
honestly and unostentatiously used his utmost endeavours
to obliterate all that could tend to perpetuate ill-will
in the country. Among the lower classes in his
neighbourhood he endeavoured to discourage that spirit
of recrimination and retaliation which the lower Irish
are too prone to cherish. They are such acute
observers that there is no deceiving them as to the
state of the real feeling of their superiors.
They know the signs of what passes within with more
certainty than any physiognomist, and it was soon
seen by all those who had any connection with him
that my father was sincere in his disdain of vengeance.’
Further on, describing his political feelings, she
says that on the subject of the Union in parliamentary
phrase he had not then been able to make up his mind.
She describes with some pride his first speech in
the Irish House at two o’clock in the morning,
when the wearied members were scarcely awake to hear
it, and when some of the outstretched members were
aroused by their neighbours to listen to him!
‘When people perceived that it was not a set
speech,’ says Miss Edgeworth, ‘they became
interested.’ He stated his doubts just as
they had occurred as he threw them by turn into each
scale. After giving many reasons in favour of
what appeared to be the advantages of the Union, he
unexpectedly gave his vote against it, because he said
he had been convinced by what he had heard one night,
that the Union was decidedly against the wishes of
the majority of men of sense and property in the nation.
He added (and surely Mr. Edgeworth’s opinion
should go for something still) that if he should be
convinced that the opinions of the country changed,
his vote would be in its favour.
His biographer tells us that Mr. Edgeworth was much
complimented on his speech by both sides, by
those for whom he voted, and also by those who found
that the best arguments on the other side of the question
had been undoubtedly made by him. It is a somewhat
complicated statement and state of feeling to follow;
to the faithful daughter nothing is impossible where
her father is concerned. This vote, I believe,
cost Mr. Edgeworth his peerage. ’When it
was known that he had voted against the Union he became
suddenly the idol of those who would previously have
stoned him,’ says his devoted biographer.
It must not, however, be forgotten that Mr. Edgeworth
had refused an offer of L3000 for his seat for two
or three weeks, during that momentous period when every
vote was of importance. Mr. Pitt, they say, spent
over L2,000,000 in carrying the measure which he deemed
so necessary.