Ireland having been reduced to the lowest state of misery and servitude, the scheme for which much of this suffering had been enacted was now proposed and carried out.  The first parliamentary intimation was given in a speech from the throne, on the 22nd of January, 1799; a pamphlet was published on the subject by Mr. Cooke, the Under-Secretary; but it required more cogent arguments than either speeches from the throne or pamphlets to effect the object of Government.  Mr. Pitt had set his heart upon the Union, and Mr. Pitt had determined that the Union should be carried out at any expense of honour.  The majority of the Irish lawyers protested against it.  The Irish people, as far as they dared do so, opposed it.  At a meeting of the Irish bar, on the 9th of December, there were 166 votes against the Union and only thirty-two in favour of it.  The published correspondence of Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castlereagh has revealed an amount of nefarious corruption and treachery at which posterity stands aghast.  “These noblemen,” writes Sir Jonah Barrington, “seemed to have been created for such a crisis, and for each other.  An unremitting perseverance, an absence of all political compunctions, an unqualified contempt of public opinion, and a disregard of every constitutional principle, were common to both.”  But Lord Cornwallis had some compunctions; for he wrote to General Ross, describing his office as “the most cursed of all situations,” and expressing, in language more forcible than gentlemanly, his ardent desire to “kick those whom his public duty obliged him to court.”

The immediate arrangements made for carrying out the Union were extremely simple.  A scale of “compensation” was arranged—­a word which could, by a slight perversion of the ordinary meaning of the English language, be used as a new form of expressing what was formerly called bribery.  Every one was promised everything that he wished for, if he would only consent to the measure.  The Catholics were to have emancipation, the Protestants ascendency, the bar promotion, the people higher wages, the boroughmongers magnificent compensation.  FitzGibbon, who had been made Lord Clare, and was then Chancellor, bribed, threatened, and cajoled the Upper House; Mr. Secretary Cooke employed himself with equal ability in the Lower House.  Grattan had left Ireland; Flood was in retirement; the members of the bar who had voted against the Union were dismissed from office, and the Prime Serjeant, Mr. FitzGerald, was the first victim.  The thirty-two who formed the minority were at once removed.  I have not space for the details of the various attempts which were made to pass the unpopular measure.  Barrington has given a list of the members for the Union, and the rewards they received.  His description of the last night of the Irish Parliament is too graphic to be omitted:—­