You tell me, Sir, that you prefer an union with Ireland to the little regulations which are proposed in Parliament.  This union is a great question of state, to which, when it comes properly before me in my Parliamentary capacity, I shall give an honest and unprejudiced consideration.  However, it is a settled rule with me, to make the most of my actual situation, and not to refuse to do a proper thing because there is something else more proper which I am not able to do.  This union is a business of difficulty, and, on the principles of your letter, a business impracticable.  Until it can be matured into a feasible and desirable scheme, I wish to have as close an union of interest and affection with Ireland as I can have; and that, I am sure, is a far better thing than any nominal union of government.

France, and indeed most extensive empires, which by various designs and fortunes have grown into one great mass, contain many provinces that are very different from each other in privileges and modes of government; and they raise their supplies in different ways, in different proportions, and under different authorities:  yet none of them are for this reason curtailed of their natural rights; but they carry on trade and manufactures with perfect equality.  In some way or other the true balance is found; and all of them are properly poised and harmonized.  How much have you lost by the participation of Scotland in all your commerce?  The external trade of England has more than doubled since that period; and I believe your internal (which is the most advantageous) has been augmented at least fourfold.  Such virtue there is in liberality of sentiment, that you have grown richer even by the partnership of poverty.

If you think that this participation was a loss, commercially considered, but that it has been compensated by the share which Scotland has taken in defraying the public charge, I believe you have not very carefully looked at the public accounts.  Ireland, Sir, pays a great deal more than Scotland, and is perhaps as much and as effectually united to England as Scotland is.  But if Scotland, instead of paying little, had paid nothing at all, we should be gainers, not losers, by acquiring the hearty cooeperation of an active, intelligent people towards the increase of the common stock, instead of our being employed in watching and counteracting them, and their being employed in watching and counteracting us, with the peevish and churlish jealousy of rivals and enemies on both sides.

I am sure, Sir, that the commercial experience of the merchants of Bristol will soon disabuse them of the prejudice, that they can trade no longer, if countries more lightly taxed are permitted to deal in the same commodities at the same markets.  You know, that, in fact, you trade very largely where you are met by the goods of all nations.  You even pay high duties on the import of your goods, and afterwards undersell nations less taxed, at their own markets, and where goods of the same kind are not charged at all.  If it were otherwise, you could trade very little.  You know that the price of all sorts of manufacture is not a great deal enhanced (except to the domestic consumer) by any taxes paid in this country.  This I might very easily prove.