[3] The first Parliament of the United Kingdom met in 1801.

Pitt used all his powerful influence to obtain for Ireland a full and fair representation in the united Parliament (1801).  He urged that Catholics as well as Protestants should be eligible for election to that body.  But the King positively refused to listen to his Prime Minister.  He even declared that it would be a violation of his coronation oath for him to grant such a request.  The consequence was that not a single Catholic was admitted to the Imperial Parliament until nearly thirty years later (S573).

Two years after the first Imperial Parliament met in London the Irish patriot, Robert Emmet, made a desperate effort to free his country (1803).  To his mind the union of England with Ireland was simply “the union of the shark with its prey.”  He staked his life on the cause of independence; he lost, and paid the forfeit on the scaffold.

But notwithstanding Emmet’s hatred of the union, it resulted advantageously to Ireland in at least two respects.  First, more permanent peace was secured to that distracted and long-suffering country.  Secondly, the Irish people made decided gains commercially.  The duties on their farm products were removed, at least in large degree, and the English ports hitherto closed against them were thrown open.  The duties on their manufactured goods seem to have been taken off at that time only in part.[1] Later, absolute freedom of trade was secured.

[1] See May’s “Constitutional History of England,” Lecky’s “England in the Eighteenth Century”; but compare O’Connor Morris’s work on “Ireland, from 1798 to 1898,” p.58.

563.  “The Industrial Revolution” of the Eighteenth Century; Material
     Progress; Canals; the Steam Engine, 1785.

The reign of George III was in several directions one of marked progress, especially in England.  Just after the King’s accession the Duke of Bridgewater constructed a canal from his coal mine in Worsley to Manchester, a distance of seven miles.  Later, he extended it to Liverpool; eventually it was widened and deepened and became the “Manchester and Liverpool Ship Canal.”  The Duke of Bridgewater’s work was practically the commencement of a system which has since developed to such a degree that the canals of England now extend nearly 5000 miles, and exceed in length its navigable rivers.  The two form such a complete network of water communication that it is said no place in the realm is more than fifteen miles distant from this means of transportation, which connects all the large towns with each other and with the chief ports.

In the last half of the eighteenth century James Watt obtained the first patent (1769) for his improved steam engine (S521), but did not succeed in making it a business success until 1785.  The story is told[1] that he took a working model of it to show to the King.  His Majesty patronizingly asked him, “Well, my man, what have you to sell?” The inventor promptly answered, “What kings covet, may it please your Majesty,—­POWER!” The story is perhaps too good to be true, but the fact of the “power” could not be denied,—­power, too, not simply mechanical, but, in its results, moral and political as well.