Above : Painting Of Lord Grey

After this digression we may return to follow to the end the fortunes of the Act of Union in its passage through Parliament. The debate which followed Castlereagh’s speech ended, as it was bound to end, in a Government victory. At the Division the ayes were 158, the noes 115, giving a majority of 43. In the Lords the Opposition was much less strong. Lord Clare made, in favour of the Government Scheme, a long speech in which he contrived to insult with impartiality the Catholics and the Protestant opposers of the Union, styling the latter ” a puny and rapacious oligarchy,” and the former ” deluded barbarians.” It is scarcely likely that it influenced a single vote of the seventy-five given on the Government side, as against twenty-five only secured by their opponents. In the Commons there was another debate towards the end of February. Grattan, on this as on previous occasions, exerted all the powers of his eloquence in defence of a hopeless cause. A proposal by the Opposition for a General Election was defeated ; there could now be little doubt as to the final result.