Passage Of The Act Through Parliament
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.
In March the measure was put before the English Parliament, and the Irish Houses adjourned to await their decision. The only serious opposition to the Union made at Westminster came from Lord Grey, but thirty members alone supported his motion.
When the resolutions of the English Houses were returned to Ireland the “Act for the Legislative Union of England and Ireland” , was drawn up in its final form, and began its progress through the Parliament of which it was the death-blow. The first reading (May 21st) showed a Government majority of sixty. At the second (May 26th) this had fallen to forty, which even fell on a second division to thirty-seven, but the victory of Pitt was none the less sure. On this occasion there was not so full a House ; the interest in an issue regarded as certain had flagged. The members who attended, however, were rewarded by hearing probably the most eloquent and certainly the most famous of Grattan’s anti-Union speeches.
The Opposition attempted to carry an Address to the King, but only added one more to their previous defeats.