198 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1800. 



For these reasons, and believ- 

 ing the above statement to be ac- 

 curate, we thus record our dissent. 

 3dly, For these and many other 

 reasons, too tedious and too obvious 

 to be here dwelt upon, we have 

 deemed it our bounden duty, both 

 to ourselves and to our descendants, 

 thus publicly to declare our dissent 

 from these resolutions, approving 

 of the measures of a legislative union, 

 which have passed this house, call- 

 ing on ourlatestposterity toentreat, 

 that in virtue of this, our solemn 

 declaration, they will acquit us of 

 having been in any wise instru- 

 mental to their degradation, and 

 the ruin of that country which 

 they may hereafter inhabit. 



Leinster, 



Downshire, 



Meath, 



Granard, 



Ludlow, by proxy, 



Moira, by proxy, 



Arran, 



Charlemont, 



Riversdale, by proxy, 



Mountcashell, 



Farnhara, 



Dillon, 



Strangford, 



Powerscourt, 



De Vesci, by proxy, 



W. D;)vvn and Connor, 



R. Waterford and Lismore, 



Louth, 



Massey, by proxy, 



Sunderlin, for the first reason. 



Protest against a legislative Union 

 with Great Britain : entered on 

 the Journals of the Irish House 

 of Lords. 



lst.T>ECAUSEthe measure, re- 



Jj commended by our most 



gracious sovereign, was a complete 



and entire union between Great 



Britain and Ireland, to be founded 

 on equal and liberal principles. We 

 cannot help observing, that the 

 terms proposed in the said bill are 

 inconsistent with those principles, 

 and are totally unequal; that Great 

 Britain is thereby to retain entire 

 and undiminished her houses of 

 lords and commons, and that two- 

 fifteenths of the Irish peers are to 

 be degraded and deprived of their 

 legislative functions, and that two- 

 thirds of the Irish house of com- 

 mons are to be struck off. Such a 

 proceeding appears to us totally un- 

 equal, both in respect of numbers, 

 and the mode of forming the united 

 parliament ; and we cannot suggest 

 any reason for reducing the num- 

 ])er of the members of the Irish 

 houses of parliament, which does 

 not apply with more force to re- 

 ducing the number of the members 

 in the British houses of parlia- 

 ment, whose numbers so greatly 

 exceed that of the members of the 

 Irish houses of parliament. 



2dly, Because the measure re- 

 commended by his majesty was a 

 complete and entire union between 

 Great Britain and Ireland, by which 

 we understand such an union as 

 should so perfectly identify the two 

 nations, that they should become 

 as one nation, and there should 

 not exist any distinct interest be- 

 tween them. — When we consider 

 the provisions of the said bill, we 

 find, that although its professed 

 object is to form a perfect union 

 between them, it does not in any 

 sort effect it. It unites the legis- 

 latures, but does not identify the 

 nations ; their interests will remain 

 as distinct as they are at present ; 

 Ireland will continue to be go- 

 verned by a viceroy, assisted by an 

 Irish privy council ; her purse, her 

 revenues, her expenditure, and 



I 



