UNION. 



mod important and facred covenant, to deprive this country 

 of her parliament in time to come, and in lieu thereof to 

 introduce an innovation, confiding of a feparate Irifli go- 

 vernment without an Irifh parliament, whofe power is to 

 be transferred to a Britifh parliament without an availing 

 Irilh reprefentation therein, an innovation fuch as may 

 impair and corrupt the conftitution of Britain, without 

 preferving the liberties of Ireland, fo that this country (hall 

 be in time to come taxed without being duly reprefeiited, 

 and legiflated for by a body out of the realm, incapable of 

 applying proper remedies, and remote from the means of 

 knowing her wants, her wiflies, and her interefts. 



" That giving the name of Union to the meafure is a de- 

 lufion ; the two kingdoms are already united to each other 

 in one common empire, one in unity of intereft, and unity 

 of conftitution, as has been emphatically pronounced from 

 the throne by your majefty's former viceroy ; bound toge- 

 ther by law, and, what is more effedlual than law, by 

 mutual intereft, mutual affeftion, and mutual duty, to 

 promote the common profperity of the empire, and it is 

 our glory and our happinefs that we form an infeparable 

 part of it. 



" That this union has ftood the teft of ages, unbroken by 

 the many foreign wars, civil commotions, and rebellions 

 which have aftailed it ; and we dread the rafti and defperate 

 innovation which now would wantonly and unneceflarily put 

 it to the hazard, an innovation which does not affeft to 

 ftrengthen the unalterable intereft of each country in fup- 

 porting the revolution that placed your majefty's illuftrious 

 family on the throne, for that intereft cannot be increafed 

 by any law ; it is implanted in our hearts, it is interwoven 

 with our profperity, it grows with our growth, and 

 ftrengthcns with our ftrength. 



" Neither does it profefs to create an intereft in cither 

 country to preferve their conneilion together, becaufe that 

 intereft already exifts, and we know and feel that fuch con- 

 neftion includes all that is dear to us, and is efTential to the 

 common happinefs, and to the exiftence of both nations. 

 We therefore do, with all humility, implore your majefty's 

 proteftion of that glorious revolution, and of that eftential 

 conneftion againft the perfevcrance of your majefty's mi- 

 nifters in their endeavours to force this ruinous meafure. 



" Their avowed objedt is a union of the two nations, but 

 the only union they attempt is a union of the two parlia- 

 ments, and the articles which are to attend their partial and 

 defeiSive union are all fo many enumerations of exifting 

 diftinft interefts in the two kingdoms, which it cannot 

 identify, and which require feparate parliaments refident 

 in each duly to attend to them. In refpcft to taxes, the 

 purfe of each nation is vefted in its own houfe of commons 

 by the principles of the conftitution ; the fecurity of our 

 liberty, and the great conftitutional balance of the powers 

 of the ftate, lie in its being left tiiere ; but the articles ac- 

 knowledge a feparate purfe, and a feparate intereft in that 

 purfe, by providing for a feparate proportion of expence, 

 ieparate modes and laws of taxation, feparate debts, fepa- 

 rate finking funds, feparate treafury, feparate exchequer, 

 feparate accounts of revenue to be kept, and feparate arti- 

 cles of produce to be placed in the way of debtor and 

 creditor between the two kingdoms, as between two uncon- 

 ncfted parties ; and though they ftate, acknowledge, and 

 attempt to form regulations for all thcfe many diftinft in- 

 terefts, which no laws can identify or confolidate ; and 

 though even the legal intereft of money remains diff^erent 

 in the two kingdoms without their attempting to afllmilate 

 it, yet they take away the Irifti paijiament, which thefe 

 diftindtnelTcs ought rather to have fuggcfted the creation of, 



if it did not exift, and they lay the foundation of diftrefs, 

 difcontent, and jealoufics in t\<k kingdom, if not of worfe 

 evils, and tend to familiarize ideai of feparation inftead of 

 union, to the utter ruin of this you. ancient kingdom, and 

 your loyal fubjefts therein. 



" In regard to manufafturee, they acknowledge the inte- 

 refts in them to be fo diftinft, that they are foiled to provide 

 in exprefs terms againft a free interccurfe btjig allowed 

 between the two kingdoms, in more than twenv; general 

 denominations, and they eftablifh countervaihng duties on 

 the mutual import of at leaft twenty-four fpecies of goods, 

 on account of the neceflary difference in taxation, and the 

 diftinftnefs of revenue, which, from tlie feparate interefts of 

 the two kingdoms in them, will not admit of confolidation. 



" On the mutual interchange of corn, that great neceflary 

 of life, they not only continue duties, but they provide for 

 retaining prohibitions and bounties, and inftead of even al- 

 leging an identity of intereft in fo important and general 

 an article, they avov,' fuch feparate interefts to exift in it as 

 law cannot remove ; and an interdift is neceflary to be laid 

 on its free communication between the two kingdoms, which 

 your majefty's minifters have at the fame time the hardinefs 

 to tell us, their projedl is to unite, identify, and confolidate, 

 throughout all their interefts. 



" We fee with them that thefe interefts are diftind, and 

 we, therefore, raife up our voices to your majefty againlt 

 their imprafticable attempt to confolidate them ; an attempt 

 which they themfelves acknowledge to be fo, by their many 

 provifions, all intended to fecure a continuance of their 

 diftinAnefs. 



♦' But however feparate thefe interefts are in taxes, in re- 

 venue, in trade, and in manufaftures ; and however incapable 

 of being identified, we have the happinefs of knowing that 

 in the great point of conftitution no difference exifts : both 

 nations have a full right to all the blefiings of the Britifh 

 conftitution ; and we have an identity, not a diftinftnefs of 

 intereft, in the pofleflion of it. Yet fuch is the ftrange 

 paflion of your majefty's minifters for innovation, that not 

 finding any fuch diftinftncfs, they do by thefe articles 

 create feveral highly alarming to us, and to all your ma- 

 jefty's fubjefls of this kingdom, who claim an equal right 

 with Great Britain in the full and free enjoyment of that 

 conftitution. All the Irifti temporal lords, except twenty- 

 eight, are to be incapacitated by this meafure from exer- 

 cifing their rights and duties as peers and hereditary coun- 

 fellors, while every Britifli temporal lord is to retain his full 

 funiSions. Four fpiritual lords only are to have a ftiare in 

 the legiflature, while all the Britifli fpiritual lords are to 

 continue theirs ; and two-thirds of the Irifli commoners are 

 to be difquahfied, while every Britifli commoner remains. 

 The articles further declare, that all Irifli peerages fliall 

 be confidered as peerages of the united kingdom, whereby 

 the Irifli peers, who are to be incapacitated irom Icgiflating 

 as peers, are to continue peers, and may legiflate as com- 

 moners, againft every known principle and ellablifhed prac- 

 tice of the conftitution : nay, even when chofen commoners, 

 they are not to reprefent any place in Ireland, the country 

 from which they derive their honours, although their voices 

 as commoners will extend equally with that of every other 

 commoner to all the concerns of this kingdom ; and thus the 

 Irifli purfe will be eventually put into tlie hands of the Irifli 

 peerage, in direft defiance of a great and fundamental 

 principle of the conftitution. 



" All thefe degrading, dangerous, and unconftitutional 

 diftinftions arc not only created in the Irifli peerage, bnt are 

 to remain for ever, without power of alteration, by a pro- 

 vifion being made in the articles for a conftant creation of 



peers 



