ONE:Such were the means by which the union of Ireland with Great Britain was accomplished, and it would be idle to argue that a majority in the Irish Parliament was not purchased by places, pensions, peerages, and compensation for suppressed seats. But it was a bargain, made above-board, and in the open market. It was, moreover, in agreement with the sentiment of the age, a borough-owner was thought to have a right "to do what he willed with his own," and Pitt, in one of his own Reform bills, had acted on the theory that boroughs were a species of property. Lord Cornwallis, though he acknowledged that he was engaged in dirty work, declared that the union was imperatively necessary, and could be accomplished only by those means. The Irish Parliament was profoundly corrupt, and from no point of view could its extinction be regretted, but that extinction could be accomplished only by further corruption. Nor is there any proof that the Irish nation as a whole were opposed to the union. It was, of course, hard on a pure patriot like Grattan to be involved in the fate of a corrupt gang of placemen, but, as a Protestant, he only[476] represented the minority. The Catholics were either indifferent, with the indifference resulting from long oppression, or in favour of the measure. They knew that from the Irish Parliament it had become, since the Rebellion, hopeless to expect Catholic emancipation; they believed the assurances of Pitt that a measure for their relief would speedily be introduced in the British Parliament. Had he been able to fulfil his promise, the union would have beento use Macaulay's familiar phrasea union indeed.Dr. Arbuthnot, a great friend of Pope and Swift, was also one of the ablest prose writers, "The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus," published in Pope's and Swift's works, and the political satire of "John Bull," a masterly performance, being attributed to him.
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ONE:But there was a circumstance taken for granted in such a scheme which would never have been realisedthe consent of the queen. Anne, like most other sovereigns, abhorred the idea of a successor. She never liked the contemplation of the occupation of her throne after death, much less did she relish the presence of a competitor during her lifetime. Besides in her days of disease and weakness she had enough to do to manage her Ministry, without adding to her anxieties by a rival authority either from Hanover or St. Germains. There was still another obstaclethe unsatisfactory conduct of Oxford, who had[18] professed great zeal for the Pretender till he got the Peace of Utrecht signed, because this secured him the vote of the Jacobites, but who since then had trifled with them, and never could be brought to any positive decision. Berwick had sent over the Abb Gualtier to endeavour to bring Oxford to a point. Gualtier soon informed his employer that Oxford was actively corresponding with the House of Hanover and therefore Berwick and De Torcy wrote a joint letter to him, putting the plain question, what measures he had taken to secure the interests of the Pretender in case of the death of the queen, which no one could now suppose to be far off. Oxford, with unwonted candour this time, replied that, if the queen died soon, the affairs of the Prince and of the Cabinet too were ruined without resource. This satisfied them that he had never really been in earnest in the Pretender's cause, or he would long ago have taken measures for his advantage, or would have told them that he found it impossible. They determined, therefore, to throw the interests of the Jacobites into the party of Bolingbroke; and this was another step in Oxford's fall. They managed to set Lady Masham warmly against him, and this undermined him more than ever with the queen.
