government might be
safely conceded, and the most defective political arrangement might
prove innocuous. This is the true cement of nations, and no change,
however plausible in theory, can be really advantageous which
contributes to diminish it. Theorists may argue that it would be better
for Ireland to become in every respect a province of England; they may
contend that a union of Legislatures, accompanied by a corresponding
fusion of characters and identification of hopes, interests, and
desires, would strengthen the empire; but as a matter of fact this was
not what was effected in 1800. The measure of Pitt centralized, but it
did not unite, or rather, by uniting the Legislatures it divided the
nations. In a country where the sentiment of nationality was as intense
as in any part of Europe, it destroyed the national Legislature contrary
to the manifest wish of the people, and by means so corrupt,
treacherous, and shameful that they are never likely to be forgotten. In
a country where, owing to the religious difference, it was peculiarly
necessary that a vigorous lay public opinion should be fostered to
dilute or restrain the sectarian spirit, it suppressed the centre and
organ of political life, directed the energies of the community into the
channels of sectarianism, drove its humours inwards, and thus began a
perversion of public opinion which has almost destroyed the elements of
political progress. In a country where the people have always been
singularly destitute of self-reliance, and at the same time eminently
faithful to their leaders, it withdrew the guidance of affairs from the
hands of the resident gentry, and, by breaking their power, prepared the
ascendency of the demagogue or the rebel. In two plain ways it was
dangerous to the connection: it incalculably increased the aggregate
disloyalty of the people, and it destroyed the political supremacy of
the class that is most attached to the connection. The Irish Parliament,
with all its faults, was an eminently loyal body. The Irish people
through the eighteenth century, in spite of great provocations, were on
the whole a loyal people till the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, and even
then a few very moderate measures of reform might have reclaimed them.
Burke, in his _Letters on a Regicide Peace_, when reviewing the elements
of strength on which England could confide in her struggle with
revolutionary France, placed in the very first rank the co-operation of
Irelan