bsence of any pre-existing ordinance, it would be easy to contend that
the Irish Parliament was the sole judge who the Regent should be, and on
what terms he should exercise the royal authority.

The Irish Parliament had been prorogued in 1787 to the 5th of February,
1789, the same day on which, after numerous examinations of the
physicians in attendance on the royal patient, and after the passing of
a series of resolutions enunciating the principles on which the
government was proceeding, Pitt introduced the Regency Bill into the
English House of Commons, being prepared to conduct it through both
Houses with all the despatch that might be consistent with a due
observance of all the forms of deliberation. Grattan's object was to
anticipate the decision of the English Parliament, so as to avoid every
appearance that the Irish Parliament was only following it; and he
therefore proposed that the House of Commons should instantly vote an
address to the Prince, requesting him to take upon himself the Regency
of the kingdom of Ireland, by his own natural right as the heir of the
crown; making sure not only that his advice would be taken by those whom
he was addressing, but that the House of Lords would not venture to
dissent from it.

Fitzgibbon, as Attorney-general and spokesman of the government in the
Commons, as a matter of course opposed such precipitate action, not only
warning his hearers of the folly and danger of taking a step "which
might dissolve the single tie which now connected Ireland with Great
Britain," but explaining also the whole principle of the constitution of
the two kingdoms, so far as it was a joint constitution, in terms which
give his speech a permanent value as a summary of its principle and its
character. He recalled to the recollection of the House the act of
William and Mary, which declares "the kingdom of Ireland to be annexed
to the imperial crown of England, and the sovereign of England to be by
undoubted right sovereign of Ireland also;" and argued from this that
Mr. Grattan's proposal was contrary to the laws of the realm and
criminal in the extreme. "The crown of Ireland," as he told his hearers,
"and the crown of England are inseparably united, and the Irish
Parliament is totally independent of the British Parliament. The first
of these positions is your security, the second your freedom, and any
other language tends to the separation of the crowns or the subjection
of your Parliament. T