f Wales as King of Ireland.

Several minor considerations, such as the desirableness of uniformity in
the proceedings of the two countries with respect to Money Bills, the
Mutiny Act, and other arrangements of parliamentary detail, all pointed
the same way; and, on the whole, it may be said that scarcely any of the
opponents of the government measure were found to deny its expediency,
especially as regarded the interests of Great Britain. The objections
which were made were urged on different grounds. In the Irish House of
Commons, a member who, though a young man, had already established a
very high reputation for professional skill as a barrister, for
eloquence equally suited to the Bar and to the Senate, and for sincere
and incorruptible patriotism, Mr. Plunkett, took upon himself to deny
the competency of the Irish Parliament to pass a bill not only to
extinguish its own existence, but to prevent the birth of any future
Parliament, and to declare that the act, if it "should be passed," would
be a mere nullity, and that no man in "Ireland would be bound to obey
it." And, in the English House of Commons, Mr. Grey may be thought to
have adopted something of the same view, when he proposed an amendment
"to suspend all proceedings on the subject till the sentiments of the
people of Ireland respecting that measure could be ascertained." He did
not, of course, deny (he was speaking on the 21st of April, 1800) that
the bill had been passed by both Houses of the Irish Parliament by
considerable majorities.[141] But he contended that that Parliament did
not speak the sentiments of the people; and, that being the case, that
its voice was of no authority. It is evident that all arguments founded
on a denial of the omnipotence of a Parliament, whether English or
Irish, are invalid. The question of that omnipotence, as has been seen
in a former chapter, had been fully discussed when Mr. Pitt's father
denied the power of Parliament to tax the American Colonies; and that
question may fairly be regarded as having been settled at that time. It
is equally clear that the denial that, on any question whatever, the
House of Commons must be taken to speak the sentiments of the
constituencies, whether the proposal of such question had been
contemplated at the time of their election or not, is the advancement of
a doctrine wholly inconsistent with our parliamentary constitution, and
one which would practically be the parent of endless agitat