question.

To revert to Pitt's procedure; there were two arguments on which he must
have relied for convincing the King of the need of granting Catholic
Emancipation. Firstly, the Irish Catholics had, on the whole, behaved
with marked loyalty and moderation during the wearisome debates on the
Union at Dublin, a course of conduct markedly different from the acrid
and factious tactics of the privileged Protestant Episcopalians.
Secondly, as the summer of 1800 waned to autumn, the position of Great
Britain became almost desperate. Her ally, Austria, had lost Lombardy
and was fighting a losing game in Swabia. Russia had not only left the
Second Coalition, but was threatening England with a renewal of the
Armed Neutrality League. At home a bad harvest was sending up corn to
famine prices; and sedition again raised its head. In such a case would
not a patriotic ruler waive his objections to a measure essential not
only to peace and quiet in Ireland, but to the stability of the United
Kingdom? The latter consideration derived added force from the fact that
Bonaparte, fresh from his triumphs in Italy, was inaugurating a policy
of conciliation which promised to end the long ferment in the west of
France and to make of her a really united nation. While he was allaying
Jacobinical zeal and royalist bigotry, could Britons afford to keep up
internal causes of friction, and, disunited among themselves, face a
hostile world in arms? In such an emergency would not the King waive
even his conscientious scruples, and at the cost of some qualms pacify
and consolidate his nominally united realms?

For it was certain that the Irish Catholics would not rest now that the
boon of Emancipation was well within reach. Pitt and Cornwallis had
aroused their hopes. While not openly promising that the portals at
Westminster should be thrown open to Roman Catholics, Ministers had
allowed hints to go forth definite enough to influence opinion,
especially in Cork, Tipperary, and Galway. In fact, Castlereagh assured
Pitt that the help of Catholics had turned the wavering scales in favour
of Union.[576] The claims of honour therefore required that Pitt should
do all in his power to requite the services of a great body of men, long
depressed and maligned, who, when tempted by the foreigner to revolt,
had on the whole shown remarkable patience and fidelity. The pressure of
this problem was too much for the scanty strength of Pitt. Worried by
private fina