landholders, draining from a starving country the very necessaries of
life, a remedy is sought in a repeal of the union, and the provisions of
a domestic parliament. In O'Connell's view, a restoration of such a
parliament can alone afford that adequate protection to the national
industry so loudly demanded by thousands of unemployed laborers, starving
amid the ruins of deserted manufactories. During the brief period of
partial Irish liberty which followed the pacific revolution of '82, the
manufactures of the country revived and flourished; and the smile of
contented industry was visible all over the land. In 1797 there were
15,000 silk-weavers in the city of Dublin alone. There are now but 400.
Such is the practical effect of the Union, of that suicidal act of the
Irish Parliament which yielded up in a moment of treachery and terror the
dearest interests of the country to the legislation of an English
Parliament and the tender mercies of Castlereagh,--of that Castlereagh
who, when accused by Grattan of spending L15,000 in purchasing votes for
the Union, replied with the rare audacity of high-handed iniquity, "We
did spend L15,000, and we would have spent L15,000,000 if necessary to
carry the Union; "that Castlereagh who, when 707,000 Irishmen petitioned
against the Union and 300,000 for it, maintained that the latter
constituted the majority! Well has it been said that the deep vengeance
which Ireland owed him was inflicted by the great criminal upon himself.
The nation which he sold and plundered saw him make with his own hand the
fearful retribution. The great body of the Irish people never assented
to the Union. The following extract from a speech of Earl (then Mr.)
Grey, in 1800, upon the Union question, will show what means were made
use of to drag Ireland, while yet mourning over her slaughtered children,
to the marriage altar with England: "If the Parliament of Ireland had
been left to itself, untempted and unawed, it would without hesitation
have rejected the resolutions. Out of the 300 members, 120 strenuously
opposed the measure, 162 voted for it: of these, 116 were placemen; some