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on women followed, until at last Catholic patience
was exhausted. Grattan and his friends, vainly pro-
testing, withdrew from Parliament, and Clare and
Foster had then a free hand. They were joined by
Viscount Castlereagh, and under their management
the rebellion of 1798 broke out with all its attendant
horrors.
When it was suppressed Pitt's policy of a legislative union gradually unfolded itself, and Foster and Clare, who had so long acted together, had reached the part- ing of the ways. The latter, with Castlereagh, was ready to go oii and support the proposed union; but Foster drew back, and in the union debates his voice and influence were the most potent on the opposition side. His defection was considered a serious blow by Pitt, who vainly offered him offices and honours. Others followed the leati of Foster, incorruptible amidst corruption; Grattan and his friends returned to Parliament ; and the opposition became so formid- able that Castlereagh was defeated in 1799, and had to postpone the question of a union to the following year. During this interval, with the aid of Cornwallis who succeeded Camden as viceroy in 1798, he left nothing undone to ensure success, and threats and terrors, bribery and corruption were freely employed. Cornwallis was strongly in favour of emancipation as part of the union arrangement, and Castlereagh was not averse; and Pitt would probably have agreed with them had not Clare visited him in England and p)oisoned his mind. That bitter anti-Catholic boasted of his success; and when Pitt in 1799 brought forward his union resolutions in the British Parliament, he would only promise that at some future time some- thing might be done for the Catholics, dependent, however on their good conduct, and on the temper of the times.
But something more than this was required. The anti-Unionists were making overtures to the Catholics, knowing that the county members elected by Catholic votes could be decisively influenced by Catholic voters. In these circumstances Castlereagh was authorized to assure the leading Irish Catholics that Pitt and his colleagues only waited for a favourable opportunity to bring forward emancipation, but that this should remain a secret, lest Protestant prejudice be excited and Protestant support lost. These assurances obtained Catholic support for the union. Not all of the Catholics, however, favoured it, and many of them opposed it to the last. Many more would have been on the same side had they not been repelle' for one which encouraged the atrocities of the recent rebellion. Gratitude for the establishment of Mayncxjth College inclined some of the bishops to support the Government; and Pitt's assurances that concessions would come in the United Parliament in- clined them still more. From the first, indeed. Dr. Moylan, Bishop of Cork, was a Unioni.st, as was Dr. Troy, Archbishop of Dublin. In 1798 the latter favours! a union provided there was no clause against future emancipation, and, early in the following year, he induced nine of his brcjther bishojjs to conc(,'de to the Government a veto on episcopal apiKjinlments in return for a provision for the clergy. The; hc-nt of liis mind was to support authority, even when authority and tyranny were identified, and through the terrible weeks of the rebellion his friendly relations with Dub- lin Castle were unbroken. lie was foremost in every negofiatif)n bftween the rjovernment and the Catli- olicH, and he and wjine of his colleagues went so far in advocating the union, that Grattan angrily described
them as a "band of prostituted men engaged in the
service of Government". This language is unduly
severe, for they were clearly not actuated by merce-
nary motives; but they certainly advanced the cause
of the union.
Remembering this, and the assurances given by Castlereagh, they looked for an early measure of emancipation, and when in 1801 the United Parlia- ment first opened its doors, their hopes ran high. The omission of all reference to emancipation in the King's Speech disappointed them; but when Pitt resigned and was succeeded by Addington, an aggres- sive anti-Catholic, they saw that they had been shamefully betrayed. In Parliament Pitt explained that he and his colleagues wished to supplement the Act of Union by concessions to the Catholics, and that, having encountered insurmountable obstacles, they resigned, feeling that they could no longer hold office consistently with their duty and their honour. Cornwallis, on his own behalf and on behalf of the retiring ministers, assured the Irish Catholic leaders, and in language which was free from every shade of ambiguity, that the blame rested with George III, whose stubborn bigotry nothing could overcome. He promised that Pitt would do everything to estab- lish the Catholic cause in public favour, and would never again take office unless emancipation were con- ceded; and he advised the Catholics to be patient and loyal, knowing that with Pitt working on their behalf the triumph of their cause was near. Cornwallis noted with satisfaction that this advice was well re- ceived by Dr. Troy and his friends. But those who knew Pitt better had no faith in his sincerity, and their estimate of him was proved to be correct, when he again became Prime Minister in 1804, no longer the friend of the Catholics but their opponent.
The fact was that he had played them false through- out. He knew that the king was violently opposed to them; that he had assented to the Union in the hope that it would "shut the door to any further measures with respect to the Roman Catholics"; that he believed that to assent to such measures would be a violation of his coronation oath. Had Pitt been sincere he would have endeavoured to change the king's views, and failing to persuade he would have resigned office, and opposed his successor. And if he had acted thus the king must have yielded, for no government to which the great minister was opposed could have lived. Pitt's real reason for resigning in 1801 was, that the nation wanted peace, and he was too proud to make terms with Nai)()lc()n. He sup- ported Addington's measures; nor did he lift a finger on behalf of the Catholics; and when the Treat}' of Amiens was })r()kcn and the great struggle with France was being renewed, he hruslied .Kddiiigton asuW with disdain. In ISOl t lie king had one of his fits of insanity, and when he recovered comijlained that Pitt's agita- tion of the Catholic question was the chief cause of his illness; in consequence of which, when Pitt returned to power, in 1804, he bound himself never again to agitate the question during the lifetime of the king.
In the meantime, one bitter enemy of the Catholics disappeared, in 1802, with the death of Lord Clare. Hating Ireland and Catholicism to the last, he strove in the British House of Lords to arouse anti-Irish I)rejudice by representing Ireland as filled with dis- affection and hatred of I'^ngland; he defended all the Government atrocities of 1798, and advocated for Ireland peritetual martial law. Once he had declared that he wo\ild have the Irish as tame as cats; and a Dublin mob retorted by groaning and hooting before his house as he lay dying, by creating disorder at his funeral, and at the graveside they poured a shower of dead cats upon his coffin. Pitt himself died in 1806, aftcT having opi)osed the Catholic claims in the i)re- eeding year. A brief period of hope supervened when the "Ministry of all the Talents" took office; but
