The opponents of the Union drew up a solemn and elaborate protest in order to perpetuate on the records of Parliament, and hand down to posterity, their views on that subject. Lord Corry moved the Protest and Address to the King, which thus speaks of the commercial arrangements proposed and subsequently carried out under the provisions of the Act of Union: "Were all the advantages which without any foundation they have declared that this measure offers, to be its instant and immediate consequence, we do not hesitate to say expressly that we could not harbour the thought of accepting them in exchange for our Parliament, or that we could or would barter our freedom for commerce, or our constitution for revenue; but the offers are mere impositions, and we state with the firmest confidence that in commerce or trade their measure confirms no one advantage, nor can it confirm any, for by your Majesty's gracious and paternal attention to this your ancient realm of Ireland, every restriction under which its commerce laboured has been removed during your Majesty's auspicious reign, and we are now as free to trade to all the world as Britain is. In manufactures, any attempt it makes to offer any benefit which we do not now enjoy is vain and delusive, and whenever it is to have effect, that effect will be to our injury. Most of the duties on imports which operate as protections to our manufactures, are under its provisions either to be removed or reduced immediately, and those which will be reduced are to cease entirely at a limited time, though many of our manufacturers owe their existence to the protection of those duties, and though it is not in the power of human wisdom to foresee any precise time when they may be able to thrive without them. Your Majesty's faithful Commons feel more than an ordinary interest in laying this fact before you, because they have under your Majesty's approbation raised up and nursed many of those manufactures, and by so doing have encouraged much capital to be vested in them, the proprietors of which are now to be left unprotected, and to be deprived of the Parliament on whose faith they embarked themselves, their families, and properties in the undertaking."[152] Mr. Pitt could not have been ignorant of the effect which English competition would produce on the infant and practically unprotected manufactures of Ireland. Thus fifteen years previously, when introducing his Commercial Propositions of 1785 in the English House of Commons, he calmed the fears and raised the hopes of the English manufacturers:--