Ireland and Scotland as circumstances may appear to demand. That it is the opinion of this Committee that such legislative measures should be adopted as may be necessary to carry into further effect the purposes of the said Acts of Union, by consolidating the public revenues of Great Britain and Ireland into one fund, and applying the same to the general services of the United Kingdom.'[160] These resolutions were partly embodied in an Act which received the Royal assent in June, 1816. By this law the separate exchequer of Ireland was shut up; there was to be but one exchequer for the Three Kingdoms; all the revenues of Great Britain and Ireland were thrown into a general fund to be applied to the requirements of the State; the separate debt of Ireland was fused into that of Great Britain, the two making a common National Debt. By these means Ireland was relieved from an intolerable load of debt; but those who contend that an immense boon was thus conferred on her, only illustrate the aphorism of Burke referred to before; the matter was decided by the opinion of the dominant power. Ireland, no doubt, was set free from an overwhelming burden; but the burden was one improperly cast on her by the Union; the relief was only a small redress of injustice.[161] On the other hand, the arrangements of 1816 abolished the contribution of the two-seventeenths, and made Ireland less a separate country, financially, than she had been before; the resolutions of the House of Commons did not all become law, but they at least declared that she might become 'assimilated in finance' to Great Britain at a convenient time, and thus diminished her security against undue taxation; and the amalgamation of her debt with that of Great Britain made her subject, at least conceivably, to a gigantic charge, for which she was not in any way liable. The compromise, however, effected at this time, rather contemplated the relief of Ireland from existing debt than her ultimate 'assimilation in finance to Great Britain,' and the extension to both countries of the same fiscal system. For many years after 1816 Ireland remained, financially, completely distinct from Great Britain, and under a scheme of taxation altogether different. Nor is the reason difficult to seek; she was declared entitled, by the resolutions before mentioned, to the 'exemptions and abatements' secured to her by the Treaty of Union; and the Parliament of that day respected the treaty, interpreting these terms in their true sense, that Ireland was not to be taxed beyond her means. Her fiscal wrongs, besides, from 1800 to 1816, were still fresh in the minds of statesmen; these did not wish to repeat injustice; above all, she had many representatives of real weight at Westminster--Grattan was a tower of strength in himself, and he had very able followers; these men would certainly have fiercely resented attempts to impair the financial rights of their country.