Speech of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons, Thursday, January 31, 1799: On offering to the House the resolutions which he proposed as the basis of an union between Great Britain and Ireland: Fifth Edition.Pitt, William
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Speech of the Right Honourable William Pitt, in the House of Commons, Thursday, January 31, 1799: On offering to the House the resolutions which he proposed as the basis of an union between Great Britain and Ireland: Fifth Edition.
Pitt, William
Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820
Treason, which ingrafted Jacobinism on those diseases which necessarily
grew out of the State and Condition of Ireland.
Thinking, then, as we all must think, that a close Connection with
Ireland is essential to the interests of both Countries, and seeing how
much this Connection is attacked, let it not be insinuated that it is
unnecessary, much less improper, at this arduous and important crisis,
to see whether some new arrangements, some fundamental regulations, are
not necessary, to guard against the threatened danger. The foreign and
domestic Enemies of these Kingdoms have shewn, that they think this the
vulnerable point in which We may be most successfully attacked; let us
derive advantage, if we can, from the hostility of our Enemies—let us
profit by the designs of those who, if their conduct displays no true
wisdom, at least possess in an eminent degree that species of wisdom
which is calculated for the promotion of mischief. They know upon what
footing that Connection rests at this moment between the two Countries,
and they feel the most ardent hope, that the two Parliaments will be
infatuated enough not to render their designs abortive, by fixing that
Connection upon a more solid basis.
These circumstances I am sure will not be denied. And if upon other
grounds we had any doubt, these circumstances alone ought to induce us,
deliberately and dispassionately, to review the situation of the two
Countries, and to endeavour to find out a proper remedy for an evil,
the existence of which is but too apparent. It requires but a moment’s
reflection, for any man who has marked the progress of events, to decide
upon the true state and character of this Connection. It is evidently one
which does not afford that security which, even in times less dangerous
and less critical than the present, would have been necessary, to enable
the empire to avail itself of its strength and its resources.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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