The rebellion of 1798 and the French invasions form no integral part of the history of the Grattan Parliament; but they none the less sealed its doom. In his speech on the Union, Clare frankly confessed that he had been working for the Union since 1793, and he began to urge the policy on Pitt in the same year. Pitt, who had long regarded a Union followed by Catholic Emancipation as the ultimate solution of the Irish problem, was now convinced that further delay was dangerous. In the early part of the eighteenth century the idea of Union was by no means unpopular; but the American war had shaken Ireland from her slumbers, and the debates on the Commercial Propositions and the Regency showed that the Grattan Parliament was jealous of the slightest infringement of the settlement of 1782. But the matter was not to be settled by argument, and no dissolution was allowed. The high-minded Cornwallis, who had succeeded Camden, groaned over his hateful task. “My occupation is most unpleasant, negotiating and jobbing with the most corrupt people under heaven. How I long to kick those whom my public duty obliges me to court! I despise and hate myself every hour for engaging in such dirty work, and am supported only by the reflection that without an Union the British Empire must be dissolved.” There was no national opposition to the measure. The Catholics were won by the promises of Emancipation, though they were not informed that the King had already declared his objections to it insuperable. The main fight was waged by the Ulster Protestants from whom had sprung the Volunteers. When the Irish Parliament met for the last time in January, 1800, a majority had been secured by Cornwallis, Castlereagh, and Clare. Grattan had sought re-election and returned to utter an eloquent protest against the destruction of the body that for ever bears his name. He predicted that the Union would be one of Parliaments, not of peoples. To destroy the Parliament was to destroy an organ of national intelligence, a source and symbol of national life. “The thing it is proposed to buy is what cannot be sold—liberty.” He reiterated his conviction that nature was on the side of autonomy. “Ireland hears the ocean protesting against separation, but she hears the sea likewise protesting against Union.” The warnings of the most spotless of Irish patriots were of no avail. The Grattan Parliament was swallowed up. In his touching words, he watched by its cradle and followed its hearse.