r of England, and might even compel the
country to assent to a peace alike disadvantageous and fallacious. "The
question of peace or war," he wrote in October, "is not in itself so
formidable as that of the scarcity with which it is combined".

He determined on an early meeting of parliament, believing that some
relief might be afforded by legislation, and that, at the least, it
would quiet the public mind and check the rise of disaffection. Besides
measures for the encouragement of home agriculture, which would
necessarily operate slowly, he planned others to meet the immediate
crisis, for though as a disciple of Adam Smith he disliked interference
with the regular course of trade, he considered that the situation of
the country rendered some regulation necessary. Grenville differed from
him. He held closely to the maxims of political economy, and though he
did not oppose him in the cabinet, he urged on Pitt in private that all
interference with the process by which supply and demand counteracted
each other must be harmful. Pitt held to his own opinion. Parliament met
on November 11. The king's speech invited it to consider means by which
agriculture might be extended, and, for the present, the best means of
stimulating the importation of grain and promoting frugality in using
it, and checked the foolish and mischievous outcry against the dealers
by pointing out that the ordinary practices of buying and selling were
necessary in the existing state of society. Acting on the reports of
committees, parliament granted bounties on the importation of corn and
rice, and prohibited the use of corn in distillery and the manufacture
of starch, the exportation of provisions, the making of bread solely
from fine flour, and the sale of bread within twenty-four hours of its
baking. The opposition reproached the government, and especially Pitt,
with having caused the scarcity by the rejection of Bonaparte's
proposals for peace; but motions for an inquiry into the state of the
nation, for immediate negotiations with France, and for the dismissal of
the ministers received scarcely any support. It was not from parliament
that Pitt's ministry was to receive its death-blow.

[Sidenote: _IRISH UNION DESIRABLE._]

Almost as soon as the Irish rebellion was quelled, the project of a
legislative union with Great Britain was publicly discussed. Such a
union existed from 1654 to the restoration in 1660. At the time of the
union with Scotland,