in parliament had to be gained by the ministers. The county
members, who were independent, for the most part were, and remained,
anti-unionists. The preponderance of power lay with the 236 members for
the 118 boroughs, of which only eight were free from all patronage.
Nearly all the remainder belonged to borough-owners and were regarded as
their personal property. A large number of them would be disfranchised
by a union. Not to compensate the owners would have been contrary to the
general moral standard of the age when uninfluenced by party feelings,
and would have made union impossible. As Pitt in his reform bill of 1785
proposed to buy up the patronage of the English close boroughs, so the
government determined to compensate those Irish borough-owners whose
boroughs were to lose both members. The price of each borough was
eventually fixed at L15,000, the market value, and as eighty-four were
disfranchised, the sum paid for them was L1,260,000. This was not
bribery; it was an open transaction, and the money was paid alike to
opponents and supporters of the union. The services of great men were
secured by peerages and other dignities. During and at the end of the
struggle twenty new Irish peerages were created, sixteen peers were
promoted, and five received English peerages. Most of these grants were
mere bribes, and so too were the many places and pensions which helped
to swell the unionist party in parliament. Some money, though the amount
must have been small, was probably also spent in bribery. The government
would not risk a general election; the union was to be carried by the
existing parliament. Gradually sixty-three vacancies were created in the
commons, some by death, some by acceptance of office, most of them
doubtless by the resignation of members who would not follow their
patrons by becoming unionists, and others, probably, through the
purchase of seats by the government from sitting members. The vacancies
were eventually filled by supporters of the union. While, then, the
extent of the corruption practised by the government has been
exaggerated, the union was undoubtedly carried by corrupt means.

Nevertheless, Pitt did not corrupt the Irish parliament; it was corrupt
already: he merely continued the immemorial methods of dealing with it
on a larger scale than before. Nobles and gentry chose to sell
themselves, and, in order to rid Ireland of a source of trouble and
danger, and Great Britain of a cause of