en the two nations. It would be tiresome as well as
superfluous to enter into minute details; the more so as the arrangement
proposed was of a temporary character. After a long and minute
discussion, Pitt's appraisement was admitted to come as near to strict
fairness and equity as any that could be made; the separate discharge of
its public debt already incurred was left to each kingdom; and it was
farther settled that for twenty years fifteen parts of the expense of
the nation out of seventeen should be borne by Great Britain and two by
Ireland.

Other articles provided that the laws and courts of both kingdoms, civil
and ecclesiastical, should remain in their existing condition, subject,
of course, to such alterations as the united Legislature might hereafter
deem desirable.

The resolutions, when adopted--as they speedily were--were embodied in a
bill, which passed through the last stage by receiving the royal assent
at the beginning of July. The state of public feeling in Ireland was not
yet sufficiently calmed down after the Rebellion for it to be prudent to
venture on a general election, and it was, consequently, ordained that
the members for the Irish counties and for those Irish boroughs which
had been selected for the retention of representation should take their
seats in the united Parliament on its next meeting. On the 22d of
January, 1801, the united, or, to give it its more proper designation,
the Imperial Parliament held its first meeting, being, although in its
sixth session, so far regarded as a new Parliament, that the King
directed a fresh election of a Speaker.

The Union, as thus effected, was so far a vital change in the
constitution of both Great Britain and Ireland, that it greatly altered
the situation in which each kingdom had previously stood to the other.
Till 1782 the position of Ireland toward England had been one of entire
political subordination; and, though that had in appearance been
modified by the repeal of Poynings' Act, yet no one doubted or could
doubt that, whenever the resolutions of the two Parliaments came into
conflict, the Irish Parliament would find submission unavoidable. But by
the Union that subordination was terminated forever. The character of
the Union--of the conditions, that is, on which the two countries were
united--was one of perfect and complete equality on all important
points, indeed, in all matters whatever, except one or two of minor
consequence, where some