ds, Pitt might have intimated secretly
though officially to the leading loyalists that Great Britain could not
again pour forth her blood and treasure for an unworkable system, and
that the acceptance of that help must imply acquiescence in a Union.
Such a compact would of course be termed unchivalrous by the
rhetoricians at St. Stephen's Green; but it would have prevented the
unchivalrous conduct of many so-called loyalists, who, after triumphing
by England's aid, then, relying upon that aid for the future, thwarted
Pitt's remedial policy. Prudence should have enjoined the adoption of
some such precaution in the case of men whose behaviour was exacting
towards England and exasperating towards the majority of Irishmen. In
neglecting to take it, Pitt evinced a strange lack of foresight. At this
point George III showed himself the shrewder tactician; for he urged
that Cornwallis must take steps to frighten the loyal minority into
accepting an Act of Union.

But there was an alternative course of action. Failing to come to an
understanding with the ultra-Protestant zealots of Dublin, Pitt might
have elicited a strong declaration from the many Irishmen who were in
favour of Union. He seems to have taken no such step. Though aware that
Cornwallis was in civil affairs a figure-head, he neglected to send
over a spokesman capable of giving a decided lead. In the ensuing
debates at Dublin, Castlereagh showed the toughness, energy, and
resourcefulness which, despite his halting cumbrous style, made him a
power in Parliament; but his youth and his stiff un-Hibernian ways told
against him. Beresford was detained by illness in London; and Clare,
after his return to Dublin, did strangely little for the cause. Thus, at
this critical time the Unionists were without a lead and without a
leader. The autumn of 1798 was frittered away in interviews in London,
the purport of which ought to have clearly appeared two or three months
earlier. The passive attitude and tardy action of Pitt and Portland in
these critical weeks offer a strange contrast to the habits of clear
thinking and forceful action characteristic of Napoleon. It is painful
to compare their procedure with the action of the First Consul in
speedily bringing ecclesiastical bigots and fanatical atheists to the
working compromise summed up in the Concordat. In the case of the Union,
the initiative, energy, and zeal, which count for much among a Celtic
people, passed to the side of