But no express law of either country contained any such stipulation respecting a Regent; and Grattan conceived that, in the absence of any pre-existing ordinance, it would be easy to contend that the Irish Parliament was the sole judge who the Regent should be, and on what terms he should exercise the royal authority.
The Irish Parliament had been prorogued in 1787 to the 5th of February, 1789, the same day on which, after numerous examinations of the physicians in attendance on the royal patient, and after the passing of a series of resolutions enunciating the principles on which the government was proceeding, Pitt introduced the Regency Bill into the English House of Commons, being prepared to conduct it through both Houses with all the despatch that might be consistent with a due observance of all the forms of deliberation.

Grattan's object was to anticipate the decision of the English Parliament, so as to avoid every appearance that the Irish Parliament was only following it; and he therefore proposed that the House of Commons should instantly vote an address to the Prince, requesting him to take upon himself the Regency of the kingdom of Ireland, by his own natural right as the heir of the crown; making sure not only that his advice would be taken by those whom he was addressing, but that the House of Lords would not venture to dissent from it.
Fitzgibbon, as Attorney-general and spokesman of the government in the Commons, as a matter of course opposed such precipitate action, not only warning his hearers of the folly and danger of taking a step "which might dissolve the single tie which now connected Ireland with Great Britain," but explaining also the whole principle of the constitution of the two kingdoms, so far as it was a joint constitution, in terms which give his speech a permanent value as a summary of its principle and its character.

He recalled to the recollection of the House the act of William and Mary, which declares "the kingdom of Ireland to be annexed to the imperial crown of England, and the sovereign of England to be by undoubted right sovereign of Ireland also;" and argued from this that Mr.Grattan's proposal was contrary to the laws of the realm and criminal in the extreme.

"The crown of Ireland," as he told his hearers, "and the crown of England are inseparably united, and the Irish Parliament is totally independent of the British Parliament.

The first of these positions is your security, the second your freedom, and any other language tends to the separation of the crowns or the subjection of your Parliament.