The only security of your liberty is the connection with Great Britain; and gentlemen who risk breaking the connection must make up their minds to a union.

God forbid I should ever see that day; but, if the day comes on which a separation shall be attempted, I shall not hesitate to embrace a union rather than a separation." He proceeded to show that, as the Irish Parliament had itself enacted that all bills which passed their two Houses should require the sanction of the Great Seal of England, they actually had no legal power to confer on the Prince of Wales such authority as Grattan advised his being invested with, whatever might be the form of words in which their resolution was couched.

He pointed out, also, that if the Irish Parliament should insist on appointing the Prince of Wales Regent before it was known whether he would accept the Regency of England, it was manifestly not impossible "that they might be appointing a Regent for Ireland being a different person from the Regent of England; and in that case the moment a Regent was appointed in Great Britain, he might send a commission under the Great Seal appointing a Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and to that commission the Regent of Ireland would be bound to pay obedience.

Another objection of great force to his mind was, that the course recommended by Grattan would be a formal appeal from the Parliament of England to that of Ireland.

It would sow the seeds of dissension between the Parliaments of the two countries.