The fact of the Prince's marriage to a Roman Catholic was by this time generally accepted as certain; the birth of the Princess Charlotte gave greater importance to the circumstance than it seemed to have while the Prince remained childless; and, if the performance of the marriage ceremony should be legally proved, and the English law courts should pronounce that the legal invalidity of the marriage did not protect the Prince from the penalty of forfeiture, it was highly probable that the Irish Parliament would take a different view--would refuse, in spite of the Bill of Rights, to regard marriage with a Roman Catholic as a disqualification, but would recognize the Prince of Wales as King of Ireland.
Several minor considerations, such as the desirableness of uniformity in the proceedings of the two countries with respect to Money Bills, the Mutiny Act, and other arrangements of parliamentary detail, all pointed the same way; and, on the whole, it may be said that scarcely any of the opponents of the government measure were found to deny its expediency, especially as regarded the interests of Great Britain.

The objections which were made were urged on different grounds.

In the Irish House of Commons, a member who, though a young man, had already established a very high reputation for professional skill as a barrister, for eloquence equally suited to the Bar and to the Senate, and for sincere and incorruptible patriotism, Mr.Plunkett, took upon himself to deny the competency of the Irish Parliament to pass a bill not only to extinguish its own existence, but to prevent the birth of any future Parliament, and to declare that the act, if it "should be passed," would be a mere nullity, and that no man in "Ireland would be bound to obey it." And, in the English House of Commons, Mr.Grey may be thought to have adopted something of the same view, when he proposed an amendment "to suspend all proceedings on the subject till the sentiments of the people of Ireland respecting that measure could be ascertained." He did not, of course, deny (he was speaking on the 21st of April, 1800) that the bill had been passed by both Houses of the Irish Parliament by considerable majorities.[141] But he contended that that Parliament did not speak the sentiments of the people; and, that being the case, that its voice was of no authority.

It is evident that all arguments founded on a denial of the omnipotence of a Parliament, whether English or Irish, are invalid.

The question of that omnipotence, as has been seen in a former chapter, had been fully discussed when Mr.Pitt's father denied the power of Parliament to tax the American Colonies; and that question may fairly be regarded as having been settled at that time.