The Act of Union received the royal assent on Aug. Naturally the union met with strong resistance in the Irish Parliament, but the British government, by the undisguised purchase of votes, either by cash or by bestowal of honours, secured a majority in both the British and Irish Houses that carried the union on March 28, 1800.
It would also, he thought (mistakenly), make it easier to grant concessions to the Roman Catholics, since they would be a minority in a United Kingdom. A union, Pitt argued, would both strengthen the connection between the two countries and provide Ireland with opportunities for economic development. By legislative enactments in both the Irish and the British parliaments, the Irish Parliament was to be abolished, and Ireland thenceforth was to be represented at the Parliament in Westminster, London, by 4 spiritual peers, 28 temporal peers, and 100 members of the House of Commons. The Irish Rebellion of 1798 brought the Irish question forcibly to the attention of the British Cabinet and William Pitt the Younger, the British prime minister, decided that the best solution was a union. 1, 1801), legislative agreement uniting Great Britain (England and Scotland) and Ireland under the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
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