their country respectable.’  The friends of Ireland, profiting by England’s growing consideration for the sister country, now obtained for her great benefits for which they had long been striving, and Mr. Grattan moved an address to the throne asserting the legislative independence of Ireland.  The address passed the House, and, as his daughter tells us, Mr. Edgeworth immediately published a pamphlet.  Miss Edgeworth continues as follows, describing his excellent course of action:  ’My father honestly and unostentatiously used his utmost endeavours to obliterate all that could tend to perpetuate ill-will in the country.  Among the lower classes in his neighbourhood he endeavoured to discourage that spirit of recrimination and retaliation which the lower Irish are too prone to cherish.  They are such acute observers that there is no deceiving them as to the state of the real feeling of their superiors.  They know the signs of what passes within with more certainty than any physiognomist, and it was soon seen by all those who had any connection with him that my father was sincere in his disdain of vengeance.’  Further on, describing his political feelings, she says that on the subject of the Union in parliamentary phrase he had not then been able to make up his mind.  She describes with some pride his first speech in the Irish House at two o’clock in the morning, when the wearied members were scarcely awake to hear it, and when some of the outstretched members were aroused by their neighbours to listen to him!  ‘When people perceived that it was not a set speech,’ says Miss Edgeworth, ‘they became interested.’  He stated his doubts just as they had occurred as he threw them by turn into each scale.  After giving many reasons in favour of what appeared to be the advantages of the Union, he unexpectedly gave his vote against it, because he said he had been convinced by what he had heard one night, that the Union was decidedly against the wishes of the majority of men of sense and property in the nation.  He added (and surely Mr. Edgeworth’s opinion should go for something still) that if he should be convinced that the opinions of the country changed, his vote would be in its favour.

His biographer tells us that Mr. Edgeworth was much complimented on his speech by both sides, by those for whom he voted, and also by those who found that the best arguments on the other side of the question had been undoubtedly made by him.  It is a somewhat complicated statement and state of feeling to follow; to the faithful daughter nothing is impossible where her father is concerned.  This vote, I believe, cost Mr. Edgeworth his peerage.  ’When it was known that he had voted against the Union he became suddenly the idol of those who would previously have stoned him,’ says his devoted biographer.  It must not, however, be forgotten that Mr. Edgeworth had refused an offer of L3000 for his seat for two or three weeks, during that momentous period when every vote was of importance.  Mr. Pitt, they say, spent over L2,000,000 in carrying the measure which he deemed so necessary.