tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">4 These were the last words spoken by Grattan in the Irish parliament.

The bill establishing the union was carried through its final stages by substantial majorities. The people remained listless, giving no indications of any eager dislike of the government policy. “There were absolutely none of the signs which are invariably found when a nation struggles passionately against what it deems an impending tyranny, or rallies around some institution which it really loves.”5 One of Grattan’s main grounds of opposition to the union had been his dread of seeing the political leadership in Ireland pass out of the hands of the landed gentry; and he prophesied that the time would come when Ireland would send to the united parliament “a hundred of the greatest rascals in the kingdom.”6 Like Flood before him, Grattan had no leaning towards democracy; and he anticipated that by the removal of the centre of political interest from Ireland the evil of absenteeism would be intensified.

For the next five years Grattan took no active part in public affairs; it was not till 1805 that he became a member of the parliament of the United Kingdom. He modestly took his seat on one of the back benches, till Fox brought him forward to a seat near his own, exclaiming, “This is no place for the Irish Demosthenes!” His first speech was on the Catholic question, and though some doubt had been felt lest Grattan, like Flood, should belie at Westminster the reputation made in Dublin, all agreed with the description of his speech by the Annual Register as “one of the most brilliant and eloquent ever pronounced within the walls of parliament.” When Fox and Grenville came into power in 1806 Grattan was offered, but refused to accept, an office in the government. In the following year he showed the strength of his judgment and character by supporting, in spite of consequent unpopularity in Ireland, a measure for increasing the powers of the executive to deal with Irish disorder. Roman Catholic emancipation, which he continued to advocate with unflagging energy though now advanced in age, became complicated after 1808 by the question whether a veto on the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops should rest with the crown. Grattan supported the veto, but a more extreme Catholic party was now arising in Ireland under the leadership of Daniel O’Connell, and Grattan’s influence gradually declined. He seldom spoke in parliament after 1810, the most notable exception being in 1815, when he separated himself from the Whigs and supported the final struggle against Napoleon. His last speech of all, in 1819, contained a passage referring to the union he had so passionately resisted, which exhibits the statesmanship and at the same time the equable quality of Grattan’s character. His sentiments with regard to the policy of the union remained, he said, unchanged; but “the marriage having taken place it is now the duty, as it ought to be the inclination, of every individual to render it as fruitful, as profitable and as advantageous as possible.” In the following summer, after crossing from Ireland to London when out of health to bring forward the Catholic question once more, he became seriously ill. On his death-bed he spoke generously of Castlereagh, and with warm eulogy of his former rival, Flood. He died on the 6th of June 1820, and was buried in Westminster Abbey close to the tombs of Pitt and Fox. His statue is in the outer lobby of the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. Grattan had married in 1782 Henrietta Fitzgerald, a lady descended from the ancient family of Desmond, by whom he had two sons and two daughters.

The most searching scrutiny of his private life only increases the respect due to the memory of Grattan as a statesman and the greatest of Irish orators. His patriotism was untainted by self-seeking; he was courageous in risking his popularity for what his sound judgment showed him to be the right course. As Sydney Smith said with truth of Grattan soon after his death: “No government ever dismayed him. The world could not bribe him. He thought only of Ireland; lived for no other object; dedicated to her his beautiful fancy, his elegant wit, his manly courage, and all the splendour of his astonishing eloquence.”7