"
So it came about. Even before the Union Grattan's Parliament had, of its
own free will and out of an extravagant loyalty, run itself into debt
for the first time to help England against France. But, as Foster
indicated, the Irish members felt that they were coming to the end of
their resources. They were about to call a halt, and so the Union became
a necessary ingredient of Pitt's foreign policy. By it Ireland was
swept into the vortex of his anti-French hysteria, and of what Mr
Hartley Withers so properly styles his "reckless finance." In sixteen
years she was brought to the edge of bankruptcy. Between 1801 and 1817
her funded debt was increased from L28,541,157 to L112,684,773, an
augmentation of nearly 300 per cent. In the first fifteen years
following the Union she paid in taxes L78,000,000 as against L31,000,000
in the last fifteen years preceding the Union. After the amalgamation of
the Exchequers in 1817 the case becomes clearer. In 1819-20, for
instance, the revenue contributed by Ireland was L5,256,564, of which
only L1,564,880 was spent in Ireland, leaving a tribute for Great
Britain of L3,691,684.
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