The rebellion itself, and in particular the capture of Wolfe Tone and a part of the French fleet which he was bringing to Ireland, gave the British a pretext for proroguing the Irish parliament. By the Act of Union of 1800, it was amalgamated with the British parliament. Gladstone later said of the bribery and intimidation which secured the Irish votes necessary for the passing of the Act mat there was ‘no blacker or fouler transaction in the history of man’. The parliament had represented the interests of some half a million Anglo-Irish Protestants, the Ascendancy as they were known, not the
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