a system which makes the parson dependant on the rich for his repose, and on the poor for his subsistence. I am sure the spirit of many clergymen, and the justice of many country gentlemen, resist such an evil in many cases; but the evil is laid in the law, which it is our duty and interest to regulate.

"From a situation so ungracious, from the disgrace and loss of making in his own person a little bargain with squires, farmers, and peasants, of each and every description, and from non-residence, the parson is obliged to take refuge in the assistance of a character, by name a tithe-farmer, and by profession an extortioner; this extortioner becomes part of the establishment of the church; by interest and situation, there are two descriptions of men he is sure to defraud, the one is the parson, the other the people. He collects sometimes at fifty per cent; he gives the clergy. man less than he ought to receive, and takes from the peasants more than they ought to pay; he is not an agent who is to collect a certain rent; he is an adventurer, who gives a certain rate for the privilege of making a bad use of an unsettled claim; this claim over the powers of collection, and what is teasing or provoking in the law, is in his hand an instrument not of justice but of usury; he sometimes sets the tithes to a second tithe farmer, so that the land becomes a prey to a subordination of vultures.

"In arbitrary countries, the revenue is collected by men who farm it, and it is a mode of oppression the most severe in the most arbitrary country; the farming of the revenue is given to the Jews. We introduce this practice in the collection of tithes, and the tithe-farmer frequently calls, in aid of christianity, the arts of the synagogue ;-obnoxious on account of all this, the unoffending clergyman, thrown off by the rich upon the poor, cheated most exceedingly by his tithe-farmer, and afterwards involved in his odium, becomes an object of outrage; his property and person are both attacked, and in both the religion and laws of vour country scandalized and disgraced. The same cause which produces a violent attack on the clergyman among the lower order of the community, produces among some of the higher orders a languor and neutrality in defending him. Thus outraged and forsaken he comes to parliament; we abhor the barbarity, we punish the tumult, we acknowledge the injury, but we are afraid of administering any radical or effectual relief; because we are afraid of the claims of the church; they claim the tenth of what

ever by capital, industry or premium, is produced from land. One thousand men claim this, and they claim this without any stipulation, for what appears for the support of the poor, the repair of the church, or even the residence of the preacher. Alarmed at the extent of such a claim, we conceive that the difficulty of collection is our security, and fear to give powers which may be necessary for the collection of customary tithes, lest the clergy should use those powers for the enforcing of a long catalogue of dangerous pretensions. We have reason for this apprehension; and the last clause in the riot-act has prompted a clergyman in the south to demand the tithe of Agistment, and to attempt to renew a confusion which your act intended to compose. The present state of the clergyman is, that he cannot collect his customary tithe without the interference of parliament; and parliament cannot interfere without making a general regu lation, lest any assistance now given should be applied to the enforcement of dormant claims--ambiguous and unlimited.

"Thus, I submit to this house, the situation of the clergy, as well as of the people, call on you to take up at large the subject of the tithe. You have two grounds for such an investigationthe distress of the clergy, and the distress of the people.

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Against your interference three arguments are objected, two of which are fictitious, and one only is sincere. The sincere but erroneous objection is, that we ought not to affect in any degree the rights of the church; to which I answer briefly, that if, by the rights of the church, the customary tithes only are intended, we ought to interfere, to give and secure the full profit of them; and if, by the rights of the church, are meant those dormant claims I allude to, we ought to interfere to prevent their ope

ration.

"Of the two arguments, that one on petitions relies on the impossibility of making any commutation; but this argument rather fears the change than the difficulty. This argument is surely erroneous, in supposing that the whole wit of man, in parliament assembled, cannot, with all its ingenuity, find a method of providing for 9000 persons. We, who provide for so large a civil list, military list, pension list, revenue list, cannot provide for the church. What! is the discovery of the present income of the church an impenetrable mystery? Or is it an impossibility to give the same income, but arising from a different regulation?

fixing some standard in the price of grain; or if commutation be out of the power of human capacity, is this establishment of a modus impossible-different, perhaps, in the different counties, but practicable in all? Or if not practicable, how comes it, that there should be a modus established in some parts of Ireland already for some titheable articles? Is it impossible to have a moderate modus on corn, and some modus on pasture? Or to lay on potatoes a very small modus, or rather to exonerate them as well as flax? Would it not be practicable to get rid of the tithe-farmer, and give his plunder between the people and the parson? If all this be a difficulty, it is a difficulty which is worthy of you; and if you succeed in any part of it, you do service.

"The other argument relies on the times; and I acknowledge they are an objection to the bill at present, but none against the laying the foundation now, of a measure to take place on the restoration of public peace; it may be an inducement to that peace, it cannot be an incentive to the contrary; it is giving government the full force of reward and punishment; and I apprehend, if no step whatsoever was taken, and no debate introduced at present, nothing would be done in future. I shall therefore trouble you with a motion now, and next session, with a bill on that subject."

He then moved the following resolution :

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That, if it shall appear, at the commencement of the next session of parliament, that public tranquillity has been restored in those parts of the kingdom that have been lately disturbed, and due obedience paid to the laws, this house will take into consideration the subject of tithes, and endeavour to form some plan for the honourable support of the clergy, and the ease of the people."

2y

SPEECH OF MR. GRATTAN,

ON

THE RIOT ACT;

OR, BILL TO PREVENT TUMULTUOUS RISINGS AND ASSEMBLIES.

PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS.

THE debate which took place in the Irish House of Commons. upon this Bill, is so particularly calculated to demonstrate the wisdom of those measures, which were recommended by Mr. Grattan, when giving his opinion of the operation of tithes on the industry and feelings of Ireland: the compilers of this volume conceived that they would commit no very serious chronological error, by giving the following speech, immediately after those, which though in point of time it preceded, are best illustrated by a practical comment on the violence and pride displayed in the Irish riot act, for the prevention of tumultuous risings and assemblies. In this bill, brought in and recommended by the late Lord Clare (who was then Attorney-general) will be found that species of remedy, which skims the surface of public injury, while it leaves the thorn which festered and tortured the patient, still rankling in the wound, and eating into its miserable victim.

On the 31st January, 1787, when the house was in committee, upon that part of the address to the lieutenant, which related to the disgraceful commotions then raging in the west of Ireland, the Attorney-general submitted to the house the following narrative of facts, on which he intended to found his bill, for the prevention of tumultuous risings and assemblies. He stated the rise and progress of the disturbance; "the commencement," said he, "was in one or two parishes in the county of Kerry, and they proceed thus:-The people assembled in a catholic chapel, and there took an oath to obey the laws of Captain Right, and to starve the clergy; they then proceeded to the next parishes, on

the following Sunday, and there swore the people in the same manner, with this addition, that they (the people last sworn) should on the ensuing Sunday, proceed to the chapels of their next neighbouring parishes, and swear the inhabitants of those parishes in like manner;-proceeding in this manner, they very soon went through the province of Munster; the first object was the reformation of tithes; they swore not to give more than a certain price per acre; not to assist, or to allow them to be assisted in drawing the tithe, and to permit no proctor; they next took upon them to prevent the collection of parish cesses; next to nominate parish clerks, and, in some cases, curates; to say what church should or should not be repaired, and in one case to threaten that they would burn a new church, if the old one were not given for a mass-house; at last they proceeded to regulate the price of lands; to raise the price of labour, and to oppose the collection of the hearth-money and other taxes. Bodies of 5000 of them have been seen to march through the country unarmed; and if met by any magistrate, they never offered the smallest rudeness or offence; on the contrary, they had allowed persons charged with crimes, to be taken from amongst them by the magistrate alone, unaided by any force."

The Attorney-general said, it would require the utmost ability of parliament to come to the root of those evils; he did not believe that there was the least ground to accuse the clergy of extortion; far from receiving the tenth, he knew of no instance where they received the twentieth part; he was well acquainted with the province of Munster, and that it was impossible for human wretchedness to exceed that of the peasantry of that province; the unhappy tenantry were ground to powder by relentless landlords; that far from being able to give the clergy their just dues, they had not food or raiment for themselves; the landlord grasped the whole and sorry was he to add, that not satisfied with the present extortion, some landlords had been so base as to instigate the insurgents to rob the clergy of their tithes-not in order to alleviate the distresses of the tenantry, but that they might add the clergy's share to the cruel rack-rents already paid; the poor people of Munster lived in a more abject state of povetry than human nature could be supposed equal to bear; their miseries, it is true, were intolerable, but they did not originate with the clergy, nor could the clergy stand by and see them take the re