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I. Resolved, That it appears to this committee, that the lice establishment has been attended with unnecessary patronage, waste, and dissipation.

II. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that the peace and protection of the city of Dublin might be more effectually maintained at a lesser expence, and that the present system of police establishment ought to be changed.

No. LXXXIII.

MR. GRATTAN'S SECOND SPEECH ON TITHES....P. 249.

MR. GRATTAN presented to the house according to order, a bill to appoint commissioners for the purpose of enquiring into the state of tithes in the different provinces of this kingdom, and to report a plan for the ascertaining the same.

He said, the advocates for tithes and their abuse, having de clined a public enquiry, thought they best consulted the dignity of the church by resorting to a paper war: this paper war has been conducted under the mitred auspices of certain bishops; these bishops have in the course of it accused me of making an attack on the Protestant clergy of the South. You know, they know, how totally unfounded such a charge is; I did prefer then, and I prefer now, certain allegations, that in some parts of the South there existed illegal demand, increasing demand, excessive demand, an abuse of the compensation act; titheproctors who extort fees, tithe-farmers who lay the poor under contribution; these charges I did not affirm to affect the major part of the Southern clergy, but I did, and I do now affirm, that they do affect in degree and extent such a proportion of district as to call for the interference of parliament. Two pamphlets on this subject, entitled my Speech, were published, different from each other, or resembling each other in nothing except in not being my speech, and in not being published by my autho rity; to these pamphlets the dignitaries above alluded to have replied: convinced that I neither spoke nor wrote the contents of either, they have charged me with both. This unfounded charge on me they have thought proper to mask by calling it a Defence of the Protestant Clergy of the South, and have thus

endeavoured to disperse through the community a false alarm, and a groundless accusation. This alarm and accusation, called a Defence, sets forth, that the bishops of the South, in the year 1786, wrote circular letters to their clergy, desiring returns of their respective ratages; with a recommendation that these returns, if possible, should be made on oath. The Defence sets forth, that returns were made. I own, I should be very glad to see them; not one syllable....the Defence suppressed the returns of the clergy, and gives. the public in their place its own calculation, which it professes to be an average formed on these returns.... Even so, let us admit such evidence; where the bishops contend, let the party be the evidence, and the advocate be the judge. The authors of the Defence having stated, that a most minute and general enquiry has been made, allege,* that, in the whole extent of that enquiry, they no where find the rate for potatoes higher than 12s. the plantation acre; these are their words, and on the veracity of this allegation, depends whatever attention should be paid to their defence. I have from private hands assurances innumerable, in the most positive and direct manner, contradicting that allegation. I have from private hands affidavits without number disproving that allegation. I will reject them all. I will for, argument, give the pastors a victory over their flock, and the fruits of their care, and suppose for a moment, their parishioners to be perjured, yet what shall we say of the clergy, who have, by themselves, or their witnesses, sworn the same thing? I will read you a report from the judge who went the Munster circuit of the spring of 1788. It is as follows: "At the last assizes held for the county of Kerry, at Tralee, a civil bill was brought before me, upon the compensation act, for the value of certain tithes. From the evidence of the plaintiff's own witnesses, and the schedule, the demand appeared as follows: tithe of potatoes, one acre and a half, 21. Os. 6d." (Gentlemen will recollect, that, by the compensation act, the bill or petition is not to be brought for the value, but the customary charge.) I will read another document, equally authoritative from Cork.

Defence of the Protestant clergy, p. 93...." But it must be remembered, "that from the vicinity of these parishes to Limerick, and the great fertility "of the ground, the average value of the crops of potatoes is twenty pounds, "the tithes two pounds, and other crops in proportion. Now, is twelve shillings an unreasonable demand for what is worth two pounds? I further re"mark, that I no where find the rate higher than twelve shillings the plantation acre; and the crop, wherever it is charged, not worth less than eleven or twelve pounds, more gencrally sixteen or twenty."

Rates of Tithes, on Petitions, for the year 1786, in the County

of Cork.

I must here again observe, that the petition is by the act to be brought for the customary charge.

I must observe also, that only nineteen petitions were tried for 1786, wherein rates were specified, and of the nineteen, eleven exceeded the rate of 12s. the plantation acre; a rate, the Defence affirms, has never been exceeded; I must also observe, that these petitions must have been supported by the oath of the clergy or their witnesses, and do directly falsify the allegation of the Defence....What becomes of the Defence now? not refuted, but convicted, convicted on oath, the oath of the clergy themselves or their witnesses, taken at a public trial. Thus the defence of the bishops is put down by the oaths of the clergy.

Here I might leave the defence, if it did not advance another proposition too glaring to pass without observation: * It states (in a very confused manner I own, but it does state), that the average ratages have not in any southern county or diocese increased these thirty years. The gross improbability of this assertion must appear to every man, who reflects on the progress of things since the year 1756, (the period to which the Defence refers); who reflects how the mode of living has changed, and become more expensive since that time, and how much the

Defence of the Protestant Clergy, p. 47...." It is incontrovertibly true, that in most places the rates of tithe have not varied for the last thirty years.

And in p. 41...." But sure I am, from the present state of ratages, collected "from exact information, the average increase, through any entire county, di"ocese, or parish, if any there has been, can be but very small indeed, and that "in very few parishes only, but certainly not throughout any diocese or county."

style and tone of modern clergymen excels in expence and display, the old ministers of the gospel. The improbability of this assertion would appear more fully, if I were permitted to bring to the bar of this house the parishioners, who could most feelingly attest the direct contrary; or were I permitted to produce affidavits which swear the direct contrary. But I will for a moment reject all this, and I will refute their case by nothing less than the authority of their own oaths, and the acknowledgment of their own vindication. The Defence states, that the average ratages of the poor dioceses of Cloyne and of Cork, are above 10s. an acre, potatoes, and of Cork above 7s. 9d. wheat, and Cloyne above 9s. wheat. While in the rich diocese, potatoes are, as the Defence states, 7s. the acre, and wheat 6s. 6d.

The Defence endeavours to account for the disparity, and ascribes it to a number of corn mills established in the county of Cork, and to the export trade of corn from the ports Youghal, Cork, Kinsale, and Dungarvan. Now these mills, and this export trade, are almost entirely the effect of the corn bounty, the inland bounty, which did not take place till the year 1758, and still more, the export bounty, which did not take place till the year 1773, and which, with the inland bounty, has been gradually, and more abundantly, operating ever since.

The Defence has then assigned a cause, which cause began to exist within thirty years of the date of the enquiry; it follows, that the effect must have taken place within that period; it follows, that an encrease of average ratage has taken place in some dioceses within those thirty years; it follows, that the other great position of the Defence is unfounded.

Thus the two great positions of the case fail: the first is refuted by the oath of the party, and the second by the admission of the Defence: the Defence acknowledges what it denies, that the clergy have increased the average prices of some dioceses within these thirty years; it acknowledges, what it also denies, that they have tithed the bounty; but I will wave all this, and yet will shew their case to be inadmissible: it states that they have procured returns from the clergy, what kind of returns you have heard; but it does not pretend to have gotten any from the lay impropriators; and it affirms, that this share amounts to one-third of the tithes of this kingdom; it acknowledges then, that the enquiry has omitted one-third of the question, and on such an enquiry they propose to decide the state of Munster and all its peasantry. Allow their Defence....biassed, as it must be thought; fallacious, as it has been sworn; selfconvicted, as it has been proved; however, in compliment to its authors, let us for a moment allow it. Yet still it is not the state of the tithes of Munster; it is not commensurate with the question it presumes to cover; it does not affect to touch at all

one of the three parts of the case; and when it affects to touch the other two, I have shewn it to be but affectation. With every respect to the clergy of Munster, the question is not, whether they are the oppressors? it is higher, it is, whether the people are oppressed. To acquit the clergy, supposing such a defence, which proves nothing but its own contradiction, could do so, decides only an inferior question; to obtrude that decision as disposing of the whole of the case, is to make a criminal use of their supposed innocence; and as the defence would acquit the parsons on their own evidence, so would it dismiss the peasant unredressed, without any evidence at all. In answer to such a proposal, we ask of right reverend authority, where is your flock? what, is there no wolf but the shepherd? Bring us a better account of your charge; go back to your fold. But I might wave all this, yet the Defence is still inadmissible, because false in its conception. The exhibiting the average rates of the different dioceses of the south, does not enable the public to judge of its condition. In order to expose the art of deciding any thing by those clerical averages, it is sufficient to recollect the famous average of a dignified writer, who, estimating the average income of the Irish clergy, excluded the bishoprics, and included the curates, to give the reader a just and fair sense of the property of the church. And still further to expose a defence founded on average ratages, it is sufficient to examine the decrees of the court of Cashel, whose average decrees are stated for the five years previous to 1786, to be 8s. an acre potatoes, but whose particular decrees appear from the books in some cases to have exceeded 20s. The average ratages of the different dioceses give the public no knowledge of the case. It may happen, that the average ratage of a diocese shall be moderate, and yet the ratages universally exceptionable. Suppose one half of the diocese under the ratage of Dr. Atterbury, and the other under the ratage of Captain Right, the average might perhaps be moderate, but that apparent moderation of ratage would arise from the very circumstance which made it peculiarly culpable, from the double grievance, from the two extremes, from the opposite offences; it may happen that the proprietors of tithe in some cases crouch to the rich, and encroach on the poor; the average, under such circumstances, might appear moderate, but the moderation would arise from the compound of crimes, from crouching and encroaching, from meanness and extortion. The moderation of average price therefore proves nothing; it is a method which not only conceals, but inverts the case. It makes the parish of A. appear. better from the circumstance that makes her worse, from comparative misery; it makes the parish of A. when rated too high, appear to be actually relieved when the parish of B. is rated too