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 as sertion 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 of "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 acknowledg ment 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 68. 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

low; as if the former derived a paradoxical relief from the sense of its own peculiar hardship, and obtained a preternatural respiration from burthens, because they were heaped with uncommon measure on herself; it is a clerical chemistry, which extracts a complexion from the consumption of the case; oppression alone would not do; but add partiality, and the compound is vended by the right reverend authors, as an image of their charity, and a case for their clergy. And as a defence founded on an exhibition of average prices only, is unjust to the parish, so it is injurious to the parson; it makes the moderation of parson A. state in favour of parson B. who is an extortioner, and the exaction of B. state against A. who is moderate; as if A. derived riches from the extortion of B. and consolation from the reflection, that if he himself got too little, his neighbour B. whose example he condemned, got too much; and it supposes that A. had a further consolation from the experience, that if he did not share the profit, he divided the infamy. This process by average is a confusion and incorporation of vice and virtue, fame and infamy; it is resorted to from an indifference about the real state of the peasantry, suggested by the spirit of corps, at the expence of the best members of the church, and by a false tenderness of some peccant individuals, who may atone for the crimes of an exactioner, by the virtues of a sycophant, and by adulation to their bishop, may secure absolution for every other abomination. exhibiting average prices therefore gives no information. From those submitted in the Defence, nothing can be collected, except that they are not founded in fact. They are stated to be formed on returns, which do not exceed 12s. the plantation acre; though from the oaths of the clergy, or their witnesses, the prices are proved to go to 27s. Waving therefore other objections, this defence must be rejected on two grounds: first, because the average price is not the true defence. Second, because this Defence is not the true average. But though right reverend authority has not made out a case for the clergy, it has made out a case for the people. So it frequently happens; men are but instruments of Providence, and without knowing it, fulfil her ways. The zealot is but an inflamed organ, bursting forth with unpremeditated truths; reverend writers endeavouring to establish a right in the Protestant clergy to a tenth of the peasant's labour, as prior to the Protestant religion, paramount to all other rights of property, and therefore prior not only to the Protestant, but to the Christian religion, have only served to bring forth proofs, that such a right, if any, resides in the poor, and that the parson was only his trustee : so now the bishops in their defence, state the average ratages of three out of the five dioceses to which their acreable ratages refer, to

The

amount to above 10s. the plantation acre for potatoes; and in forming this average they acknowledge they exclude all particular ratages above 12s. and therefore their average is less than the fact; and they do not pretend to include one or two shillings in the pound, notoriously paid to the tithe proctor by the peasant, though reluctantly acknowledged by the Defence, and omitted in the average, which, on that account, is a still further departure from the fact. This 10s. the acre, demanded and received without any consideration of charity, which was the object of tithe; of building and repairing churches, as is required by the canon law; without parochial schools, as are required of the clergymen by the statute law, and in some places without residence, which is required by canon, common, and statute laws, arises not only from the produce that feeds mankind, but from the only produce which in Ireland sustains the poor and most numerous description of mankind, who have not poor rates as in England, and who have another order of clergy to pay, which is not the case in England: this heavy burden is more sensibly felt, by being peculiar to the south, which by the Defence of the Clergy is admitted and represented to be in a state of not only actual but comparative misery. For the continuation of this partial wretchedness, they state that one-half of the tithe of the south arises from that very wretchedness, viz. from tithe of potatoes; the other half arises from wheat, which they state in these dioceses to be from above 7s. to above 9s. the Irish acre; from barley, which they state to be from near 78. to near 9s.; from oats, which they state to be from near 4s. to above 5s.; from hay, which does not pay tithe in Connaught; from flax, which does not pay tithe in Ulster; from cows and sheep and lambs, which they omit in their statement, but from which the clergy of the south receive a considerable income. In short, from what does, and what does not pay tithe elsewhere. I congratulate the southern clergy on all these advantages; but the Defence interrupts me, and says, that all this is only one-half of their income, there is another gotten from potatoes. Here the description of the men from whom that half principally arises....beggars! men publicly pronounced, and by all admitted to be trodden down to the earth, men who get 5d. a day for their labour, and pay 67. a year by the acre for their potatoe garden, which heavy rent is acknowledged to be aggravated by a tithe of 10s.; for the continuance of which heavy tithe, the heavy rent is by the advocates of exaction made the apology. Poor people! "If we relax, the landlord would "encroach; he is worse than the parson.' These charges are further aggravated in some places by the disposition of the man who makes them, the tithe farmer. The Defence states, that while the rich diocese of Cashal and Emly pays 7s. the acre