ants,at each time, perifhed byfamine and the fword; multitudes deferted the kingdom; all improvements were deftroyed; the progress of industry was effectuallyimpeded; arts and fciences were banifhed; and Ireland, by fuch means, though intimately connected with the richest,moft civilized and induftrious nation in the world, is now a century behind the rest of Europe in civilization and every species of valuable improvement, all owing to the fuperftitious attachment of a confiderable portion of its inhabitants to the Romish faith, in oppofition to the Proteftant eftablishment. A large portion of its natives, all Romanifts, is by the fame caufe continued in a semibarbarous ftate. (See Tone's State of Ireland, for the use of the French Convention.) In fhort, all the calamities which,for a courfe of twohundred yearspaftand upwards, have overwhelmed this unhappy country, in the catalogue of which must be included the late rebellion (which this author, with fufficient confidence, afferts was not a Romifh rebellion), and the murder in cold blood of all Proteftants who fell into the hands of the infurgents, have had their real fource in the Popery ofpart of the inhabitants of Ireland. Such is the affiftance which Popery without an eflablishment has afforded to Morality, Good Order, and Government, within this kingdom! and fuch the true purpofes of Religion which it has answered!

This author's next pofition is, that the Revenue of the Church is part of the common ftock left to the difcretion of the State to employ to the best advantage of the Community; from whence he deduces that it may juftly withhold it from the fupport of the Proteftant establishment; not without throwing out a ftrong hint of the wifdom and generofity of applying it, or at least a part of it, to

the

the fupport or establishment of Romifh priests in Ireland.

The Revenues and Property of the Church are by the British Conftitution juft as far disposable of by the State as the revenues and property of the Laity, and no further. The State has a right to demand a reasonable part of the property of all its fubjects, laity and clergy, by way of tax, for the support of civil and military establishments, fufficient to fecure the nation in peace at home, and caufe it to be refpected by foreign nations, to repel and punish their aggreffions. Until of late years, when the regular fittings of convocations of the clergy came to be difcontinued, they taxed themselves, and were not fubject to taxation by the Commons. But this author means by his position, that the State has a right to feize on all the revenues and property of the Church at its pleafure, and to apply it to what use it pleases, that is, to confiscate it. This doctrine he very explicitly avows and maintains in the 31ft page of his pamphlet. The State, being established for the protection, and not for the deftruction of property, has no more right, by the British Conftitution, to act in fúch a manner in refpect to the Church, thar has to feize on and confifcate all the estates and proper of the Laity; neither has the State, by the fame Con2 tution, any right to lay any greater tax on ecclefiical than on lay property. Some of our countrymen vho have been educated in France, are conftantly debafi language by introducing Gallicifms into our phrafeology: in the fame way, thofe who have learned their olitics in the modern French school, are for ever obtruding the flagitious, anarchical, political principles of the French Atheists upon us, as if they were part of our conftitutional

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our

tional principles, endeavouring thus to corrupt and debase our constitution. This author betrays his French institution and politics, and his utter ignorance of the constitution of his country, in numberlefs inftances, one of which is, his doctrine refpecting the inexpediency and inutility of a church establishment, and the juftice of the confifcation of all church revenues. Under the influence, or rather pretended influence, of this doctrine, the French Atheists robbed their national clergy of all fupport, and then exterminated them, and all Chriftianity, with fire and fword; juftifying their robbery and facrilege by this doctrine; their murders and banishments, by the neceffity of ridding themfelves of the people they had robbed : indeed it has been, in all ages, the practice of French robbers to murder thofe they have plundered. Such are a few of the unconftitutional doctrines which this Romifh writer has published for the perufal of the fubjects of the British Empire! and fuch the arguments by which he attempts to recommend and juftify the fubverfion of our conftitution in Church and State, and the erection of Popery on its ruins!

1

Further to convince my readers, that admiffion into the Senate and great offices of the State will not content the Romanifts, and that they aim at nothing lefs than the overthrow of the Proteftant eftablishment in Ireland, I will quote fome of this author's complaints on the subject of tithes, almost the whole fupport of the parochial Proteftant clergy of Ireland: and will at the fame time note their falfity and malice, thinking this the proper place for doing fo, as I am expofing his unfounded affertions refpecting the property of the Church. In page 30 he observes, The religion of one man out of

four

( 57 )

four is Proteftant. This religion is endowed with the tithe of the whole kingdom, befide great property in land, an immenfe church establishment.' In page 31 he writes thus: Among the peafantry, the proportion of Roman Catholics is much greater (than four to one). After paying a tithe, exacted generally with great rigour, to fupport the established religion, of which they never hear but by the tithe proctor, they muft out of their poverty pay fomething to their own prieft, who, nearly as poor as themfelves, lives with them, and renders them many fervices. In page 56, with respect to tithes, he thus expreffes himself: This tax, and the feverity with which it is collected, is one of the greateft grievances the people labour under;' fo that,according to this writer, the payment of tithes to the Proteftant clergy by the Irish Romanists is a grievance to them as heavy at least as exclufion from the Senate and the great offices of the State, and confequently must be alfo redreffed before they will confent to an Union. Very happy it is for Proteftants, and fufficient to put them on their guard, that these Romish writers in general, when they plead for an extension of privileges to Romanists, before a Proteftant tribunal, are fo far transported by the rancour of their fect, that they cannot refrain from venting their venom against the Proteftant religion and its pastors, even by the very intereft of the fect whose cause they are pleading, nor conceal their projects of fubverfion of the Proteftant eftablishment on the attainment of these privileges, at the very time they are foliciting for them; nor their intentions to use them, in cafe they fhall be invested with them, for the destruction of the very people from whom they are foliciting them. Their indifcreet impetuofity makes their claims appear

as

as reafonable as the folicitation of a murderer would be, who fhould humbly request you to give him your fword for the purpose of plunging it into your heart. I will now proceed to examine the complaints of this writer refpecting tithes,

In the first place he styles Tithes a Tax, to expofe them to popular odium; the mafs of the people in every country being adverfe to the payment of Taxes. Taxes are certain fums of money affeffed on, and levied from, the fubjects of the realm, by the lawful authority of Parliament, to be applied to the fupport of Government and other public purposes. Tithes predial and mixt, the only tithes paid in this kingdom, are certain duties to be paid out of the produce and profits of lands, and beasts fed on lands, in nature of rent; but to be paid in kind, as all rents were heretofore paid in this nation, before money became fo plentiful in Europe as in the present, and for a few immediately preceding ages. In fact, tithes are a rent with which all the lands in the kingdom are chargeable, for time immemorial, by the common law of the realm; and the clergy have been endowed with them by a title more ancient by ages than the title of any fubject of this or any other kingdom in Europe, to his particular landed estate. The only difference between tithes as a rent, and the rent of any man's landed eftate, is, that the rents referved on landed eftates in this kingdom are certain fums of money to be paid in lieu of a fhare of the produce; and tithes are an uncertain duty, being one tenth of the produce payable in kind, and therefore varying in quantity every year, as the crop varies, being greater or lefs, as the crop is greater or lefs annually. Every perfon whofe lands are subject to tithes,