Bench, if ever you can reach them where they have been properly elected; the criminal information is for punishment, not for removal.

Supposing a person to have been found guilty on a criminal information, would he still remain a magistrate?—Yes, in a corporate town he would; it would not create a disqualification.

Is he not subject to removal by the Lord Lieutenant after his election?-In general, by the new rules and regulations, the previous approval of the Lord Lieutenant is necessary to the appointment.

So that if he is elected the following year he must come bèfore the Lord Lieutenant ?-He must, in the towns subject to the new rules and regulations; there are about thirty-two regulated by them. The corporation of Tralee is a close body, and as the provost is not within those new rules and regulations at all, the consequence is, that the individual I have alluded to was not subject at all to the Lord Lieutenant and the Privy Council.

Of what date are those rules and regulations?-They were attached to the statute of 17th and 18th Charles II.; they were made between 1666 and 1672, or thereabout.

Do you know what proportion of the corporate towns in Ireland are subject to those rules?-Their number is thirtytwo: I know that all the large corporations in Ireland are subject to them.

Do you know, in point of fact, whether magistrates in the towns so circumstanced have frequently been rejected by the Lord Lieutenant and Council?-In point of fact, very seldom; they interfered, very properly, in a case at Limerick, where a person was to be re-elected recorder, who had incurred the censure of one of the houses of legislature.

Do you know what is the number of corporations to which those rules do not apply?—No; but the number must be considerable. A number of corporations were created in Ireland in the reign of James I., and close boroughs, for the purpose of increasing the power of the Crown in the House of Commons; and those close boroughs there was no occasion to regulate by the new rules, for they were rules that could not have borne at all upon them; and the object of the new rules and regulations was to give to the royalists an advantage over the persons who had acquired property and influence in the towns during the usurpation.

Generally speaking, have not the Roman Catholics of Ireland greater reason to complain of the administration of justice in corporate towns than elsewhere?-Certainly; much greater in corporate towns than elsewhere. The superior judges, very

many of them, are unexceptionable personages; they do not at all sanction any maleadministration of justice; as far as their authority and influence can go, the Catholics have nothing at all to complain of.

But in corporate towns you think they have?-In corporate towns they certainly complain, and I think have reason to complain.

By the existing laws, are Roman Catholics admissible to corporations in Ireland ?-In all the great corporations regulated by the new rules and regulations they are not admissible to any thing but the mere function of being freemen; they cannot be mayors or sheriffs, or sub-sheriffs, or aldermen, or common councilmen, or masters or wardens of any particular guild; they can hold nothing in those corporations beyond the mere enjoyment of the franchise of being freemen, and in point of practice they have been in some of the corporations disappointed even of that.

Have they been frequently disappointed of that franchise to which they are entitled?-Yes; for the last thirty-two years Catholics have been admissible to the freedom of the city of Dublin, and though there is a great degree of wealth in the hands of Catholics in Dublin, there is not one instance of a Catholic having obtained his freedom; they have been as much excluded as if the law had not been repealed.

Has any considerable portion of that mercantile capital been applied to the purchase of land ?-A great deal of it; a Catholic merchant is always anxious to purchase land.

Does not commercial capital in general find its way more quickly in Ireland into investments in land than in this and in other countries?-Certainly much more quickly in Ireland; it being a less commercial country, and the respect that is paid to landed proprietors, being greater, tends naturally to that effect, and has that effect. And again, it is only recently that the Catholics have much purchased into the funds; the system acts with a kind of revulsion as to every thing connected with the government; and they have been desirous therefore of laying out their capital on land as much as possible.

Have they latterly increased their investments in the funds? -They have.

Is there any difference in the value of lands which have ever been forfeited from that of lands which have not?—I think there is a difference practically, though not marked, in such lands; I think lands that have been forfeited, and especially the recent forfeitures of the usurpation, and of the revolution, bear a higher price; in practice we consider them, as lawyers, as better titles, as more marketable, than lands that were for

feited at a remoter period; the patent is found at once, and that, and the act of settlement, makes a complete title at the period; we have then only to deduce the searches from that period to this; there is therefore a great facility, in my experience, and greater readiness, arising from that clearness of title, in purchasing. There is scarcely any land in Ireland that has not been forfeited at one time or other; indeed I believe almost all Ireland has been forfeited four or five times over.

Did you ever know an instance in which land bore a less price in the market, in consequence of the simple circumstance of its having been a forfeiture?-I never knew it, nor heard of it, except one individual, whom I may name for this purpose; Lord Norbury has made that a ground of objection, to cheapen it, but he never omitted to make the purchase.

Will you state your opinion of the manor courts?-The manor courts are extremely bad; it is hardly possible to convey to the committee an idea of such a grievance as the manor courts are: in general the senechal is a very obscure person: he holds his court in a whiskey-house; the jury that are sworn must have a certain quantity of whiskey before they will go together. I speak from information upon this subject of which I have no doubt; and I have heard of an instance in which they decided for a person merely because he gave them more whiskey than the other. In short, it is impossible, according to my idea, to have any thing worse than the manor courts.

Though it is a trial by jury?—Though it is a trial by jury. What sort of cases may come before them? The jurisdiction they exercise on summary proceedings is to forty shillings or five pounds; but in most of those manor courts they commence by issuing what is called a distingras; and there the jurisdiction may be unlimited, if the patents creating those courts have not been preserved; the evidence of their jurisdiction is evidence of usage; and the greater and more lengthened continuation of the abuse, the more strong is the evidence, and the legal right to continue that abuse. There are no functions to be performed by the manor courts in Ireland such as those in England: we have no copyhold tenures; there are not above three or four in all Ireland; and such courts therefore exist for no other purpose than this miserable litigation. I take it they are an unmixed and unmitigated evil.

Are you not aware there is an Act of Parliament which requires the Lord of the manor to have a copy of his patent in the hands of the clerk of the peace in the county?-I am.

And that unless such copy is in the hands of the clerk of the peace no writ or process from that manor court is available?I am not aware of that: it will be reserved upon appeal; but

that would not be a void execution, so as to protect, what I believe do occur, homicides in the execution of their decrees. The decrees are to be executed by the parties themselves, who have obtained frequently that decree improperly: they are resisted, and lives are lost.

Are those manor courts of any use?-In my humble judgment of not the least use. I have heard that on the Duke of Devonshire's estate there has been some reform; but taking it as a general principle, my opinion is, that they are not of the least utility whatever.

And that they might be safely abolished?-My judgment is, that not only they might be abolished with the greatest safety, but that it would be doing a great and substantial benefit to get rid of them altogether.

In the event of the abolition of manor courts, do you not think it would be necessary to supply some other means for the recovery of small debts to the poor within certain distances?— My own judgment is very much against those inferior courts. I may be very much mistaken in it, but I think I have formed my judgment to this extent, that it would be of use to abolish the inferior courts altogether; for that there ought not to be credit given for small sums, and that the giving a process to recover small sums is a greater evil than any that would result from having no tribunal to recover them. No man of the lower classes, or even of the upper, would give credit but to a man of character; it would have a tendency to increase the value of character. The lower classes would be precluded from going into debt, a habit which I take to be quite ruinous to the poorer classes.

Have you any means of forming a judgment as to the relative landed property of Protestants and Roman Catholics in Ireland, either generally or in any particular district?—The proportion is very greatly superior of Protestant to Roman Catholic landed property in Ireland, I mean of estates in fee. I should suppose that the Roman Catholics do not hold above one tenth perhaps of the fee simple; the derivative interests are considerable in the hands of the Roman Catholics. I could not give so loose an answer or so loose a calculation as I must give, as to what the proportion of derivative interests is up to the period of 1778. For a greater portion of a century, Catholics could not acquire landed property; they have been acquiring it, considering their means, I think so rapidly since, that the rapidity is now I think increasing very much, and will, under the present system, continue to increase, except that some wealthy persons are talking, and I believe intending, if there is not a change, to take their property out of Ireland, and settle elsewhere; I

know two instances of wealthy Catholics so intending if the present system continues. I cannot come closer on the calculation than that. In some counties, the Catholic property has the preponderance; in my own county of Kerry, the estate of the Earl of Kenmare constitutes such a portion of the county, that I should suppose he and other Catholics are in possession of one half of the county. I may be mistaken about that, and probably am.

The relative proportion has been stated as low, in point of comparison with respect to Catholics, as one in fifty?-Perhaps, upon reflection, I should think one in ten too high for the Catholics, and that one in twenty would be nearer; and when I give this answer, giving evidence as I do, as far as my judgment goes, it must demonstrate how loose the guess is.

Are you not convinced, from your own knowledge, that one in fifty is taking it much too low?-I am quite convinced of that. Can you state whether, in instances of large property in the South of Ireland, which have been sold in lots in the course of the last twenty years, the larger proportion has been purchased by Catholics, or by Protestants ?-In some instances, as in the county of Waterford, the largest proportion, I have reason to think, was purchased by Catholics. Considerable lots have been purchased in the county of Tipperary; many lots of the Courtenay estates in the county of Limerick have been purchased by Catholics; lately, in the Llandaff estate, I closed a purchase, a few days before I left Dublin, to the extent of 43,000l. for a Catholic gentleman.

What description of persons have made those purchases?— Country gentlemen, and mercantile men; mercantile men have purchased to a very considerable extent,

Do you apprehend that many of those who have purchased are likely to reside, and become resident gentlemen ?-Yes; almost all the Catholics intend to reside. The effect of the present system of the union is, in my judgment, tò increase very much the relative proportion of the Catholics resident, for every thing draws off the Protestants; the legislature, every kind of connexion with the legislature, the highest situations in the army, every appointment in the colonies, tends to draw off the Protestant population, of the best classes; and the want of these advantages leaves the Roman Catholics in the country; so that the relative proportion of resident Catholics is manifestly on the increase.

Is there not a very large proportion of money lent on mortgages in Ireland by Catholics?-A very considerable proportion of it lent by Catholics and Catholic Institutions, such as