that they are generally more constant residents than their brethren in England; where the meanest vicar hath a convenient dwelling, with a barn, a garden, and a field or two for his cattle; besides the certainty of his little income from honest farmers, able and willing, not only to pay him his dues, but likewise to make him presents, according to their ability, for his better support.  In all which circumstances, the Clergy of Ireland meet with a treatment directly contrary.

It is hoped, the honourable House will consider that it is impossible for the most ill-minded, avaricious, or cunning clergyman, to do the least injustice to the meanest cottager in his parish, in any bargain for tithes, or other ecclesiastical dues.  He can, at the utmost, only demand to have his tithe fairly laid out; and does not once in a hundred times obtain his demand.  But every tenant, from the poorest cottager to the most substantial farmer, can, and generally doth impose upon the minister, by fraud, by theft, by lies, by perjuries, by insolence, and sometimes by force; notwithstanding the utmost vigilance and skill of himself and his proctor.  Insomuch, that it is allowed, that the Clergy in general receive little more than one-half of their legal dues; not including the charges they are at in collecting or bargaining for them.

The land rents of Ireland are computed to about two millions, whereof one-tenth amounts to two hundred thousand pounds.  The benefited clergymen, excluding those of this city, are not reckoned to be above five hundred; by which computation, they should each of them possess two hundred pounds a year, if those tithes were equally divided, although in well cultivated corn countries it ought to be more; whereas they hardly receive one half of that sum; with great defalcations, and in very bad payments.  There are indeed, a few glebes in the north pretty considerable, but if these and all the rest were in like manner equally divided, they would not add five pounds a year to every clergyman.  Therefore, whether the condition of the Clergy in general among us be justly liable to envy, or able to bear a heavy burden, which neither the nobility, nor gentry, nor tradesmen, nor farmers, will touch with one of their fingers; this, I say, is submitted to the honourable House.

One terrible circumstance in this Bill, is, that of turning the tithe of flax and hemp into what the lawyers call a Modus, or a certain sum in lieu of a tenth part of the product.  And by this practice of claiming a Modus in many parishes by ancient custom, the Clergy in both kingdoms have been almost incredible sufferers.  Thus, in the present case, the tithe of a tolerable acre of flax, which by a medium is worth twelve shillings, is by the present Bill reduced to four shillings.  Neither is this the worst part in a Modus; every determinate sum must in process of time sink from a fourth to a four-and-twentieth part, or a great deal lower,