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state to you my abstract notion of the subject. It is of use tobear in mind the true principles of legislation, though it maynet be always expedient to practise them. The clergy are hiredby the state, and they are paid by tithes. When these titheswere'first granted, there was but one sect of Christians, theCatholics . Whether the mode of paying the clergy which wasthen established was the best which could have been thought of,has been doubted by many. I think there was none preferableto it at that time; when all men were of the same religion, andwhen that religion had some hold on men’s minds. The case isnow much changed in both these points ; a variety of sects havesprung up in England and Ireland , and religion itself is not sohighly esteemed as it was formerly. Most men of fortune carelittle about religion, and they grudge the clergy what is due tothem, by laws which were made long before they or any of theirancestors possessed the estates, which are now saddled with theincumbrance of tithes.

It does not become any legislature to give way, on principlesof equity, to the demands of these men: they are as evidentlyfounded on avarice and injustice as if all the copyholders in thekingdom were to demand an exemption from the payment of thelords’ rents, to which their estates have for many centuries beensubject. But, on principles of utility, it may be expedient tosoothe their prejudices, if their combination is a powerful one, bylistening to any change which they may propose in the mode ofpaying the clergy; provided the change be grounded on a prin-ciple, which they will not readily admit, that the clergy be notplundered, and that the gentlemen who propose the change beriot benefited by the plunder.