in my opinion, one of those cases. I know well, that nothing great and good can be accomplished without open and fair dealing; and, as we mean nothing covert or foul, why should we not un disguisedly say what it is that we do mean?

Such, then, is to be the nature of this series of Letters; though I shall, I dare say, step aside, nowand-then, to notice other topics; because matters will press upon us in a way that will demand our attention. On the subjects more immediately connected with the

by all wise nations, and by no nation more than by the English. They are vain and empty sounds, and, indeed, something a great deal worse, when they are, for the base purposes of delusion, employed by such people as our Boroughmongers, to gloss over the atrocity of taxing one nation to death in order to crush freedom in another nation. There was no glory in overwhelming NAPOLEON and the French by the means of bribery within and subsidies without. But, it would be real glory for England to stretch

millions of men, and thereby promote human happiness and give dignity to the now-debased human mind in a considerable portion of the inhabited Globe. The Petition, to the House of Commons, on the subject of reducing the interest of the Debt, the amount of salaries, and the like, places that

corruptions and follies of the pre-forth her arm and unchain twenty sent Electors and Elected, I intend to address myself to the Freemen of Coventry; and I beg leave to call your attention to the Letters addressed to that part of our countrymen. You will also see some PETITIONS, sent by me to be presented to the Prince and to the House of Commons. The subjects of these are of great import-matter in a clear light, I hope. I ance in their nature; and they know, that something, in the way have been treated of by me in a of reducing the interest will take manner as able as my abilities will place, even under the Boroughpermit. I beg your attention to mongers; and, there they have all these Petitions. In the first, my Petition to swallow, with what which was addressed to his Royal appetite they may. The Petition, Highness, the Regent, you will to which are subjoined the Deposee how flagrantly the honour, the sitions of Messrs. PENDRILL and permanent interest and glory, of STEVENS is, however, of far greater our country, and the interest of importance; and will, I am sure, freedom and humanity, are all sa- be deemed worthy of your best crificed to the selfish views of the attention. It developes all the Boroughmongers. For national atrocities of the Derby affair, honour and glory are not, when about which I shall have a word real, vain and empty sounds.or two more to say in this present They have always been cherished Letter. Lastly, the Petition on

the Right of Resistance will, I am may have increased, the quantity satisfied, meet with your cordial of produce raised from the earth thanks. I anticipate those thanks, must have increased; and, of and they are all the reward that I course, the amount, or quantity of seek, or shall ever seek How the tythes must have increased. In the Boroughmongers would blush, particular instances this may not if they were liable to the vulgar have been the case; but, genehabit of blushing at being made rally, it must have been the case ; to appear odious! But this ap- | and, therefore, out of this increase pears to be a weakness left, now-in the amount of tythes ought to a-days, solely to the "Lower come the means, if wanted, to Orders." Cheer up, my friends-! we shall, before we have done, bring these enemies of our King and country to something more tangible than blushing.

make an increase of room in the churches. Suppose, that a parish had a hundred acres of cultivated land when it was founded and the church built; and, suppose, that, in consequence of an increase of population, the parish now has a thousand acres of cultivated land; is the Parson' to take quietly the increase of tythes, to

Having now settled on the general outline of the subjects of this series of Letters, I should, at once, enter on the subject first mentioned; but, there are two incidental topics, which I must no-devour that with his wife and fatice, and to which I must confine myself, I believe, in this present Letter: namely, the proposed scheme of building new churches, and the operations of Justice of the Peace FLETCHER, of Bolton in Lancashire, commonly called COLONEL FLETCHER.

My friends, this is one of those proposals, which captivate fools and insult men of sense. It is alledged, as a reason for this scheme of expending the fruit of our labour, that the number of places of worship are insufficient for the demands of an increased and increasing population. If this were true, ought not the additional room to be furnished out of the properly of the Church itselt? In whatever degree the population

mily, and to call upon the nation at large to widen and lengthen his church, in order to make room for his increase of tythe payers? A proposition so monstrous never would have been submitted to any body of men, who had not been well known to be wholly dead to all sense of justice towards the people at large.

Besides, how does this story of a deficiency of churches agree with the well-known, the notorious, fact that there are a very considerable number of Parsons who have each of them two livings, and, sometimes, at twenty or thirty miles distance from each other. They hire curates, I shall be told; but, in numerous instances, the churches have no service performed

in them more than once a fort-but, then, this Poulter married a night, and very frequently indeed sister of the Bishop's wife. One not more than once a week, that is son of the Bishop swallows up all to say, once, when the law demands the great town of Gosport, and twice, each Sunday. There is a the adjoining rich parish of AlverMr. GARNIER, who has the living stoke, with an enormous revenue. of Droxford, and that of Durley, Another son of the Bishop swalin Hampshire. He is the son of lows the great Parish of St. Mary, old Sinecure Garnier, who has Southampton, and the Parish, received more than two hundred very extensive, of South Stoneham. thousand pounds of the public This man is, besides, what is calmoney for doing nothing, and led the "Master" of an ancient. whose grandfather was a German charity, called St. Cross, in the and coachman to one of the first vale of Winchester. This is a Georges. And, besides, this Par- foundation of great antiquity.. son Garnier married a daughter of There is a church and habitathe Bishop of Winchester, who tions for a certain number of men, is uncle of the Earl of Guildford. who, according to the will of the GARNIER, who seldom resides in charitable founder, were to be Hampshire at all, has curates." decayed gentlemen," and were. Poor things that can hardly live. to live in this place and be waited. The people of Durley, who have on and treated like gentlemen, had no Parson reside with them for all which purposes ample for many years, though they pay estates were left. It is now be GARNIER about four hundred come a sort of alms-house; the pounds a year for tythes, com number of men are kept; but, plained, that the curate came they have only a few shillings a only once of a Sunday, and that week counted out to them by an he made them have all their agent of the MASTER, who pockets, christenings, marriages and bu- clear and neat, about two thousand rials of a Sunday, so that he pounds a year, in addition to all might do all his work under his other enormous income from one," as we call it. But, GAR- tythes and But, GAR- tythes and glebes and other NIER was deaf to their com- privileges! Observe, that this plaints; and, his expression was, Bishop's name is NORTH; he is that it was 66 very fair duty." a brother of the famous Lord Another of the GARNIERS Swal- NORTH, who made him a Bishop;' lows up the Parish of Bishopstoke and these NORTHS sprang up and, I believe, Ouslebury. One the time of the STUARTS, and POULTER, formerly a poor brief were enriched and ennobled forless Lawyer, swallows the Pa-being fellow-labourers with Jeffe rishes of Mcon-stoke and Brereton; ries. DUDLEY NORTH was the

in

Sheriff, who packed the Juries that found RUSSELL and SIDNEY guilty of High Treason! Curious facts these; but, they are not more curious than true.

shepher !s. But, then, turn your eyes another way, and you will find, that the Parsons are too abundant; for, during several years, ending with 1815, a hundred thousand pounds a year was voted out of the produce of our labour," for the relief of the

What a shame, then, what an impudent thing, to propose to tax our labour for the erection of new churches! These instances of dou" Poor Clergy of the Established

ble livings, two parishes and two churches to one parson, are only a mere specimen of what exists all over the whole kingdom of England, Ireland and Wales. These Norths, Poulter and Garnier, have prebends besides. That is to say, incomes from the estates he longing to the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral of Winchester; and, according to law, if they cared a straw for the law, they have duties to perform at the Cathedral. So that, to adopt the language of the church, and of the very oaths that these men have taken, they have each of them the " cure, that is, "the charge, of souls" in two distant parishes, and in the Cathedral, at one and the same time! And yet, it seems, we are to be taxed to build more places for them to do duty in.

One would, under such circum stances, naturally suppose, that it was a want of Parsons which required being provided for; a want of shepherds, seeing that, in so many instances, two flocks, or three flocks, are consigned to one thepherd; and not places for feeding the flocks, seeing that those places that there already are, are so seldom visited by the present

Church"; than which no enormity ever was greater. This was begun by that insolent and cruel tyrant, PERCEVAL; and it was, I think, kept up for about ten years successively. So, while the church property of the whole kingdom was parcelled as I have above described; for, you will observe, I have only mentioned instances within thirteen miles of Botley, and I might have doubled and tripled the number even within that space; while two or three livings were bestowed every where on one man, the Boroughmongers had the inpudence to tax our beer, salt, candles, sugar, tea, soap, shoes, and every thing else, to get money to feed those of the Clergy who had no livings! And, when they shall have voted for new Places of Worship, my word for it they will vote for money to pay new Parsons. And thus will they create a new set of dependents, even more devoted to them than the present Parsons are!

In another view, how impudent, how insolent, was it to vote away a million of our money to relieve Poor Clergy, while they were talking of the evils of labourers and journeymen marrying and having

children! They were actually in dungeons; to the suspension

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of all the laws which defend our very lives; but, they wanted power to make a just distribution of the property of the church, though they now cant about the lament

beginning to digest a scheme for preventing us from marrying and breeding, while they were taking from us the means of supporting our children out of our labour, and giving those means to "Poorable injury to morals and religion Clergy", that they might propagate a set of idlers and dependents! The folly of this was equal to the insolence of it; for what would you think of a farmer, who should say, "take the flour "and the meal and take the corn "and the milk for the support of my dogs: never mind the horses "and cattle and sheep: I don't "want them to be strong and to "breed: I only want them to work "and to give me and my dogs "plenty of food"?

from a want of a sufficiency of places of worship! They will find, I hope, one of these days, that there is such a thing as a power to make a just distribution of this immense property! The charch property was sacred; and were not our personal liberty and our lives rather sacred things? They were afraid of touching anciently established laws; and were not our liberties and lives protected by ancient laws? Were not those laws a pretty deal more ancient than any right which the church has to thrust forward?

But, the truth is, that, as I stated in my "Peep into the Den," published last summer, this hun- But, what a figure, upon this dred thousand pounds a-year was a occasion, do the Reverend the sum voted into the pockets of the Parsons themselves cut? How Boroughmongers themselves, to be must they snigger in their sleeves by them, or under their direction, at a complaint of want of room for given to their own poor depend- their flocks to come and listen to ents and relations, hundreds and their voices, when it is so notorithousands of whom become Cler-ous, that the churches they already gymen in order to be provided have are generally empty, while with food and raiment without work. Why did they not, if they had been animated with a love for the church or for religion, when they voted away this million of our money, take care that no one man should have two or three livings for the future, at any rate? Their power extends, it seems, to the shutting of innocent men up

the Meeting Houses of all sorts and sizes are crammed to suffocation! I have many times been at Botley Church, when the congregation, being of a parish of six thousand souls, consisted of the Parson, the Clerk, a couple of old men and myself; and I never saw the congregation exceed a hundred and twenty in number, while the