SHORT ADDRESS

TO THE

MOST REVEREND, AND HONORABLE

WILLIAM,

LORD PRIMATE OF ALL IRELAND,

RECOMMENDATORY OF SOME

COMMUTATION, OR MODIFICATION

OF

The Tythes of that Country;

WITH A FEW

REMARKS

ON THE

PRESENT STATE OF THE IRISH CHURCH.

BY THE REV. SIR H. BATE DUDLEY, BART. CHANCELLOR AND PREBENDARY OF FERNS, &c.

"I beseech you

"Wrest once the law to your authority;

"To do a great right, do a little wrong."

LONDON.

SHAKESPEARE.

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THOSE who expect to find in the few following pages, what may favor the prejudices of any particular sect, or system, will experience a disappointment. The object of this address, is to draw the attention of those on whom it has devolved as a great moral and political duty, to a dispassi onate inquiry into the existing state of TYTHES in Ireland, and to recommend such an immediate change, or modification of them, as may be most likely to administer the neces sary relief. It is more particularly directed to the liberal consideration of the professional members of the Established Church, who have interests interwoven in this complicated question, far more valuable than those of pecuniary loss or gain.

The writer (as it is well known to many of the most respectable inhabitants of the county in which he long resided as a beneficed clergyman,) intended, many years since, to have offered some similar observations in favor of a modification in England; but the disturbed temper of those times prevented it. Possessing a considerable portion of Tythe property in both countries, he feels disposed, in common.

with many who have similar interests, to promote some equitable reform therein, that may best remedy a grievance so generally complained of. But as the pressure is confessedly more immediate and severe in Ireland, he now ventures to suggest what appears to him the most effectual remedy in a case of the most imminent danger. He does it not, however, under the whimsical idea of the Dean of St. Patrick, "as a preparatory step to make it go down smoother "in England, after the manner of discreet physicians, who ❝ first give a new medicine to a dog, before they prescribe it "to a human creature!"

If the opinions here advanced should render the author of them obnoxious to the self-interested, he can console himself with the reflection, that he has intended no offence to the liberal-minded of any faith, or profession whatever.

The slight observations on the State of the Irish church, are offered with a consciousness, how ill qualified the observer is to become a censor in any line of his own profession; but if they should promote a more appropriate investigation, they may not be found altogether useless.

NO. XI.

Pam.

VOL. VI.

Q

A SHORT ADDRESS,

&c. &c.

MY LORD,

YOUR Grace will require no prefatory apology for any candid address made to you upon a subject, in which the chief interests of our Church are essentially involved.

In whatever light it may be viewed, the long existing mode of collecting TYTHES in Ireland, will be found injurious, and harassing to all whom it concerns. Agriculture has been depressed by it for centuries in all its branches !-Not limited to the sufferings, or personal inconvenience of the individual, its influence has extended, until it affects the moral welfare of a state, and virtually counteracts the great objects of the establishment which its revenues are drawn to support. There is at all times a disposition to question the propriety of any tenets, which men are harshly called upon to sustain. No wonder then if the grievance, now meant to be considered, should have loosened in its progress the common bond of christian charity, and spread a spirit of religious dissension much wider, than polemical prejudices alone could have effected.

The origin of tythes is too anciently founded, and too solemnly recognized by the laws of the land, to render any discussion of it necessary on the present occasion. As an abstract right, it is not even disputed by the best informed Romanists themselves. No inconsiderable pains, however, have been taken to impress this er

roneous idea on the public mind, "that tythes are nothing more than a legislative tax." Was this the fact, like all other imposts of the same kind, tythes also would be subject to increase—to diminution and even to a total repeał under the authority that imposed them. But, on the contrary, they are found, and admitted to be an indisputable freehold, and less liable to alienation than most other freehold property of the realm. But all this will not afford to the present system of tything, a plea of peculiar exemption from legislative interposition. Disquisitions have abounded of late, on adverse sides of this important subject; these, however, have gone but little further than to demonstrate, how ingeniously an hypothesis may be founded on a favorite prejudice.

The nearest way to the object of this brief address, will be to consider tythes as a property strongly titled as the soil that yields them and to remove a difficulty that might otherwise arise to interrupt the inquiry, it may be as well at once to contravene the illiberal position of those who assert, that it would be a sacrilegious act to commute, or even to touch the property of the church, rendered secure from alienation, by the pious purposes to which it has been devoted.

The law of moral and political necessity superseding all titles, pays but little regard to the fanciful intangibility of any distinct species of property, however insulated by prejudice, or sanctioned. by time. If it be found requisite to construct a new bridge across a river to erect a barrack for the soldiery; -or to cut a public canal through the heart of a beautiful demesne sacred for centuries. in the veneration of a family; in all these instances of deprivation, the feelings, with the property of the possessors, are constrained to yield to the public necessity. What, then, can reasonably be urged against an equitable change in the system of tythes, on which the happiness of a people, and the security of a government, so materially depend? The authority that went so far as to alter, in order to amend the ceremonials of the church, may, without any

In cases of treason, where other freehold property on conviction becomes confiscate for ever to the crown, that of tythes is affected only in the immediate interest of the traitor, this property descending unimpaired to his clerical successor.