ing of Christ and his Apostles, let to appeal to any publication that me now come to your two prin- was made after the tithes were cipal positions, before mentioned. abolished; no, nor to any one

We shall, probably, discover a that was made after the firstTM motive for your ascribing the thought appeared to have been French Revolution to the circum- entertained of a suppression of any part of the nobility, or of any branch belonging to either of the orders of the State; I am going

7

stance, that the other classes in France had advanced in knowledge at a greater rate than the parsons had. But, such is your to appeal to the representations, assertion; and now let us see how made to the States-General by that assertion agrees with the the people, of all classes, upon truth. On whose authority shall the first meeting of that body, in we rely here? I do not ask you those papers, which were called to rely upon mine; and I think the Cahiers, or Memorials.

In these, from one end of the kingdom to the other, the people cried aloud against the oppres

that this honest and impartial public will not ask me to rely upon yours. It will, I presume, be deemed perfectly reasonable to sions, not of the Royal Family take it for granted, that the French only, but of the nobles and the people themselves were no bad clergy. They showed, in innujudges of their own condition, and of the grounds, upon which they

proceeded in demanding a change, or, if you will have it so, a Revo

merable instances, how they were oppressed by these orders; they showed that to live under them was a most horrible slavery they showed that in an endless number of instances, the clergy were the lords of manors, the granters of leases, the demand

<)lution. I am not going to appeal to the allegations made by the Revolutionists, after they had de 9posed the King, and scattered the - parsons abroad; I am not going ers of fines and quit-rents, and

that they were the rivals of the" of fendal services, from those noblesse in grinding the farmers," whose children were dying the tradesmen, the labourers and around them for want of bread?, the mechanics to, the earth. Mr." Who has dwelt sufficiently in ARTHUR YOUNG says, that the" explaining all the ramifications, tyranny, practised by these bo- of despotism, legal, aristocra dies was insupportable; and he "tical, and ecclesiastical, per-m adds, that, when we take a view" vading the whole mass of the of this tyranny, it will "scarcely" people; reaching like a cir "be attempted to be urged, that "culating fluid, the most distant "a Revolution was not absolutely" capillary tubes of poverty and ? " necessary to the welfare of the" wretchedness? "kingdom." In another part of

Dan & good Here, Bishop of London; here, i Right Reverend Father in God, I we have a much better account

his book, Mr. YOUNG, who wrote, you will observe, in 1789; that is to say, before the commence- of the causes of the French Re ment of the Revolution, but after volution than that which you havess the common people had com- been pleased to give us, in your mitted some violences on their Charge to the Clergy of your 20 oppressers, imputes those vio-Diocese. You ascribe the Revos lences to the oppressors, and lution to the clergy of France; not to the people. The mur- that is to say, to the bishops and "der, says he, of a Seigneur, parsons not having kept far

or a Chateau in flames, is re-enough in advance of the peow: corded in every newspaper; ple with regard to intellectual "the rank of the person who suf- attainments; but here we haved"fers attracts notice; but where the proof, under the hands and "do we find the register of that seals of the people themselves "Seigneur's oppressions of his that they had no complaint tosta peasantry, and his exactions make against their clergy, on

the score of a want of learning inflicted on the people; though in the latter; but a great deal of it is notorious, that the comcomplaint to make against them plaints against the lords of ma

nors, against the merciless clergy, against the cruelty of the taxing laws, against the abominations of the Game Laws; against

on the score of a want of justice and mercy; no complaint at all had the French people to make, that their clergy were behind them, as men of learning; but that they the base partialities and crying were far before all other men injustice of the courts called except the aristocracy in greedi- Courts of Justice; though this is ness and insolence and want of as notorious as seat-selling, feeling. This doctrine of yours which we all know to be as nois by no means any thing new.torious as the sun at noon-day; It has been held by the whole of notorious as all this is, still, from your cloth, and by all the sup- the dawn of the French Revolu porters of the present system, tion to the present hour, that and by all the enemies of Reform grand, that glorious event has in England, from the very dawn been ascribed, by all the parties of the French Revolution to this above-mentioned, aided by our day. None of these have ever, servile and infamous press, to at canys period, been willing to the writings of Voltaire and other allow that the Revolution arose men, stigmatised as Philosophers out of the oppressions of the Go- and Infidels; or, in your way of vernment, the Aristocracy and stating it, to the diffusion of knowthe Church Though it is well ledge and cultivation of intellect known that there was not one in France, with which the

elergy

single district; not one single di- did not keep pace! In answer vision ofina province in France, to this, Sir Francis Burdett once that did not send the most pressing very well observed: "Philosoremonstrances against the cruelties “phy, alas! has no such triumph

"to boast of: the triumph be-mon, that you have either uttered "longs, exclusively, to Oppresor heard in the whole course, of "sion. It is to the rude hand your life.

Your assertion respecting the. cause of the French Revolution, I have, I think, answered, and shown to be false; but before I proceed to the other assertion, it may not be amiss to add, that Mr. ARTHUR YOUNG, in speaking of the oppressions of the clergy: in France, has the following pas sage, by no means unworthy of

- Read that sentence ten times oyer, Bishop. Never mind its coming from a Jacobin. Ponder your attention. "In regard to on it well, Bishop, and lay aside" the oppressions of the clergy, your own miserable theory. Let" as to tithes, I must do that body the whole of the Aristocracy and" a justice, to which a claim the Church think well upon it; " cannot be laid in England. and it may, possibly, still prevent" Though the ecclesiastical tenth that which it seems at this mo- was levied in France more sement impossible to prevent. I" verely than usual in Italy, yet quote the Baronet from memory; "was it never exacted with such and I am not quite sure as to the" horrid greediness as is at prescene, where he uttered the sen-" sent the disgrace of England. timent; but, let it have been at a "When taken in kind, no such Tavern Dinner if you will, Bi-"thing was known in any part of shop, the words are better worthy" France, where I made enquiries, your attention, and of that of your as a tenth it was always a? clergy, too, than any thing con- "twelfth, or a thirteenth, or even tained in any Charge or any Ser-"a twentieth of the produce.

And in no part of the kingdom tion, which we shall, I think, find

« did a new article of culture pay to be, upon the score of falsehood,

any thing thus turnips, cab-equal to the former.

« bages, clover, chicorée, potatoes,

It is this: that this country,

"&c. &c. paid nothing. In while the world was involved in arts, meadows were e ex- confusion around us, was not

**many parts,

Silk

Silk - worms nothing." only preserved from destruc

“Olives in some places

paid- ❝tion, but rose to an eminence of Cows" glory and power, which it had

1

"never attained in former times." It will be hardly necessary for me to do it, but I may, by-and-by, say a word or two about this glory and power, and about the" destruction that you here mani

in more they did not. nothing. Lambs from the twelfth to the twenty-first. Wool nothing. Such mildness in the "levy of this odious tax, is absolutely unknown in England." Bishop, do you not begin to think, that it would have been as festly have in view, and which well to let the French Revolution you must necessarily mean to alone? The writer whom I am say has been experienced by quoting here, was long, and at France. These things reserved last died, Secretary of the Board for another part of my Letter, let of Agriculture and, so far from me proceed. You say that this being what is now-a-days, im-nation was preserved by the pudently called a "blasphemer," "quantity of virtue and good he was a man remarkable for his sense that existed in the counreligious piety. You see, then, try; that these were produced by that this French Revolution had the " free Constitution of our a cause; a real and efficient Government;" by the “equal cause, of which you have chosen administration of our laws;" by to say not one word: and now let the principles which regulate the us proceed to your second asser-Seminaries for the education of