CHAP. VII. lics are the occupiers of all, or nearly all, the land in the parish; whether tillage or pasture, bog or ation vested in mountain; encumbered already with a rack-rent Powers of tax Protestant parishioners. Jobs to trades. of perhaps £3 per acre, payable to some absentee landlord; subject also to tithes, to grand-jury cesses and county charges, continually encreasing together with the odious and oppressive tax of 3d. per pound, recently imposed upon the gross rents payable by the poorest occupiers. Six, eight, or more Protestant parishioners meet together in Vestry, and applot considerable sums, under the specious title of "necessary repairs, buildings, &c. for the church." To accommodate the carpenter, new seats, doors, and other wood work, are voted: to the mason, repairs of walls, or perhaps a spire, bellfry, or other subject of employment to the glazier, new windows: to the clerk, a salary, &c. Thus this Vestry, like an Irish GrandJury, creates lucrative presentments for its members and the amount is levied rigorously upon the defenceless Catholics. The rate thus struck is generally an acreable Vestry cess of 11.34. per acre. one: it varies, annually, from 6d. per acre to any higher sum. In the County of Dublin 1s. 3d. per acre is a common rate. In many places it amounts to 2s. per acre; and it lies wholly within the prudence and conscience of CHAP. VII. the Vestry, whether the rate may not one day be advanced to 10s. per acre, or more. In reality a The rate upon 4,000 acres, at only Is. 3d. per acre, amounts to £250 yearly. Now, some farms Land tax upon in the parish may not be intrinsically worth the Catholics in Moreover, the farmer's may be more than per acre. Whether the foregoing case is or is not imaginary, may be doubted; we appeal to facts, and court an inquiry. Ireland. Necessary con But an ordinary acquaintance with human nature must render actual proof superfluous. That these practices are fully warranted by the Law that they are encouraged by every legal sequence of the facility and impunity that the Protestants are (like other men) liable to the errors and vices, as well as possessing the virtues of humanity: that in many parishes a certain number of Protestants may be prompted to resort to such practices, Penal Laws. CHAP. VII and that the Catholics must patiently submit to them, are facts perfectly sufficient to demonstrate Hardships imposed upon the the monstrous injustice of the Laws, of which Catholics. we treat, and the iniquitous system of taxation, which grinds the Catholic People. Further incapacities of Catho SECTION IV. Further exclusion from Vestries. THE Catholics are also incapacitated from lics in Vestries. Voting, in Vestries, upon any question 25 Geo. 3. 66 re specting the demising or disposing of the parish income or estate; or for the salary of "the Parish Clerk; or at the election of any "Churchwarden." It may appear somewhat extraordinary, that ch. 58. Sect. 3. this incapacity has originated so recently, as in the year 1785: but such is the fact. Irish Parliament of 1785. Geo. S. 21, seet. 4, In the very year, in which the Irish Legislature rejected Mr. Pitt's celebrated commercial propositions, and diffused such a pompous alarm for the rights and independence of Ireland, they did not hesitate to pay this new compliment to the rights of the great majority of Irishmen. In 1793, they re-enacted it, by the Statute wo have so frequently noticed. By this Class of interdiction, they have se- CHAP. VII. eured, to the Protestant inhabitants in every parish: 1. The power of demising and dis- Disposal of the posing of the parish income and estate amongst parish income monopolized. themselves, at any undervalue, and according to their discretion; and of levying the annual deficiency upon the Catholic Land-occupiers, under the general head of Church-rates. 2. The power of nominating the Parish Parish Clerks Clerk-for they may withhold his salary, if not elected solely by them. 3. The power of nominating the Churchwarde Churchwarden-so as uniformly to bestow the office upon a Protestant, where it is an office of profit or patronage, as in Dublin, Cork, &c.and to inflict it upon a Catholic, where it is an office of expense, risk, and labour, as in Kilkenny, &c. For the Catholic, if nominated, is compellable to execute this office in person, and does not partake of the indulgence (which the sect. 4. Law grants to the Dissenters) of executing it by deputy. This last-mentioned disqualification presents a fresh instance of the caprice and inconsistency 6 Geo. 1.ch 5 Caprice and principles of these Penal CHAP. VII. with which these Penal Laws abound. Catholics may not vote at elections of Churchwardens; contradictory yet they may (and must, if elected) exercise the office of Churchwarden. On a contradictory principle, Catholics may vote at Elections of Members of Parliament; yet they may not, though elected, sit or vote as such Members. Laws. How these paradoxes are reconcilable to any rational system of Legislation, we are unable to discover. Churchwardens TO be compelled to undertake the office of Churchwarden, by the mandate of other persons, is a hardship of which the Catholics. are entitled seriously to complain. Not only is the mode of nomination oppressive and unjust, but the office may, under certain circumstances, prove laborious, chargeable, and eventually ruinous. It is also a manifest violation of the rights of conscience to impose such an office upon any man, who cannot conscientiously concur in the peculiar form of 6 Geo. 1.ch. 5. worship adopted by the Protestant church; a sect. 4. principle virtually acknowledged even by the "Statute, which has exempted the Dissenters. from liability to this burden. . |