COBBETT'S WEEKLY POLITICAL REGISTER. VOL. 82.-No. 12.] LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21ST, 1833. TO THE HAMPSHIRE PARSONS, ON [Price 1s. 2d. powerful friend, of the church establishment. But, in proportion as I was its friend, I was, of necessity, the enemy of those pluralists and non-residents, who were paving the way for its destruction, and who had engrossed the far greater part of all the church property in Hampshire, where I resided, and which county contained more of church property than any five or six others in the kingdom, and where the bishop had actually given LORD ALTHORP'S TITHE-CIRCULAR. to his own kindred benefices heaped Bolt-court, 18. December, 1833. one upon another, amounting to pretty HAMPSHIRE PARSONS,-You stuck to nearly thirty thousand pounds a year, me, like bloodhounds, from about 1808 while the miserable curates were starvto 1817, month of March, when you ing, and the people everywhere deserthad the delight to see me driven across ing the church, and crowding to the the Atlantic, in order to save myself Methodist meetings. I began with refrom your CASTLEREAGH'S and SID- monstrances, as gentle as remonstance MOUTH'S dungeons; and, like a true- could possibly be. But, gentle as it bred bulldog, I have hung on upon was, it brought your hatred upon me. you from that day to this. Your hatred Never disposed to put up with unjust of me was inspired by my being an ad- treatment of any sort, from any body, vocate for Parliamentary reform; but, your foul treatment of me was followed particularly, by my strenuous efforts to by resentment on my part: new acts of put an end to pluralities and non-resi- hostility from you, redoubled lashes of dence in the church. I was a sincere you by me; and this part of the history churchman; not that I had any pecu- of my life, if it were possible to go into liar attachment to its doctrines or its the detail of all the transactions, would ritual; not because I thought belonging make every honest man's heart bound to its communion made men better than with joy at the prospect of that retrithose who did not belong to its commu-bution which is now about to fall upon nion; but because experience had con- you. vinced me that an uniformity in the re- In 1817 you met at a county meeting, ligion of a country was a most desirable at WINCHESTER, under a general call thing; because it was reasonable and and muster on the part of the bishop just, that those who had neither house and the dean, to agree to an address to nor land, and who were the millions of the Prince Regent and the Parliament, a country, and who performed all its to thank them for the dungeon and useful labours, should have a church, a gagging bills of CASTLEREAGH and church-yard, a minister of religion, and SIDMOUTH, as being measures necessary all religious services performed for to the security, amongst other things, of them, at the expense of those who did our holy religion.' This address was possess the houses and the land. In a negatived by the meeting; but the word, in the church and its possessions sheriff (FLEMING, whose name was WILI saw the patrimony of the working LIS the other day), presented it as havpeople, who had neither house nor land ing been carried; but, your conduct of their own private property. For upon that occasion, who is ever to forthese reasons I was a friend, and a very get? Never, since the world was the sincere friend, and able to be a very world, was there assembled together a [Printed by W. Cobbett, Johnson's-court.] 66 N set of men, whose conduct was so black- due form, the Chancellor of the Excheguard as your conduct on that day. I quer, who is doomed to be the caterer told you then, that, instead of " our of this all-devouring monster, has, it holy religion," you ought to insert seems, sent round a circular to the "OUR TITHES." And I told you, churchwardens of the several parishes, my black boys, that you must look in order to ascertain THE VALUE OF sharp if you had those tithes quietly THE TITHES, as a preliminary step, another ten years. You have not had no doubt, to a disposal of them in some them quietly ten years since; and now new manner, by an act of Parliament. you are going to lose them altogether; Before I go further, I shall insert this aye, and I, WILLIAM COBBETT (whom CIRCULAR, which certainly lays the you so long endeavoured to destroy), foundation of measures which will, at shall be one of those who will vote for last, do you real, though tardy, justice. the taking of them away for ever! It is very clear, parsons, that the Ministers are going to propose some measure or other relative to the future ap : TITHES. "(An Official Circular). "Downing-street, Dec. 9. "GENTLEMEN,-I shall feel very much plication of tithes. It is impossible that" obliged to you if you will fill up the enclosed the thing can stand as it is that is im-"return, and send it back to me as soon as possible: the DEBT, which was caused you conveniently can. by the clergy more than by any other body of persons, cannot continue to be paid out of the sweat of the people any longer. That all-devouring monster ; that prodigious offspring of folly and tyranny combined, must now fly at something else to keep its maw filled;" and the church, duly prepared by causes which I shall hereafter have to state, presents to the monster a meal so large as to promise to last it for a good while. In order to get at this meal in should be precisely accurate: all I should wish "It will not be necessary that the return is, that you would make your answers as correct as your present information will enable you to do. A duplicate sheet is enclosed, "which you are requested to place in the "propriator, his manager, or agent, or such "hands of the reverend incumbent, the imother person as you may deem most competent to assist you in procuring the required information. Parish of 66 "I have the honour to be, gentlemen, your obedient humble servant, "ALTHORP. "To the churchwardens." 66 Before I proceed any further with | parson; so that the return will be you, parsons, I will take the liberty to pretty much what the parson may wish make a remark or two upon the gram- it to be. Nevertheless, this will be matical composition of this CIRCULAR ticklish work; for, if the parson put of my lord, who called me, the news down his tithes at less than their papers say, an enemy to the education amount, his compensation (for he will of the people." I do not pretend that have that in his eye) will be the less. It my Lord ALTHORP is an "ignorant will be the same with the impropriator; man," because he does not know that so that it will be an affair of difficulty the word "feel," in the first para- for the tithe-owners themselves; but graph, and the word "should," in the the great defects of the return will be second paragraph, are two striking these: we shall not know who the instances of nonsense; and because tithe-owners are; we shall not know "to request," and "to require," are two the extent of the pluralities; we shall very different things; and because he not know the amount of the improhas thus sent forth a mongrel paper, priate tithes; because there is no coneither private nor official; but I men-lumn to distinguish them from the cletion these things as instances, that a very sensible man, a man perfectly fit for his great office, a man of great experience, and possessed of a great store of knowledge with regard to all the affairs in which he is engaged, may, nevertheless, be so deficient in his knowledge of, or his care about, the words that he uses, as to expose himself to the criticism of men, mere word mongers, that call it education to be able to avoid similar errors. But, as to the substance of this circular, there is something most material omitted; namely, the NAMES OF THE SEVERAL TITHE-OWNERS. Several years ago, in remarking upon the diocesan returns, laid before Parliament, relative to the state of the churches, I observed that the returns ought to have been demanded from the overseers and churchwardens; that all the livings of every size, ought to have been included, instead of inserting only those that yielded less than a hundredand fifty pounds each; and that the names of the tithe-owners ought to have been given, together with all information re lative to the state of the edifice of the church, and the number of persons usually attending such church. The present returns, if, indeed, they come at all, will not answer the purpose intended by Lord ALTHORP. In the far greater part of the parishes, the churchwardens are the mere tools of the parson; to appoint one of the two he claims as a right, appertaining to his office as rical tithes. In the parish of FARNHAM, for instance, in which I was born, the tithes are, as they must be in every parish, what my lord calls either rectorial or vicarial, or both. In this parish they are both; but the rectorial tithes belong to a lay-impropriator, and the vicarial tithes to a clerical incumbent ; and, perhaps, the rectorial tithes amount to ten times as much as the vicarial. The return from FARNHAM will tell us nothing at all about this; or, at least, it will not tell us, that any part of the tithes are impropriate, and we shall have no means of judging from this set of returns, even if they were all made perfect, the proportion which exists between the lay and the clerical tithes. Then, again, there should have been a column to distinguish the tithes held by bishops, and by clerical and other corporations. But a still greater defect, perhaps, will be the absence of all specific information which would throw light on the question of "whether the establishment be of any use or not?" There should have been these columns; or, rather, answers to these questions. FIRST: Is there any church standing in the parish, or any chapel of ease, or other edifice, in which divine service, according to the rites and ceremonies of the church of England, is performed? SECOND: If so, how often is it per formed? N 2 : THIRD: Is the incumbent resident, and establishment is necessary to the purhow long has he been resident in the poses of religion? Not one; not one parish? in this whole world; while the common FOURTH Is there a parsonage-house sense of every man must tell him that, standing in the parish and kept in if anything could completely eradicate repair? all sense of religion from the minds of FIFTH If the incumbent be resident, the people, that dreadful purpose would does he reside in the parsonage be effected by the continuance of this house? establishment. : houses? SIXTH If there be a curate, what is Parsons, this is the strong ground the amount of salary which he whereon to stand in attacking you: the actually receives? argument of the Quakers against paying SEVENTH: What is the number of tithes, as being unscriptural things, persons that reside in the parish? are feeble,and,indeed,not worth a straw; EIGHTH If there be a place of worship for they cannot hold good with regard belonging to the establishment, in to a lay-impropriator, at any rate; and, the parish, what number of per- the argument of the dissenters on the sons usually attend divine service, score of religion is just the thing that in the said place of worship? you want; for then it becomes a contest NINTH Is there a dissenting meeting for faith, and then you have a great house in the parish; and, if more number of partizans; but make it, as than one, how many of such I do, a question of property, and inquire, as I do, into the application of that TENTH: What is the number of persons property; show, as I have a hundred that usually attend divine service times shown, that this property belongs in this meeting-house; or in these to the people at large; then the people meeting-houses in your parish? will rightfully call upon the Parliament, These questions being answered, and for the applying of that property to a true general return made out, we the best advantage for the people. should have a fair and full view of this What precise measures the Ministers matter and we should find about two may intend to propose, I cannot even hundred and thirty parishes without a guess; but I know one thing, and that church or chapel standing in them. is, that nothing short of complete aboWe should find two thousand parishes, lition of every species of tithe will be or more, in which the bishops and par- effectual in the preventing of something sons have suffered the parsonage-houses that is very like what is called revoluto tumble down; we should find ano- tion. What! a parish without even a ther two thousand, or thereabouts, with church or chapel standing in it, paying parsonage-houses, but unfit for people four or five hundred a year in tithes, as to live in, and turned into mere cottages or cow-sheds; we should find, in most places, two meeting-houses to one church or chapel; and I verily believe that we should find, that there are ten persons going to dissenting meeting-houses, where there is one person goes to a church or chapel of the establishment. This is the sort of return that we must have before the thing be over. This is the sort of return to have, and have it we must; and when we have it, will it be possible to find on this earth, except amongst the pluralist and nonresident parsons, a man so impudent as to assert, that the upholding of this things due to God and religion! What! three or four parishes paying tithes to one rector or vicar, and he at ROME for ten years at a time, notwithstanding the solemn declaration that he made at the altar at the time that he was ordained! What! four parishes in Hampshire, knowing that Lord GUILDFORD has the tithes of them all, seldom or never seeing even the face of Lord GUILDFORD, and only hearing that he resides at WALDERSHARE, in Kent; and told, at the same time, that the tithes of all these parishes are paid to "God and religion,” while this manifold rector is, they read of in the newspapers, carrying on prose cutions for the violation of the game ever hear of them; they know that you laws! What! the people see the do not teach their children; and that, Reverend THOMAS PENROSE with two though the churchwardens annually cerlivings in this church, receiving for tify to the bishop, that the children twenty-one years, a pension of two hun- communicate, hardly a working man in dred and thirteen pounds a year out of the kingdom ever saw or heard of such their sweat, for having been a political a thing being done; they know that chargé d'affaires at FLORENCE five you are frequently on the benches months in the year 1800! A thing perched up as justices of the peace; impossible! The thing cannot stand! they know that you frequently sentence I trust, that it is to be put down by law, and that thus we may be spared the horrors which must arise out of any other mode of putting it down. This them to punishment without trial by An established church, a church established upon Christian principles, is this: that it provides an edifice sufficiently spacious for the assembling of the people in every parish; that it provides a spot for the interment of the dead; that it provides The common, or working, people, a priest, or teacher of religion, to officiate and small farmers and country tradesin the edifice; to go to the houses of men, were the only prop that the estathe inhabitants; to administer comfort blished church has had for more than to the distressed; to counsel the way half a century. That prop is now ward; to teach children their duty to-gone: the people no longer trouble wards God, their parents, and their themselves with sectarian disputes; country; to perform the duties of marrying, baptizing and, burying; and, particularly, to initiate children in the first principles of religion and morality; and to cause them to communicate; that is to say, by an outward act of theirs, to become members of the spiritual church of Christ all which things are to be provided for by those who are the proprietors of the houses and the lands of a parish; and when so provided, are to be deemed the property or the uses, belonging to the poorest man in the parish, as well as to the richest. and, if we come to that, the church is as much a dissenter as any other sect. Mark that, parsons: if you have not opened your eyes before, open them now. Dissenter! Dissenter from what? Dissenter from the church established by law? That is to say, a person who disagrees with another upon a point settled by men, who lived no very great while ago, and who could be no more inspired by God than men of the present day are. Is there any man who has the impudence to say that this establishment was ordered by JESUS CHRIST, Or by his apostles? Oh, no! We know very well who it was ordained by: we have the acts of Parliament to refer to; and we know very well that that which an act of Parliament can make, another act of Parliament can unmake. Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Anabaptists, Unitarians, Methodists (of six. sorts in the cracked-skull county of them this in vain: they know, that York), Jumpers, Rumpers, Ranters, the church is not this thing now Quakers, Shakers, Separatists, Muggleto them they know that you do tonians, Brownists, Bryanites, Calvinists not visit their houses, and comfort (of five distinct sorts), Socinians, Souththem when they are sick, except in cotonians, Swedenborgers, Huntingtoinstances so very rare, that they hardly nians, Universalists, Freethinking Chris This is an established Christian church; and this, you, the parsons, will tell the people that they actually have; and you will tell the people who have no house and land, that in calling for the abolition of tithes, they are, in fact, calling upon the rich to take from them, the poor,the only property that they have in the country. Alas! you will tell |