nion is, that they will not be productive doning his clerical profession, is, in of any benefit to yourself; that they point of fact, to excommunicate him will not procure for you additional pre- from every other. ferment; I may, however, be mistaken in this opinion; and I wish not to dis- I am, rev. sir, J. LINCOLN. FROM THE REV. JOHN WRAY TO THE The question being susceptible of no other solution than this, my petitioning the legislature is no longer a matter of deliberation. That the legislature will hesitate for a moment, in granting relief to myself and others similarly situated, when the subject has been fully explained to them, I cannot believe. I enclose a form of the petition I shall present, containing the facts of my own individual case, and a general exposition of the principles of the church law by which I am aggrieved, and I confidently anticipate an assurance from your lordship, that you will be inclined to sup Bardney Vicarage, 24. May, 1834. MY LORD, -I thank your lordship for the explicit information you have at last afforded me. I have indeed a most comfortable choice. Utrum horum- port the prayer of it in the House of to retain my clerical character with the Lords. Should I accidently have mismeed of starvation, or "to relinquish stated or mistaken any point in the petithe same on pain of excommunication!" tion, I shall feel obliged by your lordExcommunication, my lord, has lost ship affording me the advantage of your most of the moral terrors, and many correction, and returning the draft at of the practical consequences, which at tended it in former times; but even now it is something more than a bug bear or a form. It incapacitates a man, durante culpa, from bringing any action, personal or real; from giving evidence, in any court or suit; and even from FROM THE LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN making a testamentary disposition of his property. So at least says our greatest authority on ecclesiastical law; and you will remark, my lord, that this is not a mere obsolete and nominal liabi your earliest convenience. I am, my lord, Your lordship's very obediednt servant. TO THE REV. JOHN WRAY. Buckden, 27. May, 1834. REV. SIR, In compliance with your request, I return the draft of your peti tion. I am certainly desirous to attend in my place when the petition is presented; and if you will be so good as to inform me to what member of the House of Lords you intend to intrust it, I will communicate with him and ascertain the day on which he means to present it. lity, but a positive deprivation from a man's security and rights. It is, in short, a sentence of outlawry against him in his dealings with mankind, and in most of the important business of life. It does not arm the law against him, but it takes from him the law's protection. Under such a disadvantage in his commerce with the world, it would be in vain for him to attempt to procure a livelihood by any worldly calling. The case, therefore stands The petition of John Wray, vicar of thus: The church, in return for my services, does not afford me the means of living, and effectually prevents me from procuring those means otherwise. I am, rev. sir, Bardney, in the county and diocese of Lincoln, Humbly Showeth, That your petitioner has, for twenty If not content to starve in the church, nine years, been a minister in the serI have the alternative of starving out of vice of the church of England, during it. To excommunicate a man for aban-which period he has officiated for more than twenty-eight years as vicar of through other high depositaries of pubBardney. lie patronage, for relief, without effect That the whole of your petitioner's cle- or encouragement. rical income is derived from the vicarage It is under these circumstances that.. of Bardney, his interest in another bene- your petitioner begs humbly to state fice, of which he is ostensibly the rector, that he was driven, by a painful sense of being merely nominal; and his Lord- his duty to his family, to contemplate ship the Bishop of Lincoln having felt the necessity of his seeking those means it his duty, in the year 1827, to deprive of a livelihood in some secular occираyour petitioner of a contiguous curacy, tion, which the church was incapable and impose upon him double service in of affording him. That upon acquainthis own parish, the same as is required ing his Grace the Archbishop of Canterupon the most wealthy and extensive hury with such an intention, his gracebenefices in the kingdom. kindly intimated to your petitioner, that, That although your petitioner does having been regularly ordained, the law not deny the correctness of his lordship would ever regard his acts as those of a the bishop's representation, namely, clergyman; and that his lordship, the that a parish so populous as Bardney, is Bishop of Lincoln, in explanation of the sufficient to occupy the exclusive at- caution thus volunteered by his grace, has tention of an incumbent, yet he begs explicitly informed your petitioner, that, humbly to submit that the income of having been once admitted a deacon or the benefice is utterly inadequate exclu- minister, "he cannot afterwards use sively to support one. That the rectory "himself in the course of his life as a is appropriated to the Lord Bishop him- "layman, upon pain of excommunica-self, who returns to the vicar an endow- "tion." ment of eight pounds only a year, and Your petitioner is aware that a senthat the total net income of the vicarage, tence of excommunication has lost most including the additions made to it by of the moral terrors, and many of the Queen Anne's Bounty, and a parlia- practical severities which it inflicted in mentary grant, does not exceed fifty earlier times. Nevertheless, he prepounds per annum. sumes to recall to the mind of your ho That with an income so incompatible nourable House, that even in the present with his situation, your petitioner would day, it has a tacit operation of the most have found it impossible to maintain the injurious tendency; that although it respectability of his profession, even in may not arm the law against the supthe most homely manner, and still more posed offender, it deprives him of its to have educated a family of thirteen protection; that it incapacitates him children consistently with his station from bringing any action, real or perand character as a clergyman, without sonal; from giving evidence in any suit some private resources of his own. That or court: and even from making a tesoriginally possessing a very small capi-tamentary disposition of his property: tal, he has gradually exhausted it in an in short, that although it may inflict no effort during twenty-nine years to supply positive punishment or penalty, it subthe deficiency in the legitimate means jects the party to civil disabilities which of his support; and that he is at last re-outlaw him, as it were, from the suc duced, at an advanced age, and with ten cessful pursuit of any worldly occupachildren yet unprovided for, to the pit- tion or profession; and leaves theretance arising from his impoverished fore to the unfortunate clergyman who vicarage. may not be able to procure the means Your petitioner implores your ho- of subsistence by the discharge of his nourable House to believe that he in- clerical duties, no other alternative but trudes upon its consideration with re- to starve contentedly in the performance luctance; and that he does not do so, of thein, or to starve as the penalty for until after having applied, not only abandoning them. through his diocesan and primate, but Your petitioner, therefore, humbly implores your honourable House to take nominal amount being still the same; his case into consideration, with the view and thus those who have made the laws, of affording such relief as in its wisdom and who have, in divers cases, changed may seem proper, either by enabling the laws to make salaries and other your petitioner, and others similarly payments out of the taxes accord situated, to derive that support from the with the fall in the value of money, church, to which their services entitle have suffered this crying, this monthem, or by indemnifying them from the consequences which they at present incur, when driven by necessity to seek the means of support elsewhere. And your petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever pray. JOHN WRAY. strous abuse to remain. The salaries of the judges, of police magistrates, of soldiers, of sailors, of all persons in office, of every description, have been constantly rising, in order to keep pace with this fall in the value of money; but those who have made the laws have taken care not to suffer the endowinents of the church to rise in the same way. This is one of the ways in which the church has been robbed, and which, in various instances, it has been impossible for an incumbent to live upon Now, I put it to the reader, whether this be a state of things to be borne by the people of this country? Here is a clergyman officiating for a large parish, with far less income than a journeyman his living. In the meanwhile; while carpenter; and, if you take his ten the livings have thus been swallowed children into account, with less to live up, immense sums have been granted, upon than a common day-labourer in out of the taxes paid by the people, "to Surrey. He has the name, you see, of "relieve the poor clergy of the church being the rector of another parish; but " of England." When the reader of the Bishop of Lincoln takes away the "The History of the Regency and Reign tithes of the rectory all but eight pounds of George the Fourth," comes to the a year! And Lord HARROWBY, a peer, last chapter of that history, he will rents the tithes of the bishop; poor Mr. find that, during that regency and WRAY is rector only in name, except reign, one million five hundred thouthe eight pounds a year! And how sand pounds were voted out of the taxes comes there to be this eight pounds a for the relief of the poor clergy of the year? Why, at the plundering Protestant church of England, while no one ever Reformation, the tithes of this living seems to have thought of restoring the were taken from the church and given to somebody else; or sold, or swapped, or something; but in this transfer an endowment was reserved for the rector or parson of the parish. Eight pounds a year were reserved for this purpose. But, the plunderers were not so unjust, and dared not set the people so com- at once; to compel parsons to reside; pletely at defiance, as to allot only to give them the church, churchyard, eight pounds a year of the present sort parsonage-house, and ancient glebe; to of money. The money of that day was just about twenty times the value of the money of the present day; so that the plunderers allotted a hundred and sixty pounds a year for the rector, at any rate. I thought that tithes were in themselves The discovery of the mines in America, unjust or injurious; but because the the lowering of the standard of money, distribution of them was become so inand the issuing of paper-money, have tolerably unjust, and because I was brought down that which was a hundred satisfied that the working clergy would and sixty pounds to eight pounds, the most prodigiously gain by the change. endowments settled at the Reformation, which had been left to be swallowed up by the nobility, the gentry, their families, and dependents, while the working clergy have really been half starving. Amongst my propositions at MANCHESTER was this, to abolish all tithes assure to them the church-dues, and for the rest, to leave them to the voluntary contributions of the people of the parish. I did not make this proposition because SPEECH OF MR. DIΧΟΝ. I would much rather see all the tithes for, if men have reason on their side; if restored to the church, and see the poor the scheme which they advocate be unrelieved and the churches repaired out assailable by argument. and by fact, of those tithes, by a constantly resident they laugh at opinions opposed to their clergy; but as this appears to be impos- own, and at all efforts to decry their sible, the other is the only alternative; projects. and what a blessing such a change I shall first insert the report of a would be to a man like Mr. WRAY! speech made by Mr. DIXON, at a meetAs the matter stands now the revenues ing of the subscribers to the new bankof the church are not employed for the ing scheme, held in Dublin on the 26. purposes of charity and religion. That July. I shall then insert a letter from they ought so to be employed every the same paper of the 23. of July, which man must allow; and there only wants letter is addressed to myself. When I the will of the House of Commons to have inserted these documents, I shall cause them to be thus employed. How- make such remarks upon them as apever more of this another time; for it pear to me to be sufficient for the preis one of the great and permanent evils sent. of the country; one that threatens us with a dreadful revolution; one that Mr. Dixon then said, I hold in my the Parliament has it in its power to hand the last weekly Register of the overcome; and to exercise which power notorious William Cobbett; and as it is its bounden duty: but there is the contains a somewhat lengthy article, other part of this subject; namely, the the object of which is to bring into pubdilemma in which Mr. WRAY is placed, lic disrepute the establishment whose the choice which he has, of starving in interests we are now assembled to prothe church, or starving out of it. In mote, I must crave your indulgence his letter of the 24. of May he describes while I offer a few remarks, not only in the effects of his now daring to follow defence of that establishment, but also any secular occupation. I request the of the motives which have induced its reader's particular attention to this let- projectors to submit it to the approbater, and to ask himself whether it be pos- tion of the Irish public. This article, sible for this Parliament to suffer the which is now making the circuit of the law and the church to remain in this Irish press, and adopted as the first or state? However, this must be a subject leading article in this journal-better of discussion in Parliament. It is im-known than trusted-is headed "Inpossible that the affair can remain in tense Humbug"; and its author, after this state; and with this observation I having run what I have no doubt he dismiss the subject for the present. conceives to be a very felicitous parallel between the Irishman and the Yankee, in which Paddy has anything but the best of it, gives the prospectus, which you have all perused, at full length. He then proceeds to quote the second rule in this prospectus, which states that the capital shall consist of five millions, in INTENSE BANKING SCHEME. I HAVE often had to observe that, in proportion to the clearness of the truth promulgated against opinions and projects is always the virulence of the one million of shares of five pounds party against whose opinions and whose each; and although, by the sixth rule it projects such promulgation is made; is, as he well knew, expressly provided and, if I wanted anything to convince that each individual may hold 300 me of the perfect correctness of my opi- shares, thereby rendering it a possinions relative to the new scheme of ble thing that the whole sum rebanking in Ireland, the SPEECH and the quired may be advanced by 3,333 LETTER, which I am about to insert from subscribers. He has, nevertheless, the DUBLIN Stewart's Dispatch, would the folly, as well as the hardihood, to produce that conviction in my mind; assert that not less than a million of 66 دو lation amounts to That the Scotch population 8 millions. 3 ditto 5 ditto men (why all men ?) in Ireland, each of affair to solve another problem, namely, whom has 5l. to spare, are necessary to whether there be at present too much make up the required amount. This is or too little paper-money in circulation; rather more than I should have expected but our worthy and enlightened chaireven from the veritable Wm. Cobbett. man has just handed me a statistical Sir, I need not follow him through his memorandum which would induce me random calculations about the men, to believe that Ireland is intensely sufwomen, and children, of whom the fering for want of a more extended cirIrish population is composed, as he has culating medium: so far only "set forth a naked and wil- It seems that the Irish popu"ful falsehood, and as you have the bane "and the antidote before you." But I proceed to his next assertion, that "it " is a great, a gross, and monstrous de"lusion to suppose, that if such an es- Excess of Irish above Scotch "tablishment could succeed, it would population "benefit the country." Now, Mr. And yet, sir, there ae 20 millions of Chairman, as to the hypothesis if such money (of different kinds) circulating in an establishment could succeed. It is Scotland, and only seven millions afloat admitted, that "when a small portion in Ireland; this speaks trumpet-tongued " of the community become bankers, in favour of an increase in the circulating " and receive real money as interest for medium of Ireland. To come, however, "the paper that costs them nothing, to the point in hand; we know the there is sense, although there is business of banking to be profitable, roguery in the transaction "; and I and we wish that its benefits should no suppose it will be admitted that these longer be enjoyed exclusively by the same sensible rogues being but a few, rich, but that they should be shared by do succeed so far, at least, as to make the middling and lower classes of the money by the undertaking. And I community. I have no doubt that would ask our precious logician what more than half the capital of the counadvantage ten persons would have over try is possessed by persons who cannot 10,000 in such an undertaking, especially spare so large a sum as fifty pounds, as the greater number would possess a and would it be wise, would it be just degree of public confidence (that essen- to exclude half the capital of the countial requisite in banking), which the try, and to shut out nine tenths of its. smaller could never hope to enjoy. Even inhabitants from a participation in the if all the members of the community profits of what is designated a national became co-partners in a paper circula-establishment ? I hardly need say that tion, or as Cobbett has it, in the trade our objector prophesies that if more of "lending paper-money to them- paper be put into circulation, the selves," it would only be, that the many "whole thing will blow up of its own would then share the profits which we accord." This is one of those foreknow the few at present exclusively bodings which he has put forth a hunenjoy. Let it be borne in mind, sir, dred times, and which have been as often that we are not (as this article would falsified by the event. We all rememseem to imply) about to substitute a ber his declaration, (made during his paper for a metallic currency, paper visit to America), that a New York being already the circulating medium sixpence would be worth more than a of this country-nor are we called upon Bank of England note, within a period to solve the abstruse and difficult ques- which has long since passed away. Nor tion, whether such a substitution could need I say to you, sir, that "the plunderbe effected with a due regard to existing schemers," (as he calls them), who ing interests, or, indeed, whether it have given to the public their time could be at all effected, in these com- and money to further the object mercial countries. Neither is it our of this establishment have been in |