however appeared. The police, and even the King's troops, were harassed by continual service in the miserable work of protecting tithe proctors, and securing distresses levied for small sums. The Government had, without avail, become collectorgeneral of the unpopular impost; and those who were most solicitous in preserving its moral influence and sanction, shrunk from the spectacle, and earnestly desired to see the civil and ecclesiastical authorities dissociated, so far at least as the exaction of the incomes of the clergy was concerned.

Meanwhile it had become absolutely indispensable that some further attempt at legislation should be made. Tithes were not collected, and the clergy were reduced to absolute want. A bill had been prepared, under the advice of Lord Wellesley, by which tithes, as a tax leviable from the occupiers of land, were to be wholly abolished, and in lieu thereof a new impost, termed a rent-charge, was to be imposed upon the owners of property, equivalent to four-fifths of the average amount previously paid by the tenantry. The resolution moved by Mr. Littleton, as Secretary for Ireland, on which the bill embodying this plan was to be grounded, had been opposed by Mr. Sheil and

those who shared his opinions, as unsatisfactory, and as being calculated in no respect to settle the question at issue. It might enlist the pecuniary interests of the landlords in enmity to the Church, but it would fail to reconcile the people to the payment, under the name of additional rent, of a tax whose exclusive purpose was to remain unchanged. On the second reading of the bill, on the 2nd of May, these objections were reiterated; and Mr. Sheil pointedly asked if members of the Government were or were not agreed amongst themselves as to the ultimate appropriation of surplus ecclesiastical revenues, if, under improved management in the mode of collection, any such should arise? The notoriety of their disagreement on this head rendered this interrogatory all the more perplexing. While the Secretary for the Colonies firmly adhered to the doctrine of the inalienability of Church property, and resisted various proposals of Mr. O'Connell and others for a modification of the bill, Lord John Russell defended it upon the ground that he considered it a project to preserve and economise a great fund devoted to purposes of religion and morality, and that if these purposes were hereafter found to be imperfectly answered, it would be within the province of Parliament to consider what

improved mode might be adopted for its appropriation. These sentiments were hailed by a numerous section of the Liberal party as inaugurating a new policy; but as yet no direct recognition of their adoption by the administration of Lord Grey was made.

While Ministers remained divided as to the course which they ought to pursue, on the 27th of May, Mr. Ward moved the following resolution :-"That the Protestant Episcopal Establishment in Ireland exceeds the spiritual wants of the Protestant population ; and that it being the right of the State to regulate the distribution of Church property in such manner as Parliament may determine, it is the opinion of this House that the temporal possessions of the Church of Ireland, as now established by law, ought to be reduced." Mr. Grote having seconded the motion, Lord Althorp, without giving an opinion on the merits of the question, asked the House, in consequence of peculiar and important circumstances that had just come to his knowledge, to suspend the discussion until the 2nd of June, when he should be prepared to state the reasons which had led him to propose this unusual course. It soon transpired that the circumstances were the secession from the Ministry of Mr. Stanley, Sir James Graham, the Duke of Richmond, and Lord

VOL. II.

Ripon, who, finding themselves out-voted in the Cabinet by those who approved of the principle contained in Mr. Ward's resolution, had determined to resign. The vacant offices were immediately filled by Mr. Spring Rice, Lord Auckland, the Marquis of Conyngham, and Lord Carlisle. When the House re-assembled, these changes, and some others consequent thereon, were explained; and it was announced that a Royal Commission had been appointed to inquire into the proportions of the population in every parish in Ireland, together with the means of religious and secular instruction in each. This inquiry which by implication involved the whole principle in controversy, was objected to by Mr. Stanley and Sir R. Peel; but Mr. Ward having refused to withdraw his motion, the previous question was carried by 396 to 120. Subsequent modifications, with a view to conciliate the owners of property whose estates were to become so heavily chargeable to the Crown, were proposed by Mr. Littleton, upon which Mr. Stanley openly assailed his late colleagues as guilty of insidious designs for the spoliation of the Church, and compared their conduct to the practice of those who plundered the unwary by means of the game called "thimble-rig." Many fruitless dis

cussions ensued; and before any progress could be made with the bill, new and unlooked-for changes in the Government occurred.

The Coercion Act of the preceding session had been passed for but one year. In moving its reenactment on the 1st of July, Earl Grey had stated that it had been found effectual for its purpose; agrarian disturbances had indeed greatly diminished, but this was attributable in no slight degree to the curb placed on political agitation, with which, in the opinion of the then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, these outrages were "connected by an indissoluble chain. of cause and consequence;" Lord Wellesley had therefore recommended that, with the exception of the clauses respecting courts-martial, the Act in its entirety should be renewed. Two days after, Mr. O'Connell stated in the Commons that, upon the assurance of the Secretary for Ireland, given on the 20th of June, that the clauses against public meetings should be abandoned, he had induced an opposition candidate to withdraw from Wexford, and that he had been led to believe that the Irish Government had not required their retention in the bill, and that if the whole of the correspondence with Lord Wellesley on the subject were produced, this fact would appear.