Priests are allowed to get and force a large measure of oats annually from the poorest creature in the parish, the poorest widow not excepted! This collection the Priest is allowed to make; provided that, of the collected oats, he sends a sack to the Bishop annually!!!

"If the poor had any forecast, they would establish a court of inquiry; to know by what authority, right, or law, they are so inhumanly oppressed. Not from the Pope of Rome, I am sure, can Doctor W. have a right to these forced, exaggerated collections: not from the King; nor from his Parliament.

"He persecutes me for an example to the rest of his Clergy; that by my sufferings they may be intimidated, and subservient to his orders upon all occasions.

"The great Father of us all has left us the Sacred Oracles of his divine mandates, in the Holy Scriptures, to govern us during our transitory sojournment in this vale of tears; but the people appointed to be our instructors are determined to blindfold us, in order they may be the better enabled to oppress us!!!

"The Bishop has Chapels: why not make use of them? Why does he not confine his Priests to hearing the people's confessions in the Chapel; and rescind the scandalous oppressive abuses that his Clergy daily practise, by hearing confessions in private houses? He allows his Clergy to go cabin-hunting, alternately from house to house, and from village to village; to hear confessions in private houses, nay, even in private rooms, in evident opposition to Ecclesiastical discipline, and to the Canons of the Church!

"At Christmas and Easter, it is the rule with every Parish Priest on Sunday to publish his weekly stations through the villages; On Monday, for example, at such a man's house all the villagers are to attend; men, women, married, and unmarried.

"Should, however, any one absent himself this day, for

the want of money or any other excuse, however legitimate, the Priest sends the vestments to his house on the following day, as a punishment upon the miserable man. This poor individual is then obliged, should he pawn his blanket, to prepare a dinner for the Priest; with tea and sugar, bread, beef, mutton, fowl, hay, and oats, and plenty of whiskey: although it may be for the want of a shilling to pay the Priest's dues, that the unfortunate wretch absented himself the day before, which he could not pay at this periodical season of the Priest's dues!!!

"On Tuesday, the same at some other man's house, in some other village; and so on, until all the confessions are heard in all the parishes of this diocese. Easter comes on, and the same line of conduct is observed by the Priest as at Christmas.

"At a moderate average, one or two guineas in bread, tea and sugar, beef, mutton, fowl, and whiskey, hay and oats, will not defray the expenses of the Priest; who has a right to invite all his friends to the feast! Any one who wishes to be exempt from these heavy charges, must be on the alert, and very cautious to send butter, eggs, chickens: in a word, he must ingratiate himself well, by means of these little complimentary perquisites, into the Priest's favour, a little before the return of these periodical seasons of Christmas and Easter.

"Now, before these confessions begin, the Priest tells them, that it is intended to do penance for their sins, which is best done by fasting and prayer; but which is quite opposite to the grand feast that the Priest not only expects, but must necessarily have, though he was sure the miserable creature should go and beg the next day. I leave the world at large to judge what kind of penance that is!!!-Some Priests will not drink whiskey: they must have rum, brandy, or wine, by which they get basely drunk before they leave the poor man's house; and, in return for his civilities, they insult him with the most gross and ignominious language.

"The good usage which the Priest has got, and the extravagant expenses he has occasioned, are no protection to the poor man against abuse and insult. I have known a Priest (Mr. M, at Backs), to charge the man of the house for a bottle of wine, when he did not, on one of these occasions, get it to drink; though the man had a bottle of rum for him. In Templeboy parish, through vengeance and an old grudge, a certain Priest, Mr. B-, went to a poor widow's house to hear confessions. This poor widow had but a small cock of hay for the use of a little heifer. The hay she sold, to be able to procure a dinner for the Priest. Her means did not allow her to buy any whiskey. The Priest told her, she owed him half-a-crown for confessions: this half-a-crown she retained off the price of the hay, to pay the Priest. Accordingly, when dinner was served up, she said to the Priest, I have no spirits for you, nor any means to get it but this half-a-crown you say owe you, and which I retained of the price of my little cock of hay, will you take it in lieu of the debt, or shall I send it for spirits?' The Friest took the half-a-crown, put it in his pocket, drank water at that dinner; and replied, he might soon have a call to some other place, where he could get enough to drink."

I

"I could make up a volume, were I to recapitulate all the abuses of this nature I know; but for brevity sake I omit them for the present. Every head of a family must pay an English shilling, at Christmas and Easter, and every woman a hank of yarn: the unmarried, sixpence halfpenny. No exceptions of widows, orphans, servants, male or female; and if any remittance is made, it is to the rich, and not to the poor. It is made to those who are not real objects of charity. Innumerable are the examples of extortions that I could detail.

"Priests who never have set their feet within the walls of a Convent, Seminary, or College; who are the real repre

sentatives of ignorance, Canes muti, non valentes latrare, as the Prophet describes them; greedy and dumb dogs, not able to bark, are constituted Parish Priests in this deplorable diocese. They have the care of souls, and, like the blind leading the blind, they will both inevitably fall into the ditch. These are they of whom I can enumerate Eleven (nearly one half of the number in this diocese), who with unaccountable dominion tyrannize over the imbecility and weakness of their poor adherents; and whom the Bishop is said to hold in great esteem and high honour, for his own private views! Is not this the strongest reason, motive, and incentive, that makes them with so much obstinacy resist the Veto, for fear that in any respect whatsoever their clerical dominion should suffer the smallest diminution?

"Will not those Bishops and Clergymen be considered rather perjurers than loyal subjects, who have taken their oaths of allegiance; and who deny the King a prerogative that cannot, by their concession, hurt their consciences, in consenting to merely a point of discipline, not contrary to faith or morals? If, indeed, they could aver that the Veto was contrary to faith or morals, there might they have a founded excuse; and then the King, or any man of sound judgment, would not impute any blame to them, in resisting the Veto even at the expense of their lives. They however only see at distance some shadow, which they are afraid will diminish the control and dominion that they have over the minds of the people; who are but too unfortunately dupes to them, in matters that do not concern their eternal salvation.

"Our Clergymen boast of being Teachers and Doctors of the Catholic Church; that in this Church alone Salvation is attainable; that God is their Father; that the Church is their Mother; that they live in the society of the only Spouse of the only Son of God; that they are daily partakers of the Sacraments, those conduits of heavenly grace

95 to the soul; that they live in the communion of saints, &c. In God's name, if they possess all these advantages and blessings, why do they become extortioners? why oppressors of the children of God? Should not their faith be conformable to their profession? Do not their lives give the lie to their faith? We see them so prone to gratifying the flesh and the world, that no description of people are fonder of their bellies; Sancho Panza never gave greater testimonies of eagerness to fill his paunch than they do! In the pursuit of amassing riches, and aiming at high honours, no class of men can exceed them; and all would be well enough if they did not oppress, and publicly rob, and extort from the poor, even from the most abject examples of poverty!

"This pamphlet is but the work of a week and if it does not produce the desired effect, of reforming the Bishop and his Clergy, I will soon put another to press that will be móre particular; and that will clearly and more circumstantially depict them in their proper colours, as it will regard individuals, with a summary account of their scandalous excesses by which our holy religion is so much trampled on.-I shall be glad that Doctor W. or any of his Clergy, would state in answer to this any of the facts that may appear to him as untrue or fallacious. His answer may lead to a more ample inquiry.

"The Public will consider his giving no answer as a proof that all the facts are true: and if so, an amendment of life and conduct is all that is aimed at and required; which that God may grant, is the humble hearty wish and prayer of the reader's

"Most obedient humble servant,"

***

This statement was printed, with the author's name, in 1817; and I know the person who possesses the original manuscript. We have here, Sir, an authentic specimen of Irish slavery and Popish Intolerance!