FORMER SERFDOM OF THE PEASANTRY.

343

bullocks, without the employment of capital, and therefore they took in all the cottier-tenants they could collect.1

The farmers and cottiers were the veriest serfs-completely at the mercy of their masters, of the dominant creed, economically, socially, politically. They felt, and they were constantly reminded by the circumstances of their daily life and the traditions of their fathers, that by their landlords and by the statute law itself, they were merely tolerated on the face of the land. It is true, that though debarred from all political privileges, and jealously excluded from every avenue of social advancement, they still held on to the faith of their ancestors; but then, their modest little chapels, hidden away in remote dells or the back slums of a town, and so inadequate to the requirements of the congregation, that, on the Sundays, hundreds of worshippers might be seen kneeling outside the door, exposed to the inclemency of the weather-these, the places of worship of ninetenths of the population, existed only by sufferance. By sufferance only their humble priest, who ministered to their spiritual wants, continued to live and labour among them. By sufferance too, huddled in a ditch, they were able to secure to themselves, what Irishmen have always so highly prized, the blessings of education.

Some degree of education is also general (says Arthur Young); hedge schools, as they are called (they might as well be termed ditch ones, for I have seen many a ditch full of scholars) are everywhere to be met with, where reading and writing are taught; schools are also common for men ; I have seen a dozen great fellows at school, and was told they were educating with an intention of being priests. Many strokes in their character are evidently to be ascribed to the extreme oppression under which they live.2

Thus far indeed the Penal Laws had been mercifully relaxed; but at any moment they might be re-enacted.

1 Wakefield's 'Ireland,' vol. i. p. 267.
2 Tour in Ireland,' vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 107.

In 1809, Mr. Wakefield was informed,' that if the occupying tenants were desired to state how much they would give for their land, they were so frightened that they never made an offer, but rather remained silent, and afterwards submitted to any terms that the middleman might think fit to impose. There was no instance of their quitting the land rather than accede to the proposed conditions.2

The same writer tells us of a case of landlord tyranny and extortion which occurred in the county of Down in 1808, on one of the best estates in that county, and which, as it could not be doubted, for he had it on the best authority, he considered, ought to be publicly known from one end of the empire to the other. As soon as the proprietor came to age, his agent sent notice to all the tenants whose leases were expired, that there could be no renewal for them unless each consented to pay a fine of ten guineas per acre! But this was not all. To those in possession of leases a threat was held out, that unless they surrendered their leases, paid the required fine, and took out new leases, a mark would be placed against their names in the rental book, and not only they, but their heirs and families, would be for ever excluded from the benefit of a renewal.

Can words be found sufficiently strong (exclaims this English gentleman, conversant for many years with the management of land in England)—can words be found sufficiently strong to characterize this unparalleled exaction? Was it anything else than levying a tax of ten guineas per acre, nearly in the same manner as the autocrat of Russia would order a new impost by an Imperial ukase?

Those who would stoop to be the advocates of despotism, or to vindicate oppression, may perhaps tell me that the cases are widely different, and that the tenants were not obliged to submit to so unjust a demand. But the estate to which I allude extends over many miles of country, and a refusal on their part would have been sealing an act of expatriation. They had no alternative-they could only comply: and thus

1 By Mr. William Trench of Cangor Park, a gentleman distinguished for his acuteness and observation.'-Vol. i. p. 260.

2 Wakefield's 'Ireland,' vol. i. p. 260.

FORMER LANDLORD TYRANNY AND OPPRESSION.

345

the hard-carned savings of many years' labour were wrested from the hands of industry, to be employed, perhaps, in the worst of purposes. It was the apparent act of the numerous agents who infest the estate; but the plan must have been known to, and approved by, the When tenants experience treatment of this kind, can they be attached to their landlord? And must not such conduct contribute, in no small degree, to increase discontent, and excite disaffection? 1

owner.

Let us hope that such cases were not general. That such things should at all occur, nay, that they were possible, can be understood only by those who, like my readers, have traced the history of Ireland, political, social, and economic, down from the first Parliament of Kilkenny to the commencement of this century.

Instances were not infrequent at the time of advantage being taken of the slightest flaw in the powers of a lessor.

A practice which those who take leases should guard against, is that of fining down the rent by the payment of a large sum when the contract is first made; for in most settlements this circumstance will vitiate the lease. The custom of taking all advantage of such oversight is now so general that breaking a contract of this kind is not considered in Ireland as the smallest violation of honour. I have frequently been in company with noblemen and gentlemen who had acted in this manner with perfect impunity, and who did not seem in the least ashamed of their conduct.2

The worst feature in such transactions appears to be the 'perfect impunity' of those who thus set at naught the first principles of common honesty. What a state of society it must have been that not only tolerated but condoned such conduct! 'I am however happy to state,' continues Mr. Wakefield, that a more delicate sense of moral rectitude seems to prevail among the people of England. A gentleman in Essex a few years ago took a similar advantage to the prejudice of his tenants; but, though he raised his income by this mean subterfuge, he lost the confidence of his neighbours, and his conduct was universally detested.'3

Wakefield's Ireland,' vol. i. p. 257.

2 Ibid. p. 244.

3 Ibid.

CHAPTER LXXIII.

TITHES; THE PECULIAR Burden of THE POOR MAN IN IRELAND FORMERLY; THE RICH NEARLY ALTOGETHER EXEMPT-TITHE OF AGISTMENT ABOLISHED BY A RESOLUTION OF THE IRISH HOUSE OF COMMONS IN 1735; ITS ABOLITION MADE LAW BY THE ACT OF UNION IN 1800-TITHES THUS THROWN ALTOGETHER ON TILLAGE-GENERAL MODE OF COLLECTING TITHES IN IRELAND; THE PROCTOR, THE MIDDLE-PROCTOR; THE FARMING OF TITHES; SALE OF TITHES BY AUCTION, ON THE PREMISES-TITHES A CHECK TO INDUSTRY-FEELINGS OF A POOR COTTIER HANDING OVER ONE-TENTH OF HIS GROSS PRODUCE, A FIRST CHARGE, TO THE MINISTER OF A CREED ANTAGONISTIC TO HIS OWN; THE INTERIOR LIFE OF THIS POOR COTTIER, AS SKETCHED BY AN ENGLISH MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, FIFTY YEARS AGO; HIS ONLY COW SEIZED FOR TITHE-SUCH CASES FREQUENT; THEIR RESULTS, GENERAL EXASPERATION AND AGRARIAN OUTRAGE-THE EVILS OF THE TITHE SYSTEM FREQUENTLY URGED ON THE EXECUTIVE, BUT WITH NO EFFECT; MR. GRATTAN THEREON IN 1788-GREAT NUMBER OF PROCESSES FOR TITHES IN QUARTER SESSIONS; THE COSTS OF PROCEEDINGS VERY HEAVY ON THE DEFENDANTS.

TITHES were the peculiar burden of the poor man in Ireland. From them the rich were nearly altogether exempt. That the poor persecuted farmers and cottiers should have been compelled to contribute a large proportion towards the support of the dominant creed-a creed sought for centuries to be forced upon them by grievous pains and penalties-may, from what we have already seen, be well understood; but that they had to bear nearly the whole incidence of this tax on industry, of this impost so galling to their feelings and so opposed to their conscientious convictions, will come upon many of my English readers with no small surprise. But such was the case, and in the history of no other country in any age is such an anomaly presented.

After the Reformation the clergy of the Establishment had great difficulty for a considerable time in collecting their tithes, as the lands of the country were nearly all in the possession of the Catholics. But, after the Treaty of Limerick, when the

TITHES.

347

Catholics were universally dispossessed and broken down, the new possessors evinced fully as strong an objection to yield to the ministers of their own creed those tenths to which they were constitutionally entitled. In the year 1720 the clergy, being systematically refused by the landlords the tithe of agistment,' took proceedings to recover it in the Court of Exchequer. The law decided in their favour, but this by no means settled the question. Their claim in every instance was strenuously resisted; and in the year 1735 the Irish House of Commons adopted unanimously the resolution, that any lawyer assisting in a prosecution for tithes of agistment should be considered an enemy to his country.' This resolution had practically all the force and effect of an Act of Parliament. The incumbents were robbed, but they were powerless; for what could they do against the supreme authority of the State? The case stood thus for sixty-five years, when in the debate on the Act of Union Sir John Macartney, aware that such a resolution was not law, moved, as part of the Act, the abolishment of tithe of agistment, which was meant merely to throw a stumbling-block in the way of the Union, as it was not expected the minister would agree to such a measure. The minister suffered it quietly to pass, and that which before the Union was only a resolution of the House of Commons then became a formal Act. of Parliament. The tithes of Ireland therefore fell on only tillage land, which was nearly altogether held by the peasantry. As tillage increased with the growth of population tithes

1 Agistment (from the French gésir, the Norman agiser, to be levant and couchant), the taking and feeding of other men's cattle in the king's forest, or on one's own land. The tithe of agistment, properly speaking, was the tithe of cattle and other produce of grass lands, paid to the rector by the occupier of the land, and not by the person who sent his cattle there to graze, at a certain rate per head per week. The Irish proprietors, however, feeling that they had the power, as they constituted both Houses of Parliament, determined that their own fat bullocks and cows grazing on their own lands should be altogether exempt from tithe, and that the impost should fall exclusively on the tillage of the farmers, they having little or no tillage themselves. 2 A.D. 1800.