for manure, he turned her out, and sent his own servant to gather them.

There he acted legally; no one could say otherwise, for the churchyard was his freehold, as some lawyers will have it, and he had an undoubted right to the leaves. He was left his right; the leaves were his, but the Catholic corpse was no He succeeded there, because he ought to do so. He triu aphed over the old woman, but shrunk from the people who surrounded the funeral; and while in Cork he no more attempted the insult, but in Dublin he revived it.

To be sure, he was drinking the waters of Cheltenham when it was attempted in Dublin, and he, therefore, considered himself authorized to deny to the people of England that he had any participation in the outrage; but had he denied it in Dublin? He (Mr. O'Connell) wished most sincerely that he could do so. No man would be more ready to give him credit for it, and the prelate would thereby redeem himself from an attempt to create more serious discontent amongst the people of Ireland, than any other occurrence since the infamous violation of the treaty of Limerick.

Tho committee had endeavoured to perform the duty committed to them on the subject of a burial ground, and their first consideration was the law of the case; and if his legal reputation was of any value to him, he would pledge it, that there was no point of law to prevent their having burying grounds.

Having ascertained that necessary preliminary, their next object was, whether they could procure the ground wanted; and upon inquiry they found many pieces of ground, of three or four acres, in different situations, and within such distances of the city as would answer their purpose. It had been communicated to them that burial grounds in several directions, and in proportion to the population of the district, would be more advantageous than one general burial ground for the city. The committee were of opinion that upon a subject requiring so much information, and in order to carry it fully into effect in the way most advantageous, the committee should have power to add to their number, and also to request the co-operation of Doctor MURRAY.

The following was their

"Your committee have duty committed to them.

REPORT.

endeavoured diligently to attend to the They have entered zealously into the

views of the Association. They have felt it a pleasing daty to assist in calming the public mind, agitated by a species of persecution novel in its nature, and afflicting in its application. They have been desirous to take away this new subject of irrilation, which has been unhappily introduced in our times, as if the Catholics were not already sufficiently afflicted, or as if it were not deemed sufficient to oppress and degrade the living, without offering insult and outrage to the dead.

"We, Catholics, have been deeply anxious to obviate this new source of animosity and resentment. Our first wish has ever been to reconcile our countrymen of all denominations. We wish to live on terms of amity and affection with our Protestant follow-countrymen. We earnestly desire to be united with them in our lives, and not to be separated from them in death.

"But there is a different spirit abroad. Men who call themselves ministers of the God of charity, and who receive the good things of this world in great abundance for making that profession, have clothed themselves in the garb of the demon of discord, and have exercised a vicious ingenuity, in order to discover a new method of outraging the feelings of a religious and faithful people. They have gone beyond the letter, or even the spirit of the penal code, and have found out another mode of persecution, which the laws of man cannot sanction, and the laws of charity must condemn.

"Under these circumstances, we have felt it our duty as faithful subjects, anxious to maintain public peace and private tranquillity, to devise means of avoiding these occasions of irritation or violence. The genius of bigotry has deprived us, in this our native land, of our fair and just share in the administration of municipal and public trusts. We have been and are unjustly deprived of our station as freemen, because of our adherence to the religion of our ancestors; and now we are obliged to quit the tombs of those ancestors, and abandon the melancholy consolation of laying our bones with theirs, and relinquish all hope of ever resting in the same spot with them, because of our anxiety to preserve peace, and avoid the occasions of ill-will, of hatred, and of strife.

"Animated by these sentiments, your committee has entered upon the performance of its duties. It is enabled with confidence to state :

"First. That there are no legal obstacles to prevent the Catholics from acquiring two or more tracts of land, in the vicinage

of Dublin, for the purpose of converting them into burial grounds.

66

Secondly. That there are no practical difficulties in the way of procuring sufficient quantities of land for this purpose.

"Your Committee next beg leave to recommend to the Association, either to continue the present Committee, with augmented numbers, or to appoint a new and enlarged Committee, in order to carry into practical effect the present object.

"We take leave to suggest that the new Committee should be directed to solicit, in the most respectful manner, the co-operation of his Grace the Archbishop, the Most Rev. Doctor MURRAY, and of the Catholic rectors of the several parishes in this city, and to arrange with these reverend personages the best mode of raising the necessary funds, and of appointing proper trustees, and of arranging all the details which will be found necessary to effectuate our purpose with expedition and security.

"As we have reason to be convinced that the necessary funds can easily be procured, we deem it right to suggest, that the Committee should be authorized immediately to advertise for quantities of land, in parcels of not less than two, and not more than three acres ; such parcels to be all situate within two miles, in any direction, of the Castle of Dublin.

"And this we respectfully submit as our report.

"15th November, 1823.”

"DANIEL O'CONNELL, Chairman.

MR. O'GORMAN (Secretary) reminded Mr. O'Connell of three notices, saved for him from the last day:-tithes; the extension of the Association; and the appointment of a committee to procure evidence in support of the petition, to be presented by Earl Grey, upon the administration of justice in Ireland.

MR. CONWAY thought the tithe subject might be put off, as it was to be con sidered next session of parliament.

MR. O'CONNELL was of opinion that the reason given by Mr. Conway for not entertaining the question, was only one why they should petition, not against the bill, but the principle upon which it was founded.

The bill was impracticable, and its provisions excessively oppressive. The most galling and serious grievance of the tithe system was, the inability of the peasant to oblige the clergyman to receive his tithe in kind. If there was such a provision, the peasant would escape the fangs of the tithe proctor; but that would not serve the purposes of the rapacious gentry who live by the commotions of discontent of the lower orders.

That he (Mr. O'Connell) was not exaggerating, he referred to the instance of the well-known Parson Morrit, who was offered. by the peasantry of Skibbereen, his tithe in kind, with ten shillings an acre, which he refused. What he (Mr. O'Connell) had stated was given in evidence upon oath, before a committee of the House of Commons, and was not refuted by any one.

Within a few days, a most extraordinary instance of the unaccommodating and heartless spirit with which tithes are exacted from the peasantry, had come to his knowledge personally. He was not then at liberty to mention the name of the gentleman from whom he had received the information; but if it were necessary, he could do so in a few days. He (Mr. O'Connell) had been written to by a gentleman from the country, who stated that a Parson Morgan, of his parish, had received £1,200 per annum, in compensation for a portion of his tithes ; and in consequence, he (the writer) had served the parson with a notice to take his tithe in kind (as Mr. Scully had advised). But the parson refused taking the tithe in kind, because being corn, and owing to the state of the weather, it had been stacked, instead of leaving it on the ground, where in a few days it would have been rotted!

The writer, in order not to furnish the parson with any excuse, had, when giving him notice, taken care to pull down the stack, and give him his choice; but as the corn had been in stack, the parson refused taking it, and, in consequence, cited the gentleman, who was determined to fight him out, for the benefit of his Catholic tenantry.

Yet these are the men who bewail the turbulence, and deprecate the discontents of the Irish peasantry, who harassed under such paltry pretences, as that the tithes were saved for the parson, are occasionally driven to excesses, whose consequences none feel more heavily than themselves.

He (Mr. O'Connell) was not sorry the new tithe bill had passed, for it afforded an opportunity to touch upon what was long regarded as a prohibited subject, and an invasion of the Church's rights. They (the Catholics) could now expose to the English nation, and to Europe, the oppressions of those, who, through the medium of the vilest press that ever cursed a country, exclaim against Irish civilization and Catholic agitation.

It was not possible to conceive a more fruitful source of litigation and oppression than was the tithe system. The common and the ecclesiastical law, instead of being applied to the prescrvation of the mutual rights of the parson and the peasant,

were transformed into the instruments of oppression against the latter; for by the ecclesiastical law, a notice to the clergyman is necessary to oblige him to take his tithe in kind; but the common law says no notice is necessary; and that species of tithe, in which the peasant is most interested, is left without the protection of any statutable provision.

Every clergyman cites him to the ecclesiastical court, where he has very little chance of succeeding; and if proceeded against by civil bill, he must abide the decision, not certainly of the parson, but frequently of the tithe owner. But then the peasant is told, he has his remedy, by-an appeal to the Court of King's Bench, for a prohibition!!! Certainly a splendid remedy for a poor peasant! But as HORNE TOOKE once replied to LORD KENYON, when the latter told him, “there was law in England for the poor as well as the rich"-"so the London Tavern is open, but who will get anything to eat in it without money?”

It would, however, be well for the peasant to know, that under the 12th of Geo. III., if the clergyman was served with fortyeight hours' notice to draw away his tithe in kind, he could not complain of its being stacked, nor demand payment in lieu; but even that act was found to be unavailable, when its provisions were to be decided upon in the ecclesiastical or civil bill courts, for where three villages had given notice to the same clergyman in one day, the courts decided that was proof of combination!

Lord Eldon once told General Matthew, when that point was brought before the consideration of the house, that it was impos. sible so great an absurdity could ever have been ruled in a court where rational beings presided: and afterwards the practice had been almost generally discontinued; but to his (Mr. O'C.'s) knowledge, it still partially existed. With such inveterate hostility was the peasant pursued by the preachers of Christianity, that where the cause might be decided by civil bill, at a small expense, it is most generally brought into the ecclesiastical court, where the assistantbarrister is frequently vicar-general. Without any disparagement, he would say of the office of assistant-barrister, admittin generally the integrity and capacity of the gentlemen who pre side in these courts, that if a system to promote perjury, and the most dangerous immorality were intended, he doubted if it could so well succeed in that object as by means of this jurisdiotiou.

In the trial by jury, a bonus is given to witnesses to preserve their character for an honest man's testimony will be received