oxen, which though they promise nothing do much for me: they most need the water, and I shall not take it from them to bestow on such idlers as you.

The Application. It is easy to see of what nature would be the work which partridges would do in a Corn-field, or of the protection that wasps would afford to the grapes in a vineyard. The farmer well knew that the season would rid him of one of these nuisances, and the sportsmen of the other. But there are certain exactions and abuses, founded in custom and sanctioned in some measure by law, from which he cannot hope so easily to obtain an exemption. And it will be his wisdom here also (after making his case fully known to his superiours) to exercise prudence and patience under existing grievances, till redress can be obtained.

ARL. VII.-Facsimile and account of a Pass, sent with a Friend in 1660, after he had suffered a public whipping.

About the eighth month (October) 1660, says Sewel, Richard Hubberthorne got an opportunity to speak with the king [Cha. II.] and to have a long discourse with him, which soon after he published in print.

66

Being admitted into the King's presence, he gave him a relation of the state of his friends and said, 'Since the Lord hath gathered us to be a people, to walk in his fear and in his truth, we have always suffered and been persecuted by the powers that have ruled, and been made a prey for departing from iniquity [Isaiah lix, 15] and when the breach of no just law could be charged against us, then they made laws on purpose to ensnare us; and so our sufferings were unjustly continued.

"The King. It is true, those that have ruled over you have been cruel, AND HAVE PROFESSED MUCH WHICH THEY HAVE Not done.

“R. H. And likewise the same sufferings do now abound, in more cruelty, against us, in many parts of this nation: as for instance one at Thetford in Norfolk, where Henry Fell, ministering unto the people, was taken out of the meeting and whipped, and sent out of the town, from parish to parish towards Lancashire; and the chief ground of his accusation in his pass, which was shewn to the king, was because he denied to take the oath of allegiance and supremacy: and so, because that for conscience sake we cannot swear, but have learned obedience to the doctrine of Christ, which saith, Swear not at all,' hereby an occasion is taken against us to persecute us; and it is well known that we have not sworn for any, nor against any, but have kept to the truth, and our yea hath been yea, and our nay, nay, in all things;

WHICH IS MORE THAN THE OATH OF THEM THAT ARE OUT OF THE TRUTH.

Every one acquainted with the transactions of this king's reign, and the sufferings of our society under him, must be sensible that Charles committed himself here, against the Republicans, in a very imprudent manner and that the Friend who addressed him shewed a Christian like courage, in so plainly setting before him the inconsistency of his conduct with his own declarations. After quoting about five pages more of similar matter, Sewel adds, " Other things were spoken, concerning the liberty of the servants of the Lord, who were called of

him into his service; that to them there was no limitation to parishes or places; but as the Lord did guide them, in his work and service, by his Spirit" [they went about it.]

"So the king PROMISED THAT WE SHOULD NOT ANY WAY SUFFER FOR OUR OPINION OR RELIGION; and so in love [that is to say, with an appearance of smiling condescension] passed away." Sewel, Hist. Ed. 1799, vol. 1, p. 428.

A Copy of the pass here follows. "Borrow of Thetford. Henry Ffell, an idle vagrant person and a seducer of the people, a very suspitious Jesuited deluder, and one who denyeth the oath of alleageance and supremacy, a man of middle statur some of thirty yeares of age, with browne curled haire, was this twenty eight day of May, in the twelfe year of his Ma'ties raigne of England &c [reckoning, as was the practice of the courts upon the restoration, from the death of his father] openly whipped in Thetford aforesaid according to law, for a wandering rogue, and assigned to pass from p'sh to p'sh by the officers hereof the next straight way to Ulverstone in Lancashire, where as he confesseth he last dwelt, and he is lymited to be at Ulverston affores'd within 20 days next ensuing the date hereof at his p'ill. [The distance probably exceeded 250 miles, which is 12 miles and a half per day, allowing no resting days]

"Given under my hand and seale of office the date above s'd John Kendall Mayor. To the constables of Croxton [the next place north of Thetford] and to all other constables and other officers whom these presents may concerne for the due execution hereof.

Endorsed "A uen cry [hue and cry] after H Fell, 1660 Norfolk” The last word is in better writing and very pale ink. Against this endorsement is written, " I believe this is George Fox's Hand writing M.B." The seal of office is wanting, this being perhaps only the copy of the order delivered to the prisoner according to law: and that it was the copy shewn to the king is not improbable. A part of the paper at bottom has however been torn off, as appears by a second but mutilated endorsement [H. Ff. P..] in a hand writing differing entirely from G, F.'s and on this part of the paper may have been the seal. Who and what for condition in life, this "wandering rogue" was the reader shall hear, according to the best information I may be able to obtain, in a future number. What is meant by the term 'Jesuited' it may not be so easy to conjecture: as this was a common imputation cast upon our early friends by their persecutors, it may probably relate to some kind of secret influence, which the Clergy knew to exist by some evidence not in our possession; but of which evidence themselves produced not a jot against the sufferers.

Ed.

Communications may be addressed, POST PAID, "For the Editor of the Yorkshireman," at the Printer's, Pontefract; at Longman and Co.'s, London; John Baines and Co.'s, Leeds; and W. Simpson's, York.

CHARLES ELCOCK, PRINTER, PONTEFRACT.

THE

YORKSHIREMAN,

A

RELIGIOUS AND LITERARY JOURNAL

No. XXI.

BY A FRIEND.

PRO PATRIA.

FOURTH DAY, 15th FIFTH Mo. 1833. PRICE 4d.

ART. I.-Impropriate and Leased Tithes, and Tithe abatements : Ackworth Tithe and Enclosure Act of 1774.

In the year 1822, I had occasion to consider, more closely than before, the subject of the payment of Impropriate Tithe by members of our Religious Society. A friend, for whom I could not but entertain the highest regard, having communicated to me (among others) some papers on the subject, tending to justify a compliance with such demands, I wrote to him in substance as follows: "It appears to me that there are two questions between us, on the subject of the papers handed to me for perusal, viz. 1. Is it expedient, or not, for the members of our Society, under the present provisions in law respecting such claims, to continue to refuse the payment of Impropriate Tithe? 2. Is it expedient, or not, for the Society to enforce its received and declared rules, against such members as may be conscientiously persuaded that they have no sufficient plea to withhold Impropriate Tithe ?

To the first I answer: It is expedient, now, as it ever was, for Friends to bear their Christian testimony against this imposition. For 1. The root of the matter [usurped Ecclesiastical dominion] continues just what it was at the time of the origin of our Society. Tithe [or the tenth of the increase] is now, as it was then, neither estate nor property vested in the claimant ; but an Ecclesiastical claim, recognized by the State. He who sets out his Tithe does now (as men did then) execute a summary deed of gift of it to the claimant; and the latter, though a layman, virtually represents the Church in receiving it. It is the profits of an Ecclesiastical benefice, or right of begging, in the hands of a layman instead of those of a priest. If I am wrong in this notion, I would wish to be corrected, not by what may have been advanced by

this or that disputant on the subject, but by such authorities as the Lord Chancellor and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

2. He who refuses to set out his Tithes, or to execute this deed of gift, does so with the certain knowledge that the claimant may take it by law. He does not, then, knowingly or wilfully deprive the claimant of that which he may conceive to be his by descent or purchase. He merely avails himself of a liberty, now virtually recognised by the law, of being passive in the transfer of the property.

3. However the terms Lay Impropriation, Lawful Lay Estate, Lawful Proprietor, Alienable Lay-fee or Temporal Estate of Inheritance, may serve to give the claim a purely Civil aspect, they are entirely beside the question as it is above stated; to wit, whether Tithe shall be given, though to a layman, on the principle that it is DUE TO GOD AND HOLY CHURCH [a principle denied by the Society] or rather suffered to be taken under a law which recognizes this principle, and thus acknowledges something like a property or estate in the Claimant. 4. As to the pretence of great sums of money paid, or services rendered to the nation, by the original purchasers [or grantees] of Impropriate tithe, it is so utterly unreasonable that we may almost wonder it should be advanced at all. Is there any parity between a few years' purchase of the tenth of the increase on certain lands, in the sixteenth century, and a perpetual tax, in the same proportion, on the capital and industry of every future tenant of such lands to the end of time? Or would any Government in the world, viewing the tenths as having now become a mere Civil and temporal revenue (or tax on the people) have sold away its taxes in perpetuity at so cheap a rate? No! no! It was the still existing prejudice, that the Church had paramount and transferable rights over the property and consciences of the people, that occasioned this monstrous anomaly in our Legal provisions. The former vassal of the Ecclesiastic was now turned over to a lay-lord; whose claim to a tenth was still to operate by force of the prejudice above described. Do away the prejudice, and the claim is instantly felt to be an imposition. Is this a parallel case to that of rent paid to a Bishop [or other Ecclesiastical person] or by a tenant to his landlord, where there is a clear quid pro quo, a use against the payment; and where the contract between the parties is optional? Away with such weak attempts at a parallel between bargain and exaction, between iniquity and fairness! And surely, if Friends are partially inconsistent in one case, they are not therefore to be utterly so in another.

5. In denying all property of the claimant in the Tithe, until it has been either set out by the grower for him, or adjudged by law to him, 1 deny of course that he has been in any way a party, real or understood, to the purchase or taking of my land. And if any man chuse to say, I bought or took my land the cheaper for its being subject to this claim, I may fairly turn upon him, and put the case thus: The price of land to sell or let as now subject to tithe, &c. &c. [for there is a great deal to come out of it beside] is the real market-price, and instead of titheable estates being depressed below the standard, it is the Tithe

free that are elevated above it. And for this reason; that there is sold or let, along with the land, in this case, the power to carry on the exaction of a tenth (or its value in rent) from the tenant.

We come now to the second question: to which I answer as follows: a Friend paying tithe for conscience sake, in obedience to the Law of the land, and with reference to a supposed right vested in the claimant, would present a case requiring to be treated with great consideration. I know no member of any degree of influence, in our Yearly Meeting, who would have such an one "compelled under pain of censure or disownment" to violate his conscience, merely in compliance with our rule. My desire for such an one would be, that his mind should be better informed, and his conscience rectified, and bound to the support of that which I must still call "our Christian testimony" against tithe in every shape.

As to the purchaser of Impropriate tithe, being a member of our society, I can only regret on his account, that he should be willing to put himself into so Anti-christian a posture; and exact that from his neighbour which, as property, he has neither earned, bought, nor inherited; and for which he has nothing to show but a mere ancient claim [transferred or descended to him] of the Roman-English hierarchy. We are mighty candid and indulgent, methinks, to the actors of that spoliation of the Babylonian harlot which took place upon our Ecclesiastical revolution [in England, called The Reformation '] when we attribute to them, in place of the ordinary palpable motives of policy and rapacity, the pure and disinterested one of disclaiming a Divine right to tithes! How came it to pass, then, that in the Act of Henry VIII [for establishing tithes] so often referred to, this claim was presently and clearly re-asserted? I think I can answer this question -It was in order that the prejudice on which the claim of the new exactors was to rest, might not be dissipated; nor the people, feeling that they were thus partially saddled with a new tax, payable to fellowsubjects, complain of the monstrous injustice of their Rulers.

But to come to the point on this question-if any friend be conscientiously persuaded that he ought to pay Impropriate tithe, because of the legal property which the claimant is considered to have in it, and yet is desirous to maintain our Christian testimony against the hierarchy, he should at least wait the summons from the magistrate, and the subsequent order, adjudging such an amount to be due to the claimant. If he now pay the demand in presence of the magistrate, he will show that this is done only in submission to the laws, and because he has no scruple as to the application-in fact that he does not intend privately to truckle to the hierarchy, or its [lay] representative, but to yield publicly to the powers that be' a just obedience."

'Record' Paper: Sept. 9th, 1830. The parish of H. is agitated by fears lest its present assessment of Tithes should be disturbed. Lady S., the present Lessee, has hitherto held them on three lives, renewable at £1,500 each. The bishop of W., the owner, now insists on