the public. It also appears to your committee, that the additional watch at 9d. per day has not answered the desired effect.

Your committee having observed an excessive charge for the article of coals, and enquired into the application thereof, do find, that about 406 tons have been, on an average, the annual consumption, of which 48 tons have been the allowance to the four divisional magistrates; about 209 to high and chief constables, the house of correction, and watch houses; and for the remaining quantity of above 180 tons, there appears no account except for such part thereof, as may have been consumed at the police house.

Your committee have further to observe, that the commissioners appear to have made an improvident contract, in paying 20s. a ton in the second and third years, the coal factor who furnished the first year having declared his readiness to continue his contract at 19s.

Your committee then proceeded to consider the charge under the head of stationary, and find it to be for the two years and a half 3,3167. 68. 6d. On this extraordinary charge your committee have to observe, that upwards of 150l. were paid for gilt paper, and 491. 8s. 8d. for sealing wax, in the first year and a half, ending the 25th of March, 1788; charges unwarrantable and unnecessary, which are confirmed by the charge of 131. being found sufficient for both those articles in the following

year.

Your committee find a considerable and very extraordinary charge for books, some of which appear to be unnecessary, and by no means appertaining to the business of the police, the catalogue of which was presented to the house last session.

Your committee also find, that the commissioners of police have, for the last year and three quarters, paid by agreement to their stationer 104/. 1s. 6d. per quarter (which is about 81. a week), for compiling and printing the Hue and Cry, and for occasional hand bills, of which sum he allows one guinea per week to a clerk for compiling the Hue and Cry, and he calculates the occasional hand bill at seven shillings per week, which leaves about 6/. 10s. to said stationer, for printing the said Hue and Cry.

Your committee then examined John Chambers and Thomas M'Donnel, master printers, and found they would undertake to print the Hue and Cry, on a paper, and with a type of the same kind, as those made use of for it for about 31. 13s. per week less than is now paid by the com missioners.

Your committee think it necessary also to take notice, that a sum of 2461. 18s. 8d. was paid in the first year; and 153/. 14. 7d. in the second, for advertisements in newspapers.

Your committee think it their duty to observe, that there is a charge of 176/. 7s. 14d. for a survey and maps of the metropolis district.

Your committee further find, that about 9001. have been expended in law suits, in the greater part of which the commissioners of police have been unsuccessful.

Your committee proceeded to examine into the stoppages made from the police watchmen, and find, that 1d. per day, amounting to 2l. 13s. 23d. a year, is stopped for clothing from the daily pay of each police night watchman, which (for the 400 men) amounts to 1064/. 11s. 8d. a year; and that 21d. per day, amounting to 31. 8s. 54d. a year, is stopped for clothing from each watch constable, which, for 40 men, comes to 136%. 17s. 6d. a year, which stoppages amount in the whole to 1,2017. 9s. 2d. per annum.

Your committee further find, that the clothing, to which such stoppages is applied, consists, for the night watchmen, of coat, waistcoat, breeches, flannel under waistcoat, one pair of long gaiters, and hat and cockade, for all which the price paid by contract amounts to 21. 4s. 5d. per man yearly, and for the 400 mẹn to 8881. 6s. 8d. and that the clothing of 40 watch constables consists of the aforesaid articles, and also of silver lace, loop and button for the hat, and of a silver epaulet, all which clothing costs 21. 19. 11d. per man, and for 40 men costs 118/. 4s. 2d. which sum added to the aforesaid sum of 8881. 6s. 8d. makes 1,006. Ds. 10d. per annum.

And your committee find, that the difference between the actual clothing expences of the police night infantry, and the aforesaid stoppages amounts to 194/. 18s. 4d. per annum, for which saving it does not appear, that the commissioners of police have given credit in their accounts to the commissioners of account or elsewhere.

It further appears to your committee, that during the first year of the police institution, neither flannel waistcoats nor long gaiters were given to the watchmen, and that consequently (though the contract price was then seventeen pence a suit higher than at present), yet the clothing of each of the 400 private men did not exceed 24. Os. 11d. per annum, and therefore gave opportunity for a saving of 70% more than their clothing admits in the current year.

Your committee also find, that exclusive of the aforesaid stoppage, and of a stoppage for the surgeon, there has been stopped one penny per night from each of the 400 police night watchmen, seven eighths of a penny per night from each of the 40 watch constables, and one penny five eighths per night from each of the 40 horsemen, which different stoppages amount to 7601. 8s. 4d. per annum, and this sum is alleged to have been

paid in some subsequent period to such police men as have not been dismissed for misbehaviour.

Your committee also find, that in the accounts laid before them by the commissioners of police, credit is not given to the public for more than the sum of 124l. 1s. 3d. under the head of arrears, which article is in the second year's charge, and that consequently 646l. 7s. 1d. (which is more than five sixths of the whole of the above stoppages of the first year) is by the account implied to have been paid in or before the second year to the police men as arrears; but no account has been produced to this committee of the payments to the police men of that large proportion of those arrears so stopped from them during the first year, and not credited to the public, but it is alleged said arrears have been paid.

It appears that no credit whatsoever has yet been given to the public for the aforesaid stoppages for the second year, ending at Michaelmas last, and amounting to a like sum of 760%. 8s. 4d. although police accounts for the half year, ending the 25th of March, 1789, have been laid before the committee; (the reason alleged for which, by one of the commissioners is, that there are some of those arrears, which have not yet been paid to the men.)

Your committee think it right to observe that a greater sum has been received by the commissioners of police, for noneffective men, in the accounts of the two first years, than the sums therein credited to the public.

Your committee further find, that a secretary, with a salary of 200% a year, and three clerks under him, whose salaries amount to 240l. per annum, attended the police-house, exclusive of the accountant and his clerk, and of the stationer's clerk, who compiles the Hue and Cry.

And that George Parker, one of those three clerks, enjoying a salary of 701. per annum, has not been in Ireland during the last half year.

They also find, that each of the four divisional justices has two clerks, for whom the public is charged 1254 making for the eight clerks a sum of 500l. a year.

Your committee observe further, that the general accounts of the police, laid before the commissioners of account, and afterwards before this committee, are ill arranged, and many of the articles not distributed under their proper heads; and that having examined the accountant as to that point, he alleged, that the arrangement of all accounts of expenditure originated from the commissioners.

And your committee came to the following resolutions;

I. Resolved, That it appears to this committee, that the police establishment has been attended with unnecessary patronage, waste, and dissipation.

II. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that the peace and protection of the city of Dublin might be more effectually maintained at a lesser expence, and that the present system of police establishment ought to be changed.

No. LXXXIII.

MR. GRATTAN'S SECOND SPEECH ON TITHES....P. 249.

MR. GRATTAN presented to the house according to order, a bill to appoint commissioners for the purpose of enquiring into the state of tithes in the different provinces of this kingdom, and to report a plan for the ascertaining the same.

He said, the advocates for tithes and their abuse, having de clined a public enquiry, thought they best consulted the dignity of the church by resorting to a paper war: this paper war has been conducted under the mitred auspices of certain bishops: these bishops have in the course of it accused me of making an attack on the Protestant clergy of the South. You know, they know, how totally unfounded such a charge is; I did prefer then, and I prefer now, certain allegations, that in some parts of the South there existed illegal demand, increasing demand, excessive demand, an abuse of the compensation act; titheproctors who extort fees, tithe-farmers who lay the poor under contribution; these charges I did not affirm to affect the major part of the Southern clergy, but I did, and I do now affirm, that they do affect in degree and extent such a proportion of district as to call for the interference of parliament. Two pamphlets on this subject, entitled my Speech, were published, different from each other, or resembling each other in nothing except in not being my speech, and in not being published by my autho rity; to these pamphlets the dignitaries above alluded to have replied convinced that I neither spoke nor wrote the contents of either, they have charged me with both. This unfounded charge on me they have thought proper to mask by calling it a Defence of the Protestant Clergy of the South, and have thus

:

endeavoured to disperse through the community a false alarm, and a groundless accusation. This alarm and accusation, called a Defence, sets forth, that the bishops of the South, in the year 1786, wrote circular letters to their clergy, desiring returns of their respective ratages; with a recommendation that these returns, if possible, should be made on oath. The Defence sets forth, that returns were made. I own, I should be very glad to see them; not one syllable....the Defence suppressed the returns of the clergy, and gives the public in their place its own calculation, which it professes to be an average formed on these returns....Even so, let us admit such evidence; where the bishops contend, let the party be the evidence, and the advocate be the judge. The authors of the Defence having stated, that a most minute and general enquiry has been made, allege,* that, in the whole extent of that enquiry, they no where find the rate for potatoes higher than 12s. the plantation acre; these are their words, and on the veracity of this allegation, depends whatever attention should be paid to their defence. I have from private hands assurances innumerable, in the most positive and direct manner, contradicting that allegation. I have from private hands affidavits without number disproving that allegation. I will reject them all. I will for, argument, give the pastors a victory over their flock, and the fruits of their care, and suppose for a moment, their parishioners to be perjured, yet what shall we say of the clergy, who have, by themselves, or their witnesses, sworn the same thing? I will read you a report from the judge who went the Munster circuit of the spring of 1788. It is as follows: "At the last assizes held for the county of Kerry, at Tralee, a civil bill was brought before me, upon the compensation act, for the value of certain tithes. From the evidence of the plaintiff's own witnesses, and the schedule, the demand appeared as follows: tithe of potatoes, one acre and a half, 21. Os. 6d." (Gentlemen will recollect, that, by the compensation act, the bill or petition is not to be brought for the value, but the customary charge.) I will read another document, equally authoritative from Cork.

Defence of the Protestant clergy, p. 93...." But it must be remembered, that from the vicinity of these parishes to Limerick, and the great fertility "of the ground, the average value of the crops of potatoes is twenty pounds, "the tithes two pounds, and other crops in proportion. Now, is twelve shillings an unreasonable demand for what is worth two pounds! I further re"mark, that I no where find the rate higher than twelve shillings the plantation acre; and the crop, wherever it is charged, not worth less than eleven or twelve pounds, more generally sixteen or twenty."