I am prepared to meet any other objections that might be moved: But I am sensible that I have already taken up too much of your Lordships' time; and I fear rather irregularly, when in fact no express question is before the House. I am aware that the bill must receive amendments in the committee, and perhaps additions; but the principle of the bill has my entire approbation."

The question was then put, and carried without a division, that the bill should be read a second time, and go into a committee of the whole House on Wednesday

next.

UPON THE WELDON ENCLOSURE BILL,

IN COMMITTEE;

MAY 22, 1792.

THE Duke of NORFOLK opened the debate, opposing the clauses of the bill which enacted a commutation for the tithes, on the ground of the want of the rector's consent, which he considered as a sine qua non in all bills of this kind; but without entering into the merits of this particular case any other part.

in

The Bishop of ST DAVID'S rose when the Duke of Norfolk sat down. He declared his concurrence with the Duke of Norfolk in the sentiments expressed by

his Grace, of the necessity of a clergyman's explicit consent to the commutation of his tithes, before a bill could be passed enacting any such commutation. He affirmed, that, in the instance of the present bill, that principle clearly applied as an insurmountable objection, the rector's consent having never been given. He declared, that, should the bill in its present shape be passed by the Committee, he would, upon the ground he had mentioned, most strenuously concur with the noble duke in an opposition to the bill, upon the report or upon the third reading. For that reason, he said that he should neither enter into argument upon the general principle, nor into a discussion of the pretended proof, produced by the counsel against the petition, of what they called the rector's implied consent; that he should reserve himself upon both those points for the open

debate in the House, of which he was fearful a necessity would arise; and there he pledged himself to show, that, in all the evidence produced before the Committee, not a shadow of a proof was to be found, of an explicit, direct, unconditional consent; that, on the contrary, that very evidence afforded the strongest proof of a steady firm refusal of any such consent, from the first meeting of proprietors in July 1791 to the present moment. Bishop then went on nearly in the following words.

The

"Noble lords who differ from the noble duke and me with respect to the general principle, that a clergyman shall in no case be compelled to accept an allotment of land in lieu of tithes without his own free consent, will, I am confident, agree with me in this, that where the consent of the clergyman has not been given, Parliament

ought not to give its sanction to the proposed commutation without the most satisfactory proof of the adequacy of the allotment. Now, my Lords, in this instance I must contend that we have no such proof: On the contrary, I am persuaded that the value of the land alloted is far inferior to the value of the tithes in kind. I am sensible that all that has been given in evidence as a ground of comparison, seems, in the first general view of it, very little; being little more than an account of the produce of the rectorial tithes in a single year, the year 1790, deposed to by the rector's daughter.

"To this two objections are taken: The first, a very material one, if it can be supported, that it is untrue; that the total of that account greatly exceeds the actual produce of the tithes, even in that year: The second, that, admitting the account