emp,
by procuring seed for them and by having them instructed in the
management thereof; and this they did not without reasonable hopes of
increasing the value of their parishes after some time, as well as of
promoting the benefit of the public. But if this _Modus_ should take
place, the Clergy will be so far from gaining that they will become
losers by any extraordinary care, by having their best arable lands
turned to flax and hemp, which are reckoned great impoverishers of land:
They cannot therefore be blamed, if they should shew as much zeal to
prevent its being introduced or improved in their parishes as they
hitherto have shewed in the introducing and improving of it. This, I am
told, some of them have already declared at least so far as to resolve
not to give themselves any more trouble than other men about promoting a
manufacture by the success of which, they only of all men are to be
sufferers. Perhaps the giving them even a further encouragement than the
law doth, as it now stands, to a set of men who might on many accounts
be so useful to this purpose, would be no bad method of having the great
end of the Bill more effectually answered: But this is what they are far
from desiring; all they petition for is no more than to continue on the
same footing with the rest of their fellow-subjects.

If this _Modus_ of paying by the acre be to pass into a law, it were to
be wished that the same law would appoint one or more sworn surveyors in
each parish to measure the lands on which flax and hemp are sown, as
also would settle the price of surveying, and determine whether the
incumbent or farmer is to pay for each annual survey. Without something
of this kind, there must constantly be disputes between them, and the
neighbouring justices of peace must be teazed as often as those disputes
happen.

I had written thus far, when a paper was sent to me with several reasons
against the Bill, some whereof although they have been already touched,
are put in a better light, and the rest did not occur to me. I shall
deliver them in the author's own words.

N.B. Some Alterations have been made in the Bill about the _Modus_,
since the above paper was writ; but they are of little moment.

***** ***** ***** *****

SOME

FURTHER REASONS

AGAINST

THE BILL FOR SETTLING THE TITHE

OF

HEMP, FLAX, &c.

I. That tithes are the patrimony of the Church: And if not of Divine
original, yet at leas