vil allegiance to any foreign power, the fact
could not affect the argument: he contended that spiritual subjection
to a foreign power was inconsistent with civil obedience to our own
sovereign.

While the claims of the Catholics were merely the subject of incidental
remarks, the condition of the Protestant church in Ireland, became the
subject of more direct discussion. Lord Kingston moved in the upper
house for the appointment of a committee to inquire into the state of
the Protestant church in the province of Munster. His motion was founded
upon the evils which he stated to have arisen from the union of livings,
and the consequent want of churches for Protestant worship. It was not
uncommon, he said, to unite five, six, or even seven livings in one
person; and in many parishes, if the Protestant inhabitants wished
spiritual consolation, or to have the benefit of religious worship, the
nearest clergyman who could advise them, and the nearest church in which
service was performed was probably at a great distance. It was answered
that as the returns on the table of the house, furnished by the lords'
committee to inquire into the state of Ireland last session, showed all
the parishes that existed in Ireland, and the authority by which they
had been made, the motion was unnecessary: it was withdrawn. The want
of churches, which it was the object of this motion to supply, was
connected with the administration of the fund formed of the first-fruits
of all ecclesiastical benefices. These revenues, or the first year's
income of every benefice, had been originally payable to the pope; but
on the Reformation they were vested in the crown, and they had been
appropriated by an act of Queen Anne, in part at least, to the building
of churches. Sir John Newport brought the management of this fund, and
the insufficiency of the system according to which the contributions of
the clergy to it were regulated, under the notice of the commons, by a
series of resolutions declaratory of its nature and history, and by a
motion for the appointment of a select committee to inquire into its
condition and administration. He justified his motion by the fact that
the first-fruits, where they were paid at all, continued to be paid
upon the rate of valuation, for which there was no authority, and that
consequently the greater portion of the fund sacrificed by the crown
was allowed to remain in the hands of the clergy, while new burdens were
laid upon