vail himself of a sale under a distress, for the purpose of obtaining
payment of a part of what was his due. A body of troops were assembled,
by direction of the magistrates, for the purpose of protecting the sale.
It appears, from an account of a nature usually tolerably accurate,
that, on the first day appointed for the sale, an assemblage of 20,000
people collected together; on the second day the number was 50,000; and
on the third it amounted to 100,000. I will take an unit from each of
these numbers, and even then I defy any man to shew me how that body
could have been assembled but by a conspiracy. Who led them there? My
Lords, the Priests. I have seen a letter from an officer who commanded
one of the bodies of troops employed on the occasion, in which such is
stated to be the fact.

When, my Lords, I know that that conspiracy exists, and that it goes to
prevent a large proportion of his Majesty's subjects from enjoying their
property--when I know that the same conspiracy may be applied to any
other description of property--to any man's life, to his house, to his
honour, or to anything else that is most dear to man, I do say, it
becomes the noble Earl at the head of his Majesty's Government to adopt
some measures, in order to do that which Government can do, to get the
better of that conspiracy. It must not be said that, under the British
Constitution, there is no power to prevent such a conspiracy: I say,
there is a power, and that power resides in Parliament, which can give
the Government, under this best of all Constitutions, the means which
shall at the same time protect the property and the liberty of every
individual in the state. Yes, my Lords, Parliament possesses the power
to bestow on the Government the means of putting down this conspiracy--a
conspiracy not against the Government itself, but against those whom the
Government is bound in honour to protect. I take this question of tithes
to be one of the most serious questions that can be brought under the
consideration of Parliament. I do not object to the noble Earl's
measure--indeed, I really do not know what that measure is--but what I
say is, that the noble Earl is bound, and the King is bound by his oath,
to protect the property of the Church--yes, his Majesty is sworn
especially to protect that property. But it is not the property of the
Church alone--what do you say of the lay impropriator? Is a man to be
robbed and ruined, because he possesses pro