GENTLEMEN,--Though many here are, I am sure, glad to _see me_, I am not vain enough to suppose that anything other than that of wishing to hear my opinions on the prospects before us can have induced many to choose to be here to dine with me to-day. I shall, before I sit down, propose to you a _toast_, which you will drink, or not, as you choose: but I shall state one particular wish in that shape, that it may be the more distinctly understood, and the better remembered. The wish to which I allude relates to the _tithes_. Under that word I mean to speak of all that mass of wealth which is vulgarly called _Church property_: but which is, in fact, _public property_, and may, of course, be disposed of as the Parliament shall please. There appears at this moment an uncommon degree of anxiety on the part of the parsons to see the farmers enabled to pay _rents_. The business of the parsons being only with _tithes_, one naturally, at first sight, wonders why they should care so much about _rents_. The fact is this: they see clearly enough, that the landlords will never long go without rents, and suffer them to enjoy the tithes. They see, too, that there must be a struggle between the _land_ and the _funds_: they see that there is such a struggle. They see, that it is the taxes that are taking away the rent of the landlord and the capital of the farmer. Yet the parsons are afraid to see the taxes reduced. Why? Because, if the taxes be reduced in any great degree (and nothing short of a great degree will give relief), they see that the interest of the Debt cannot be paid; and they know well, that the interest of the Debt can never be reduced, until their tithes have been reduced. Thus, then, they find themselves in a great difficulty. They wish the taxes to be kept up and rents to be paid too. Both cannot be, unless some means or other be found out of putting into, or keeping in, the farmer's pocket, money that is not now there.