Upon all these considerations, we humbly hope that your Grace, of whose fatherly care, vigilance, and tenderness, we have had so many and great instances, will represent our case to his Most Excellent Majesty, or to the chief governor in this kingdom, in such a manner, that we may be neither under the necessity of declining His Majesty's commands in his letters patent, or of taking new and grievous burthens upon ourselves and our church-wardens, to which neither the rubric nor any other law in force oblige us to submit. ***** ***** ***** ***** ON THE BILL FOR THE CLERGY'S RESIDING ON THEIR LIVINGS. NOTE. In the note to the tract, "Some Arguments against enlarging the Power of Bishops in letting Leases" (p. 219), it was pointed out that the Bill against which this tract was written was an attempt on the part of the bishops to get back a power which they once had abused. Failing in this attempt, in 1723, they renewed the attack in 1731 by promoting two bills, one called a Bill of Residence, the other a Bill of Division. The ostensible object of the Bill of Residence was to compel the clergy to reside on their livings. By this bill, any person taking a benefice, with cure of souls, of the annual value of £100, was forced, if the land attached to that benefice had no house fit for residence, to build one thereon, in any situation the bishop might think suitable, this house to cost one year and a half's income, and to be completed within a time fixed by the bishop. It will at once be seen that the power over the inferior clergy which this bill placed in the bishops' hands was by no means insignificant; and Swift felt that to make such a bill law would not only tend to impoverish, the inferior clergy, but would place them in a position of subjection at once degrading and dispiriting. He opposed the bill, with the consequence that the House of Commons rejected it. By the Bill of Division "it was intended to be enacted that whenever a church should become vacant, although the incumbent should refuse his consent, it might be lawful for the chief governor, with the assent of the major part of the Privy Council, six at least consenting, by and with the consent of the ordinary and the patron, to subdivide any parish into as many portions as they might think fit, provided that, after such division, the church of the old parish should continue worth, at the least, £300 per annum." This bill, which passed the House of Lords two days after the Bill of Residence, Swift opposed in a spirited and somewhat bitter manner. His opposition largely influenced the Lower House in rejecting it. The two tracts which state the grounds of his opposition to both bills are the present one, and the following tract, "Considerations upon two Bills, sent down from the House of Lords to the House of Commons in Ireland, relating to the Clergy."