I am glad to hear you speak with some decency of the clergy, and to impute the exactions you lament to the managers or farmers of the tithes. But you entirely mistake the fact; for I defy the most wicked and most powerful clergymen in the kingdom to oppress the meanest farmer in the parish; and I likewise defy the same clergyman to prevent himself from being cheated by the same farmer, whenever that farmer shall be disposed to be knavish or peevish. For, although the Ulster tithing-teller is more advantageous to the clergy than any other in the kingdom, yet the minister can demand no more than his tenth; and where the corn much exceeds the small tithes, as, except in some districts, I am told it always doth, he is at the mercy of every stubborn farmer, especially of those whose sect as well as interest incline them to opposition. However, I take it that your people bent for America do not shew the best part of their prudence in making this one part of their complaint: yet they are so far wise, as not to make the payment of tithes a scruple of conscience, which is too gross for any Protestant dissenter, except a Quaker, to pretend. But do your people indeed think, that if tithes were abolished, or delivered into the hands of the landlord, after the blessed manner in the Scotch spiritual economy, that the tenant would sit easier in his rent under the same person, who must be lord of the soil and of the tithe together? I am ready enough to grant, that the oppression of landlords, the utter ruin of trade, with its necessary consequence the want of money, half the revenues of the kingdom spent abroad, the continued dearth of three years, and the strong delusion in your people by false allurement from America, may be the chief motives of their eagerness after such an expedition. [But there is likewise another temptation, which is not of inconsiderable weight; which is their itch of living in a country where their sect is predominant, and where their eyes and consciences would not be offended by the stumbling-block of ceremonies, habits, and spiritual titles.[92]] But I was surprised to find that those calamities, whereof we are innocent, have been sufficient to drive many families out of their country, who had no reason to complain of oppressive landlords. For, while I was last year in the northern parts, a person of quality, whose estate was let above 20 years ago, and then at a very reasonable rent, some for leases of lives, and some perpetuities, did, in a few months, purchase eleven of those leases at a very inconsiderable price, although they were, two years ago, reckoned to pay but half value. From whence it is manifest, that our present miserable condition, and the dismal prospect of worse, with other reasons above assigned, are sufficient to put men upon trying this desperate experiment, of changing the scene they are in, although landlords should, by a miracle, become less inhuman.