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Updated: June 25, 2025
'The Habitants, writes the political annalist already quoted, 'consider themselves sufficiently taxed by the French law of the land, in being obliged to pay rents and other feudal burthens to the Seigneur, and tythes to the Priest; and if you were to ask any of them to contribute two bushels of Wheat, or two Dollars, for the support of Government, he would give you the equivocal French sign of inability or unwillingness, by shrugging up his shoulders.
But then they pay neither taxes nor tythes, are never expected to pull off a hat or to make a curtsy, and will live and die without hearing or uttering the dreadful words, "God save the king." About two miles below Cincinnati, on the Kentucky side of the river, Mr. Bullock, the well known proprietor of the Egyptian Hall, has bought a large estate, with a noble house upon it.
Thus, with law in his head, wrath in his heart, and money in his pocket, away went the rector to hold consultations with his now favourite friend the attorney; who has before been mentioned as so thorough bred and far famed a practitioner; the result of which was that an action of trespass upon the case, as the safest mode of proceeding, should be brought against the Squire; and that public information should be given that tythes in kind would in six months be demanded from the whole parish; with a formal notice that as malicious threatenings had been uttered against the rector, whom the laws, civil, common, and ecclesiastical, would protect, if any such threatenings should be put in execution actions against the offenders would immediately be instituted.
Every one upon his arrival obtained his grant of land, and sat down on his freehold with no taxes, or very trifling ones, no tythes, no poor rates, with full liberty of hunting and fishing, and many other advantages and privileges he never knew in Europe.
It is sufficiently certain that neither Christ nor his apostles ever took tythes; and the esquires, farmers, and landholders, of this christian kingdom, would in general be better satisfied, if their successors were to follow so disinterested and laudable an example.
In the Moniteur, and other journals of the time, may be seen what successive steps gradually led to the abolition of tythes, and the decision which placed the estates of the clergy at the disposal of the nation. The civil constitution of the clergy was a severe check given to the many existing abuses. It really brought back the Gallican church to the discipline of the first ages.
The oppression in agriculture, which existed before the revolution, whether from the authority of the Seigneurs, from the corvees, from tythes, game laws, &c. all are done away become rich and flourishing, they are able to pay the taxes, which, under Napoleon, were not so severe as is generally supposed.
But priests have always been fond of preaching up Deuteronomy, for Deuteronomy preaches up tythes; and it is from this book, xxv. 4, they have taken the phrase, and applied it to tything, that "thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth Out the corn:" and that this might not escape observation, they have noted it in the table of contents at the head of the chapter, though it is only a single verse of less than two lines.
To all this was added another very serious cause of discontent, that of tythes; a cause that disturbs half the villages in the kingdom, and that frequently exhibits the man who is sent to preach peace, and afford an example of mild forbearance and Christian humility, as a litigious, quarrelsome and odious tyrant; much better qualified to herd with wolves than to be the shepherd of his meek master.
The Ecclesiastiques take the Cream of the Land, by Donations of ignorant men, that stand in aw of them, and by Tythes: So also it is in the Fable of Fairies, that they enter into the Dairies, and Feast upon the Cream, which they skim from the Milk. What kind of Money is currant in the Kingdome of Fairies, is not recorded in the Story.
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