long, 19° 47′ E, being nearly twenty miles to the westward of the meridian of Mourzouk; and the travelling distance is about 1,000 miles from the same place, which occupied the expedition ninetytwo days. Bernie, the residence of the Sultan, is eighteen miles S.S.E. of Kouka, and is said to contain 30,000 inhabitants and Engornou, sixteen miles S.E. by S. of Kouka, not less than 50,000. At this place there is a weekly market held, on Wednesdays, to which all the surrounding countries, the people of Kanem and of Soudan resort; so that the numbers who occasionally attend are said to amount to eighty and sometimes a hundred thousand souls! Major Denham made a visit to this place, and was much pleased with it. The currency appeared to consist of amber, coral, and glass beads; but dollars were well known and most in demand. A large diamond-cut drop of a glass chandelier, however, was an object of contest among the ladies of the court-the Pitt diamond of central Africa.

How such a population is supported it is not easy to imagine. The whole kingdom, on the western side at least, is one dead flat of sand and clay, without a single stone of any description. In the season of heat and drought, every vestige of verdure takes its departure, except from the various kinds of accacia trees and the tamarind yet herds of elephants, giraffes, buffaloes, and antelopes of various kinds, are everywhere seen, and especially along the borders of the lake. Major Denham says he counted forty-seven large elephants in one group. Where and on what they feed at this season does not appear. Tame bullocks are met with in droves of a thousand or fifteen hundred, and flesh meat is very cheap: a fine ox might be bought for three dollars, and fowls at the rate of forty for a dollar: of vegetables, our travellers saw little but onions and a few yams; and no fruit except the tamarind. In the Sheik's garden is a single lime-tree.

The quadrupeds above mentioned, and many smaller species, supplied our travellers with abundance of game, which were procured chiefly by Clapperton, who is an excellent shot. The lake too abounds with a great variety of water fowl, some of which are said to be of extraordinary beauty; and the ducks and geese were so tame, that he killed eight or ten at one shot. Suipes rise in thousands, like so many clouds.

The temperature in March and April was uniformly high, seldom lower than 100°, and sometimes 104°, at two or three o'clock; yet the constant refreshing breeze prevented it from feeling oppressive. The barometer was steady at 29 inches. So little did the heat appear to affect Clapperton, that he used to go out for several days together, along the margin of the Tsaad, to kill game, and

VOL. XXIX. NO. LVII.

M M

suffered

suffered nothing from the exertion: the people were uniformly civil and obliging.

A numerous tribe of Arabs had settled in the Sheik's dominions. They came from the banks of the Shary, and are described as different from those of the north; their complexions are of a light copper colour, with handsome aquiline noses, and large expressive eyes. They are savage in their manners, and of undaunted courage. Major Denham says they resemble very much some of the best looking of our gipsy race, particularly the women; and their Arabic is nearly pure Egyptian.

This is almost the whole that we have been able to cull from the epistolary correspondence of the African travellers, which, though scanty, has raised our curiosity to know the details of their Journals; these however (we have been given to understand) come down no lower than the date of their departure from Mourzouk.

ART. X.-1. A Defence of the Clergy of the Church of England: stating their Services, their Rights, and their Revenues. By the Rev. Francis Thackeray, A.M. London. 1822. 2. An Appeal to the Gentlemen of England, on Behalf of the Church of England. By Augustus Campbell, A. M. Liverpool. 1823.

WE

E know of no subject which has been more wilfully and perseveringly misrepresented by the enemies, and, we regret to add, more unaccountably misunderstood by the friends, of the church of England, than the provision which, in the form of tithes, has been reserved for its ministers. Conceding to the members of the church of England the right of excluding from the establishment teachers who dissent from its doctrines, there are many who ask, Have they the further right of compelling all the members of the community to pay towards the maintenance of a set of teachers appointed by a part only, though it be the majority, to preach a particular system of doctrines?'' Is it just and reasonable, (they continue,) that those who dissent from the doctrines and disapprove of the constitution of the established church, and who support their own religious teachers, should be compelled, in addition, to pay towards the maintenance of the established clergy, and bear their full proportion of the expense attending the discharge of the ecclesiastical functions ordained by the state?'

These are questions constantly urged by those who dissent from the established church; and they are questions which have excited doubts in the minds of some writers on this subject, who,

from

from their station, must be presumed to have been sincerely attached to its doctrines. We are told even by a learned prelate, 'that it is a question which might admit of serious discussion, whether the majority of the members of any civil community have a right to compel all the members of it to pay towards the maintenance of a set of teachers appointed by the majority to preach a particular system of doctrines.' 'I was once of opinion,' he adds, 'that the majority had this right in all cases, and am still of opinion, that they have it in many. But I am staggered when I consider, that a case may happen in which the established religion may be the religion of the minority of the people, at the same time possessing the majority of the property, out of which the ministers of the establishment are to be paid.'

There is, however, a little preliminary inquiry into which we should like to enter, before we approach the question, which the learned prelate assures us might admit of serious discussion. Before we can think it necessary to discuss the rights of the majority of any civil community to compel all the members of it to pay towards the maintenance of a set of teachers appointed by the majority, to preach a particular system of doctrines, we must be convinced that the majority of the English community exercise this right—we must be persuaded, that the minority of the people who dissent from the church are compelled to pay towards the support of the national establishment. If, however, we can show that they make, in truth, no such payment-if we can prove that, in point of fact, the minority of the people bear no portion of the expense of our ecclesiastical establishment, we shall be relieved from the necessity of examining the rights of the majority to compel all the members of the civil community to pay towards the maintenance of a set of teachers appointed by them to preach a particular system of doctrines.

We must be allowed to observe in this place, that when it is said the majority of the civil community compels the minority 'to pay a set of teachers appointed by the majority, the expression to pay must signify something different from the sense in which it is used, when a tenant is said to pay rent to his landlord, or when a debtor is described as 'paying' a creditor his debt. When the expression is used simply in this latter sense, the assertion that all the members of the community, who possess real property, are compelled to pay towards the support of the ecclesiastical institutions established by the majority, is a mere truism, which admits of no more dispute than a declaration that all the occupiers of land in England are compelled to pay towards the support of the owners. But if it be used in another sense, in that of transferring to ecclesiastics property which belongs either

in equity or law to those who pay them, we beg leave distinctly to deny the fact; we assert, and shall, we think, make good our position, that in the latter sense no payment is made towards the discharge of the ecclesiastical functions ordained by the state, by any member of the civil community.

We are satisfied that the hostility of separatists towards the national church is much increased, if not entirely created, by the belief, that they are obliged not only to support their own ministers, but are further compelled by law to contribute their full proportion towards the revenues of the established clergy. We shall endeavour to convince our readers that the supposition, that they do bear any portion of the expense of our ecclesiastical institution, springs entirely from misconception. But this delusion is far from being confined to those who dissent from the church; it operates, we fear, powerfully on the minds of many whom we might expect to find exempt from its influence. A large portion of the English population have been taught, by ignorant or malicious representations, to consider the established clergy as an order of men pensioned by the state-as functionaries appointed for the discharge of ecclesiastical duties, and paid by annual stipends levied upon the public.

We entreat the patience of our readers, while we point out to them the gross and dangerous fallacy of this representation. We feel a firm conviction that such notions, whoever may entertain them, arise from an entire misconception of the nature and origin of the revenues attached to ecclesiastical offices; and we implore all those who feel an interest in the permanence of the national establishment, to make every effort in their power to remove a delusion which, if not dissipated, can hardly fail to prove eventually fatal to the church of England. When, through an erroneous view of the origin and pressure of the maintenance which has been reserved for its ministers, interest is called in to deepen the impressions already made by prepossession: when the dissenter is taught to believe that, in addition to the support of his own minister, he is compelled to defray his proportion of the expenses of an establishment which he dislikes upon principle, his hostility becomes redoubled; the prejudice of the understanding becomes a passion of the heart; and he comes, by degrees, to view our ecclesiastical institution not only as the means of upholding a system which he condemns, but likewise as the instrument of depriving him of property which he conceives to be his own. And whilst the members of the church, who are most heartily attached to its doctrines and constitution, labour under this misconception-whilst they consider its expense as a burden falling upon the public, whatever sentiments they may entertain

of

of its religious, moral, and social utility, they will become less vigorous and active in opposing the innovations on its constitution and revenues, which are daily suggested and proposed by its enemies.

With a view of striking at the root of all these misrepresentations and misconceptions of the pressure of ecclesiastical revenues, we shall prove, if we are not much mistaken, to the satisfaction of every candid mind, that the land-occupier pays nothing that the land-owner pays nothing-that the dissenter pays nothing-nay, further, that the member of the church of England pays nothing, in the sense which the expression bears in the mouth of those who use it, towards the expense attending the discharge of the ecclesiastical functions ordained by the state.

To render our observations on this subject as concise and as little intricate as possible, let it be assumed, for the sake of the argument, that the parish of S contains three thousand acres of land, and that it is the property of one individual; let it be further assumed, that the rector receives in lieu of tithes a composition of four shillings per acre, and the lay owner twenty shillings per acre as rent. Were tithes abolished-were the claims of the rector to his share of the produce to cease, it is too evident even to require remark, that, at the expiration of the contracts at present subsisting between the occupier and owner of the soil, the amount would be added to the demand of the landlord. Land which he lets, at present, subject to tithes, for 20s. per acre, would then be let by him, free from tithes, for 24s. The abolition of tithes would, in such a case, merely make an addition of 600l. to the present annual receipts of the land-owner; but it could produce no pecuniary advantage whatever to the land-occupier. It is, therefore, we conceive, as clear as any mathematical demonstration can make it, that the occupier of land, whether he be a member of the church of England, or dissent from its communion, cannot be said to make any contribution or any payment towards the support of the national establishment. The occupier now pays, in the form of rent and tithes, a gross sum, which, if tithes ceased to exist, would be exacted from him as rent.

Granting then, that if the claim of the tithe-owner ceased to exist, the amount would be added to the present demands of the Jandlord; does it not follow that the burden of our ecclesiastical establishment falls upon the owner of the soil? As it is acknowledged that the receipts of the landlord are reduced, by the exact amount now received by the ecclesiastical proprietor as tithes ; does it not therefore follow, that the luy proprietor of the soil has to defray the whole expense of the ecclesiastical functions ordained by the state? To these questions we shall reply, after the man