§ Mr. Whitbreadpresented a Petition from the rev. James Scott, rector of Brampton Bryan, in the county of Hereford; taking notice of the ingrossed bill from the lords, intituled, An Act for repealing an Act made in the 47th of his present majesty, intituled, An Act for suspending the operation of an act of the 36th of his present majesty for the further support and maintenance of Curates within the Church of England, and for other purposes in the said act mentioned, so far as relates to the avoidance of Benefices by the Incumbents thereof having accepted augmented Curacies; and setting forth, "that if the same should pass into a law, it will operate in a manner extremely injurious to the petitioner, whose title to the rectory of Brampton Bryan aforesaid cannot be disputed, as long as the said act of the 47th of his present majesty shall continue to be the law; and that the petitioner was presented and duly instituted to the Rectory of Brampton Bryan aforesaid in 1801; and in 1805 he was nominated to the perpetual curacy of Titley, in the county aforesaid; and that in 1806, the petitioner was appointed chaplain to his majesty's ship Lion, which by the Residence Act is a legal cause of absence; and the petitioner went in the said ship to China; and that at the time of the petitioner's accepting the perpetual curacy aforesaid, he was in total ignorance of a section in an act of 36 Geo. 3. commonly called the Curates Act, which makes a former Benefice voidable by the subsequent acceptance of a perpetual curacy augmented by Queen Anne's Bounty; and that, if the petitioner had been in the least aware of the said clause, he would have applied for a dispensation to hold two benefices, he being a batchelor of laws of the. University of Oxford, and as such in a situation to obtain such dispensation; and, that, during the last session of parliament, and whilst the petitioner was absent in China as aforesaid. a bill for the purpose of confirming clergymen who had acted in ignorance of the aforesaid clause in possession of their former Benefices, was, from the very commencement of the said session in the hands of several members of both houses of parliament, of some of the most eminent lawyers at the bar, and of many respectable clergymen; and that several weeks after the said bill had been in such extensive discussion, namely on the 27th of July 1807, the patron of the said rectory of Brampton Bryan presented another gentleman thereto; and that, by 409 the said act of the 47th of his present majesty, it was enacted, that all persons who, upon or at any time after the first day of the said last session of parliament, were or had been the lawful incumbent of any benefice, should, notwithstanding they have or had accepted any such augmented cures, remain and be the incumbents of such benefices until the fortieth day of the next session of parliament; and that the petitioner was on the said first day of the last session of parliament, the lawful incumbent of the said rectory of Brampton Bryan, and was nominated to the said curacy now above 3 years ago, and accepted the same, with the perfect approbation of the said patron of Brampton Bryan, who immediately upon the petitioner's acceptance of the said curacy, became the petitioner's tenant of certain tythes belonging to the said curacy, and has so continued to the present time; and therefore praying, that the said bill may not pass into a law, or that the petitioner may have such other relief in the premises as to the house shall seem meet."—The Petition was ordered to lie upon the table.