the proper office of the plaintiff, which he was ready to perform; upon each of which occasions there was due to the plaintiff, one shilling; and the said Webb buried in the said parish out of his own family, one or more child or children, servant or servants, and the burial service of them was the proper office of the plaintiff, who was also ready to perform it; and there was due to the plaintiff two shillings and sixpence for each burial; which said sums of ten shillings for a mortuary, two shillings and six-pence for each burial, and one shilling for each churching, including the registering of births and burials, are what have been paid from time to time by the inhabitants of Croydon, to the plaintiff and his predecessors, upon all like occasions; which said sums the plaintiff hoped the said Webb would have paid accordingly. But the said Heathfield, Webb, and Harrison, have not paid or answered to the plaintiff any tithes, oblations, obventions, mortuaries, or other dues whatsoever, nor made any recompence or satisfaction for the same, or any part thereof; therefore, that the defendants may answer the premises, and that they may pay and answer to the plaintiff all manner of Vicarage tithes, offerings, oblations, obventions, and such other things as during the time aforesaid became due from them, and may account with the plaintiff, and make him satisfaction for the same; and that the defendant Webb, may answer and pay to the plaintiff the occasional offerings and oblations, due on account of the churching of his wife, and of the burial of his children, seivant, or servants, and for registering the affidavits brought to the plaintiff on those occasions; and that the said Webb and Harrison, may answer and pay to the plaintiff the obvention and mortuary, due on account of the death and burial of the said Francis Tegg, and for registering the affidavit on that occasion brought to the plaintiff; and to be relieved in the premises is the scope of the said bill. Whereto the counsel for the defendants alledged that the said defendants Heathfield and Webb, by their answer admit that the plaintiff is, and for seven years past hath been, Vicar of Croydon, and en

titled to all the Vicarial tithes and dues arising within the said "parish, and titheable places thereof, or to a modus or composition in lieu of the same, or some parts thereof; that, as Vicar of the said parish, the plaintiff is entitled to some customary payments for burial of the dead, and reading of the service thereof, appointed in respect of persons buried in the said parish church, and to Easter offerings, and some customary payments for other matters hereafter mentioned, but not to any mortuaries, or oblations, unless the Easter offerings, or payments after mentioned, are esteemed as such; that they never refused to account with the plaintiff, or pay him his just dues, as Vicar of the said parish; and they, the defendants for the years preceeding the year 1736, paid and satisfied the plaintiff for all tithes and dues payable by them respectively to his content; he, the defendant Heathfield, having for the preceding years, paid the plaintiff five shillings yearly in lieu of all Vicarial dues, and the defendant Webb, nine shillings yearly on the same account; and they, the said defendants, were ready to have continued the like payments for the years 1736, and 1737, if the plaintiff, as was usual, had been pleased to have accepted the same; and for the Vicarial dues of which two years last mentioned, they, the defendants have also since and before filing the plaintiff's bill, made the plaintiff satisfaction; that they, the defendants are not now answerable to the plaintiff for such tithes or dues, as by bill demanded; but if the Court should be of opinion the payments in respect thereof by them already made are not sufficient, or the same be deemed mispayments, they hoped they shall only be charged such ancient moduses and compositions, as have been time out of mind payable in respect of such Vicarial tithes, for which such moduses are due and payable, and with tithes in kind of such other matters only for which no modus is payable; however, for the plaintiff's satisfaction, touching the respective Vicarial tithes and dues, they set forth by their answer the particular titheable matters payable by them in the said years 1736, and 1737, and say that they had not any other titheable matters

in each, or either of the said years, nor were they liable to pay for any other Vicarial tithes or dues to the plaintiff in both or either of the said years; that the custom within the said parish for the payment of tithes, for time immemorial, hath been, and still is, that there is due and payable, and ought to be taken in the said parish, among other things, in full satisfaction of the tithes after mentioned, the customary moduses and payments following, at Easter, yearly, and no more, (to wit) for and in lieu of the tithe of every horse, mare, or colt, depasturing in the said parish, four-pence; for the tithe-milk of every cow, four-pence; for the tithe of every dry bullock, two-pence, and no more; which moduses are payable to the Vicar; and for the tithe of every lamb, four-pence, which four-pence is equally to be shared between Parson and Vicar; and that, by the like custom, there is due to the Vicar, the several moduses and payments, in lieu of tithes, as follows, viz. for every garden or orchard in the said parish, whereof the owner makes no benefit, one penny; for every cock, kept by an inhabitant, one penny, in lieu of tithe-eggs of the hens of each inhabitant; for the tithe of pigs, the tenth in kind of each litter, except the first litter, of which none hath been paid; for every single man receiving the sacrament, four-pence; for every single woman, threepence; and for every man and his wife, five-pence; and no more that they, the defendants, having no other titheable matters, than as aforesaid, nor any more persons in their families capable of receiving the Sacrament in the said years, than as set forth in their answer; they insist they were not, nor ought to be further charged in respect of the Vicarial tithes and dues, in those years, than according to such moduses and compositions, with respect to the matters the same respectively extend to; and with the tithes in kind of such other matters as of right, and are before admitted to be due to the plaintiff, as Vicar as aforesaid; that they, the defendants, insist that such moduses and compositions, or most of them, have been established by some decree or judgment, in some of his Ma

jesty's Courts of Equity, in some suit between some of the parishioners of the said parish, and some former Vicar; that having for many years paid, and the plaintiff having accepted such gross yearly payments as aforesaid, for divers years before the said year 1736, which payments the defendants estimate to be the full amount of the plaintiff's tithes, moduses, and compositions, yearly due, and coming to him as Vicar, within the said two years; and the plaintiff having declined to call for the same, for the years 1736, and 1737, as he usually had done in former years; therefore the defendant Heathfield, to prevent any complaint from the plaintiff for not paying his tithes for the said two years, did about the 26th of August, 1738, pay to the plaintiff's wife, for his use, sixteen shillings, being more than his payments for the former years amounted to, which she accepted, and gave him a receipt for two years' dues, in full to Easter then last; and he, the defendant Webb, then also, in like manner, paid to the plaintiff's wife twentyseven shillings, whereof nine shillings were paid by him by mistake, more than such yearly payments then due amounted unto, he apprehending three years to be due, when, in fact, he only owed for the said two years, and she gave a receipt in like manner, as to the said Heathfield; that the plaintiff hath brought his bill to break through the ancient moduses and customary manner of payments, for Vicarial dues and tithes within the said parish; the plaintiff having made very extravagant demands from the defendants, on account of his pretended dues, in no sort just and reasonable; that he, the defendant Webb, and the defendant Harrison, are executors of the said Francis Tegg, who died in the said parish, but being a dissenter, was buried in a particular burying ground, belonging to the people of his persuasion; nor did the plaintiff perform any funeral service for him; and he, the defendant, does not know any thing is due to the plaintiff as a mortuary, offering, or otherwise, on account of such death or burial of the said Tegg; and if the plaintiff conceives he is entitled to any such, his proper remedy is at law for the same, as he is advised;

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and that the defendant, Amos Harrison, by his answer says, that the said Tegg made him and the defendant Webb executors of his will, and that they proved the same; that there are not any fees, or mortuaries, as by the bill claimed, due to the Vicar of the said parish, upon, or in respect of the death of any person within the said parish, or that any fee, or payment of two shillings and six-pence, or other payment is due to the Vicar of the said parish, in respect of the burial of any person within the said parish, unless such burial be in the parish church, or church-yard, in which case, some fee may be due; but as the said Tegg was not buried in the said church-yard, and no burial service was read or desired to be performed over him by the plaintiff, no fee or payment whatsoever was, or is due to the plaintiff, in respect of the death or burial of the said Tegg; and if any such there should appear to be due, yet he, the defendant, having not yet possessed all, or any part of the said Tegg's estate, or any wise intermeddled in or about his burial, he doth not apprehend himself concerned with or about the payment thereof. Whereupon, and upon debate of the matter, and hearing of a decree of the Court of Exchequer of the 19th of February, 1679, in a cause in which Walter Hatcher and others were plaintiffs, and Doctor William Clewer, the then Vicar of the said parish, was defendant; a decree of the said Court of Exchequer, of the 20th of February, 1681, in a cause in which the said Doctor Clewer was plaintiff, and Henry Pullen and others defendants; the bill exhibited in the said cause, the answer of the defendant Webb, a record dated the 26th of August, 1738, signed Jane Collier, and the receipt dated the same day, signed Jane Collier, and the depositions in the said causes, and what could be alledged by counsel on both sides, his Lordship doth think fit, and so order and decree, that the said defendants, Heathfield and Webb, do come to an account before Mr. Boroughs, one of the masters of this Court, with the plaintiff, for the several titheable matters and dues demanded by the plaintiff's bill, from Easter, 1738, according to the rules hereafter mentioned ;