Note 19 — Chapter III
Reading edition
When Brazil was in its infancy, the clergy could not subsist upon their tythes, and therefore petitioned the government of Portugal to pay them a certain stipend, and receive the tenths for its own account; this was accepted, but now that the tenths have increased in value twenty-fold, the government still pays to the vicars the same stipends. The clergy of the present day, bitterly complain of the agreement made by those to whom they have succeeded.