Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/74

( 49 ) secluded from the world, to weep for, and atone their faults in solitude and silence; hither jealous husbands, or cross parents, send their too amorous wives and daughters, and doubtless, often upon no better foundation, than "trifles light as air" The admission to the nunneries is expensive; and I have heard a fond mother regret her want of fortune, only because it prevented her dedicating some of her beloved daughters to God. The clergy possess immense property, in land, houses, and specie: when it was proposed to lay an impost of ten per cent upon the income of the church, the Benedictine monks offered to commute their part of the tax, by paying 40,000 crowns annually. Their pious desire for the conversion of heretics still glows with