All priests registered by virtue of these acts, to take the oath of abjuration, o else on celebrating mass or officiating as a priest-like pains.

8. Anu. c. 3. §. 21. Two justices may summon any Popish person of sixteen years or upwards, to give testimony on oath where he last heard mass, who celebrated it, what persons were present, and also touching the being and residence, of any popish clergyman or secular priest resident in the country, and upon neglect or refusal to become informer, commit him for twelve months unless he pay 201.

8. Ann. c. 3. §. 16. & 20. Any person discovering against the clergy so as they may be prosecuted to conviction, to have for discovering an archbishop, or vicar general, 501. for a regular or secular not registered 20l. and for a schoolmaster, 10l.. [See Education].

§. 24. Any person summoned by two justices to go before them, and swear abjuration, and neglecting or refusing, to pay 40%.; to be committed three months and disabled forever to obtain any licence to carry any arms. After three months, the same may be repeated and the party imprisoned six months, and fined 10l. and be bound with two sureties to the sessions, or goal delivery, where, if he refuses to abjure, upon oath in open court; to suffer a prœmunire; that is, to be out of the king's protection, and forfeit land and tenements, goods and chattles to the king. And this offence was so odious, says Lord Coke, that whoever was attainted of it, might be slain by any other man, without danger of law, because the 25. Ed. 3. s. 6. c. 22. enacted, that any might do with him as the king's enemy. Still he can bring no action for any injury, however atrocious, and no man knowing him guilty can with safety give him aid or relief. 1. Hawk. p. c. 19. 1. Geo. 1. c. 9. Every justice may tender the oath of abjuration, to every suspected person.

8 Ann. c. 3. § 27. All magistrates required to demolish all crosses, pictures, and inscriptions, that are the occasion of popish superstition.

2 Ann. c. 7. § 2. Priests converted to have a maintenance till otherwise provided for, and to read the liturgy in the English or Irish language. This statute gives £20; by subsequent ones, it is increased to £40 yearly.

2 Ann. c. 6. §. 1. Persuading any person to be reconciled to the see of Rome, the reconciler and the party reconciled both subject to the pains of premunire.

N.B. The first English monarch that invaded Ireland, Hen. 2, did it by virtue of a bull from pope Adrian III. obtained on pretence of a sanctified regard for the promotion of the catholic faith.

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BURIAL OF THE DEAD.

7 & 9 W. 3. st. 1. c. 26. None to bury any dead in a suppressed monastery, abbey, or convent, if it be not used for divine service according to the liturgy of the established church, upon pain of 101. upon all that shall be present, one half to the informer, to be levied summarily by a single justice.

BATHING AND WATER DRINKING.

2 Anu. c. 6. 26. Meetings and assemblies at certain wells or springs therein named, to be adjudged riots, and all magistrates required to be diligent in putting the law in force.

§ 27. And every person assembling there to forfeit on conviction before a single magistrate 10 shillings, or be publicly whipped within twenty-four hours. And every person selling ale or victuals there or any other commodities, upon like conviction to forfeit 20 shillings, or imprisonment.

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

[See title MARRIAGE.]

PARENTS AND CHILDREN.

2 Ann. s. 1. c. 6. §. 7. A child of a popish parent professing a desire to become a protestant, may institute a chancery suit against his parent, and be decreed a present maintenance, and a portion after the parent's decease.

8 Ann. c. 3. A child on conforming may also oblige his father to discover upon oath the full value of all his real or personal estate, and have a new bill, toties quoties.

N. B. Though the parent should abandon all his property, yet if he afterwards acquired any thing he might be vexed with a new bill as often as an undutiful child might think fit, to the end of his life.

2. Ann. Stat. 1. c. 6. 3. The eldest son by conforming, may, by filing a bill against his father, divest him of his fee, rendering him bare tenant for life, and take the reversion subject only, to maintenance and portions for younger children, not exceeding one third of the value.

Ib. 5. No papist to have the guardianship of an orphan child, and if there be no protestant relation the child to be committed to a stranger, who shall be bound to use his utmost endeavours to make the child a protestant; and any papist who takes upon himself such guardianship to forfeit 500l. to the blue coat hospital.

6. Geo. 1. c. 6. Children of popish parents bred protestants from the age of twelve years, and receiving the sacrament of the established church, to be reputed protestants, and enjoy their rights, but if after eighteen they are present either at matins or vespers, to suffer the penalties of converted papists relapsing into popery.

For other rude violations of parental tenderness, and statutory temptations to filial and conjugal impiety, see the heads Education, and Marriage.

LAWYERS AND LAW OFFICERS.

3 W. & M. c. 2. § 4. A barrister, attorney, clerk, or officer in chancery, who without having taken the oaths and made the declaration against popery in open court, shall practise in any court, is disabled to hold any office of trust or profit, or to be executor or guardian, or to sue for any right in law or equity, or take by legacy, deed, or gift, and to forfeit 500l. half to the informer.

10 W. 3. c. 13. § 1. & 3. No papists to act as solicitor, except in their own cause, or as menial servants, on pain of 1007. to the informer, and like disabilities.

6 Ann. c. 6. § 1. 2. 9. No papist, or reputed papist, to act as above, on pain of 2001. and like disabilities, and any person seeing or knowing such person so to act, may openly in court cause the oaths and declaration [against transubstantiation, &c.] to be tendered to him, and on proof of his refusal he is to be recorded a convict.

Ib. § 4. NO LAWYER SHALL BE EXEMPT BY HIS PRIVILEGE FROM

ANSWERING UPON OATH AS TO HIS KNOWLEDGE IN ANY MATTER THAT SHALL COME IN QUESTION UNDER THIS OR THE FORMER ACT.

It appears throughout this code that all principles of law are reversed, and go by contraries, and that what is law for protestants is not for catholics, and vice versa. It is not therefore wonderful that those familiarized to it by education and habit should judge in the same perverse sense, even where there was no statute, positively oversetting the

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principles of the law. When the lawyer's privilege is given up, the priest's must be little regarded.

6. No officer to let any popish solicitor, &c. inspect or examine records, entries, rules, orders, &c. on pain of 50l. to the informer.

1 Geo. 2. c. 20. 1 Barristers, attorney's clerks, &c. applying for admission, must take the oaths, and repeat and subscribe the declaration appointed in 2 Ann, to prevent the growth of popery. And such as are converted or born of popish parents, must prove before the chancellor, judges, &c. that they have professed and continued to be protestants for two years before, and that their children then under fourteen, or born after the above period, have been educatedprotestants, 21. & 22. Geo. 3. c. 32. s. 2. None but Protestant students are admissible to the king's Inn.

1. Geo. 2. c. 20.. 4. Sheriffs and their clerks, must have been five years Protestants, otherwise, to suffer like pains and disabilities as papists.

7. Geo. 2. c. 5. §. 3. Courts may on suspicion summons a solicitor, and on non appearance, punish him for contempt, with a fine of 501. and imprisonment of six months.

§. 6. Drawing, dictating, or abreviating pleadings, or transcribing depositions-bring the party within the pains of these acts.

INTEREST IN THE SOIL.

To those not already pre-acquainted with this extraordinary code it is not easy to give an adequate impression of the statutes, in such a narrow compass, much less of their operation and effect.

2. Ann. s. 1. c. 6. Disables Papists from purchasing lands in their own name, or in trust, or even any rents, or profits issuing out of lands, or to take a lease for more than 31 years, and not that, unless two thirds of the yearly value be reserved-all other estates to be void.

Ib. §. 7. 8. & 9. No Papist who will not renounce his religion to take any estate, in fee simple, or in tail, by descent or purchase, but the next Protestant to take as if he were dead. The children of Papists to be taken as Papists, a Papist conforming, may be heir to a Papist disabled; wife, if a Protestant, to have dower.

8. Ann. c. 6. §. 10. The fee simple estate of a Papist, henceforth to descend to the sons share and share alike, and to their sons; and for

default of sons, to daughters, in like manner; and so for want of daughters to collaterals, any disposition by the ancestor to the contrary notwithstanding.

This singular rule of descent, was obviously intended to break down all power or concentration of wealth, or influence in Catholic families, whilst primogeniture, being the rule in the descent of Protestants estates, jealouly preserved the opposite principle. It was sui generis: unlike the gavel kind of Kent, where the acquirer may devise his esstate to whom he will; and more unlike the law of our state (New-york) where all is equitably distributed amongst sons and daughters. It was besides in barefaced violation of the treaty of Limerick, which was ratified by the king and queen, and Lords Justices, and guaranteed to all who were then in arms, their rights, titles, privileges and immunities, as by the laws theretofore in force. The whole of these laws to restrain the growth of popery; and which have made popery grow so much, were besides, their intrinsic enormity tainted with that odious stain of perfidy, and shew how safer it is to fight than to treat with implacable oppressors.

2. Ann. c. 6. §. 12. If the heir at law of a papist, be a protestant, he must enrol a certificate of that matter in chancery; if a papist he has a year, within which, if he renounce his religion, he may have his land.

English Stat. 1. Ann. S. 1. c. 32. §. 7. enacts, that the lands theretofore, forfeited and vested in trustees, should be sold to Protestants only, and if any title in the same shall accrue to any papist, he must renounce his religion, or as it was commonly expressed, the errors of the church of Rome, in order to enjoy the estate, and if any make or assign a lease to a papist, both grantor and grantee, to forfeit treble the yearly value; with the exception of a cottage or cabin, with two acres of land to a day labourer; and any Protestant, might file a bill of discovery against any person supposed privy to any trust, to which neither plea, nor demurrer was allowed, and on trial of any is sue, none to be jurors but Protestants.

See further under the titles Education, Parents and Children, Marriage, &c. It is remarkable that these ferocious acts, as Mr. Burke has termed them, to prevent the further growth of popery, conduced more to the growth of it, than any other martyrdom in history.

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