or annuity chargeable on any lands, tenements or heredita ments, and at this day no papist is capable to buy or purchase from protestant or papist any rents or profits out of lands, tenements or hereditaments, in such manor or borough, or take any annuity, chargeable on such lands, tenements or hereditaments;-and all securities whatsoever for the securing of any such annuity are void; and any judgment had on such annuity, so far as such judgment may affect such lands, is also void.

In respect to the leases taken by papists, under the powers granted by the 17th and 18th Geo. 3. ch. 40., it is to be observed, that those leases, if taken at any time within the first of August and first of November 1788, were liable to be charged with maintenance and portion for the children of a popish parent possessed of the same, if a bill grounded on the 2d Anne, ch. 6, was filed for that purpose before the first of November, 1778; but if no such bill was filed before the first of November, 1778, such leases, so previously taken, and in the actual possession of the papist on that day, ceased to be liable to such charges. It must also be observed, as to those leases taken by papists under the powers granted by the 17th and 18th Geo. 3. ch. 49, that if taken at any time after the 1st of November 1778, and before the 2d of May 1782, (or since, if of lands in such beforementioned manors or boroughs) they were, and do now continue to be, liable to be charged with such maintenance and portion.- -As to leases of any lands, tenements or hereditaments, (save in such beforementioned manors or boroughs,) taken by papists after the 1st of May 1782, they are within the provision of the statute of the 21st and 22d Geo. 3. ch. 24, "which enables papists, upon making as aforesaid the oath and declaration before-mentioned, to take and dispose of lands, tenements and hereditaments, and any interest therein, as fully and beneficially as other subjects may," and are, therefore, not liable to such charges.

To conclude our observations on the subject of real property, we have only to take notice, that the law directs that, debts and incumbrances affecting the real estates of papists, shall, within six months, be enrolled in the court of exchequer, in some public office belonging to and appointed by such court for that purpose, and that in default of such enrollment, such VOL. IV. 2 z

debts and incumbrances shall not charge the lands in the hands of a protestant.-The auditor-general's office is the place appointed for that purpose by the court of exchequer.—The intent of this law was to prevent pocket incumbrances only— judgments are of sufficient notoriety, and, it is decided, that they are not within the view of the legislature, and that copies of them need not be enrolled in the auditor-general's office. ACQUISITION OF PROPERTY.-Whatever effect the relaxing laws may have had upon real estates and chattels real, the goods and personal chattels have not been affected by those laws in any respect, save that no maintenance or portion can be granted out of such property to any child of

popish parent, upon a bill filed against such parent, pursu ant to the 2d Anne, ch. 6; in other respects, the penalties of the law affecting such property, remain as they did before the relaxing laws were passed.

If the wife of a papist conforms in his life time, she shall, if she survives him, and be unprovided for by dower, or by some settlement on his real estate, receive such proportion of the goods and personal chattels whereof he shall die possessed or intitled unto, as the court of chancery, on a bill to be preferred by her, grounded on the 8th Anne, ch. 3. may think reasonable, not exceeding one third part after debts and fu neral expences, notwithstanding any will or voluntary disposition by him to the contrary, or the statute of distributions. The legislature, in this instance, has presumed, that the husband omitted to make provision, for no other reason than that of her religion.——If, therefore, a wife chooses to balance any domestic misdemeanors to her husband, by the public merit of conformity to the protestant religion, the law will suffer no proofs of such misdemeanors to be brought to invalidate its presumption; she acquires a provision, totally independent of the favour of her husband, and this in a great degree deprives him of that source of domestic authority, which the common law has left in families, that of rewarding or punishing, by a voluntary distribution of his effects, what in the opinion of the husband, was the good or ill behaviour of his wife. And yet it is to be observed, that though the law meant a favour to the conforming wife, yet, by a strange inaccuracy, in repealing as to her the provisions of the statute of distributions, it has deprived her of an advantage, to which

she would have been intitled under that statute, in case her husband died intestate and without issue; as in such case, by that statute, she would be intitled, as against his collateral relations, to a moiety of the clear surplus of his personal estate, after payment of debts and funeral expences.

The child of a papist, on conforming to the protestant religion, may file a bill in chancery, grounded on the statute of the 8th Anne, ch. 3, against the parent, and compel such parent, by the process of that court, to confess, upon oath, the quantity and value of the goods and personal chattels of such parent, over and above debts contracted bonâ fide for valuable consideration before the conformity. Upon this

conformity, the court is empowered to seize upon and allocate for the immediate maintenance of such child, any sum not exceeding one third of the said goods and personal chattels. This third, as we said, for immediate maintenance; but as to future establishment upon the death of the parent, no limits whatsoever are assigned by the statute; the chancellor may, if he thinks fit, take the whole of such property, money, stock in trade or agriculture, out of the hands of the possessor, and secure it in any manner he may think expedient for that purpose, the act not having any sort of limit with regard to the quantity of property which is to be so charged, nor having given any sort of direction concerning the means of charging or securing it.-But the policy of the legislature was not yet exhausted, because there was a possi bility, that the parent, though sworn, and otherwise compel Jable, might by false representations evade the discovery of the ultimate value of such property on the first bill; new bills may be brought at any time, by any, or by all the children, for a further discovery.-Such property of the parent is to undergo a fresh scrutiny, and in consequence of this scrutiny a new distribution is to be made; the parent can have no security against the vexation of reiterated chancery suits, and continual dissection of such his property, but by doing what must be confessed is somewhat difficult to human feelings, by fully and without reserve abandoning such property (which may be his whole) to be disposed of at the discretion of such a court, in favour of such children.-Is this enough; and has the parent purchased his repose, by the total surrender for once of such effects? Very far from it: the law very expressly

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and carefully provides that he shall not; for as in the former case, a concealment of any part of such effects is made the equitable ground of a new bill-so here any encrease of them is made a second ground of equity; for the children are authorised, if they can find that their parent has, by his industry or otherwise, acquired any property since their first bill, to bring others compelling a fresh account, and another distribution of the increased substance, proportioned to its value at the time that the new bill is preferred.-They may bring such bills toties quoties, upon every improvement of such property by the parent, without any sort of limitation of time, of the number of such bills, or the quantity of encrease in the estate, which may justify the bringing them; in short, the law has provided, by a multiplicity of regulations, that the parent shall have no respite from the persecution of his children, but by totally abandoning not only all his present goods and personal chattels, but every hope of encrease and improvement of such property.It is very well worth remarking, that the law has purposely avoided to determine any age for these emancipating conversions; so that the children, at any age, however in all other respects incapable of choice, however immature, or even infantine, are yet considered as sufficiently capable of disinheriting their parents, if we may be allowed the expression, and to subtract themselves from their direction and controul. By this part of the law, the value of Roman Catholics in their goods and personal chattels, is rendered extremely limited, and altogether precarious, the paternal authority in such families undermined, and love and gratitude, dependence and protection, almost extinguished.

FRANCHISES.-There only remains upon our plan, to say something concerning franchises.

No person shall hold any ecclesiastical office or employment, without making a declaration against transubstantia tion, at the times and places, and in the manner prescribed by the law.

No person, without making a declaration against transubstantiation and receiving the sacrament according to the church of Ireland at the times and places and in the manner prescribed by the law, shall hold any office or employment, civil or military, except the office of high constable, overseer

of the poor, church-warden, surveyor of the highways, or any like inferior civil office, or the office of forester or keeper of a park, chase, warren, game, or bailiff of a manor of lands, or any like private office.-The office or employment is void, and the penalty for executing it, a disability to sue in law or equity, to be guardian, executor or administrator, to take a legacy or deed of gift, or to bear any office, and a forfeiture of £500.

Papists are not entitled to vote at vestries, (held for other purposes than paving and lighting,) unless they happen to be the church-wardens, in which case they vote, except for the repairing and building of churches.

Papists are not to be parochial watchmen in times of tumult and danger-the lord lieutenant, the judge of such times, may, when he shall judge necessary, issue proclamations for the finding of protestants, and none other, to be parochial watch.

Though papists may, by taking and subscribing the oath of allegiance prescribed by the 13th and 14th Geo. 3. c. 35, qualify to be called to the bar, yet they are expressly excluded from being king's council.

And though papists may in like manner qualify to be attorney, solicitor, or notary, yet to be an advocate, proctor, or six clerk, the necessity of a declaration against transubstantiation still remains.

No person shall be capable of acting as a sub-sheriff or sheriff's clerk, who has not been a protestant for five years immediately before such acting, under penalty of being subject to such disabilities as papists are.

No peer, or member of the house of peers, shall vote or make his proxy in such house, or sit there during any debate, nor shall any member of the house of commons vote or sit in the house of commons, during any debate after the speaker is chosen, until such peer or member shall take and subscribe The penalty is the declaration against transubstantiation. a disability to hold or execute any office ecclesiastical, civil or military, to sit or vote in either house of parliament, or make a proxy in the house of lords, to sue in law or equity, to be guardian, executor or administrator, or to take any legacy or deed of gift, and a forfeiture of £500.

No papist is intitled to vote at the election of any member