adjudged within the said second article accordingly, who will, if this bill passeth into a law, be entirely barred and excluded from any benefit of the said second article by virtue of the afore-mentioned words; so that the words omitted being so very material, and confirmed by his majesty, after a solemn debate in council, as we are informed, some express reason, as we conceive, ought to have been assigned in the bill, in order to satisfy the world as to that omission. 4thly. Because several words are inserted in the bill which are not in the articles, and others omitted which alter the sense and meaning of some parts of the articles, as we conceive. 5thly. Because we apprehend that many Protestants may and will suffer by this bill, in their just rights and pretensions, by reason of their having purchased and lent money upon the credit of the said articles, and, we conceive, in several other respects." The other acts of this reign relating to the Catholics are: an act to prevent Protestants from intermarrying with Papists,* and an act to prevent them from being solicitors. A clause was introduced in an act for the preservation of game, prohibiting Papists from being employed as gamekeepers.‡

How it is possible to defend William and his ministers from the charge of having acted with perfidy toward the Catholics, it is not easy to discover. That they were guilty of violating the treaty, no one can deny. Why did he not refuse his consent to these laws, on the ground of their being contrary to his solemn engagements to the Catholics? He had exercised this prerogative in the case of one Scotch § and one English bill. But even this extremity might have been avoided, because the law of Poynings required that every bill should be approved

10 William III, c. 13.

*9 William III, c. 3. Ibid., c. 8. For excluding from any public trust all such as had been concerned in the encroachments of the late reign.

Concerning free and impartial proceedings in parliament.

486 Treaty of Limerick in the Reign of William III.

by the king and council of England, before it could pass the House of Commons; and if a bill was exceptionable, by withholding their approbation,—a very common proceeding, it fell, of course, to the ground. But, if William and his ministers were guilty of perfidy toward the Catholics, his successor far outstripped him, nor has any succeeding prince been free from the blame of having been accessory to his misconduct, in proportion as he has neglected or refused to repeal those penal laws, which are so many glaring violations of the Treaty of Limerick, and a scandal to the boasted good faith of the English nation.

PENAL LAWS

IN THE

REIGN OF ANNE.

1701-1714.

ON the 4th of March, 1704, the royal assent was given to the act to prevent the further growth of Popery, being the first of those two famous acts which have, most deservedly, been termed by Mr. Burke "the ferocious. acts of Anne."

By the third clause of this act, the Popish father, though he may have acquired his estate by descent from a long line of ancestors, or by his own purchase, is deprived of the power,-in case his eldest son, or any son, become a Protestant,-to sell, mortgage, or otherwise dispose of it, or to leave out of it any portion of legacies.

By the fourth clause, the Popish father is debarred, under a penalty of £500, from being a guardian, or from having the custody of his own children; but if the child, though ever so young, pretend to be a Protestant, it is to be taken from its own father, and put into the hands of a Protestant relation.

The fifth clause provides that no Protestant shall marry a Papist having an estate in Ireland, either in or out of the kingdom.

The sixth clause renders Papists incapable of purchasing any manors, tenements, hereditaments, or any rents

or profits arising from out of the same, or of holding any lease of lives, or other lease whatever, for any term exceeding thirty-one years. Even with respect to this advantage, restrictions are imposed on them: one of which is, that, if a farm produced a profit greater than onethird of the amount of the rent, the right of holding it was immediately to cease, and to pass over entirely to the first Protestant who should discover the rate of profit.

The seventh clause deprives Papists of such inheritance, devise, gift, remainder, or trust, of any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, of which any Protestant was or should be seized in fee simple, absolute, or fee-tail, which, by the death of such Protestant or his wife, ought to have descended to his son or other issue in tail, being Papists, and makes them descend to the nearest Protestant relation, as if the Popish heir and other Popish relations were dead.

By the tenth clause, the estate of a Papist, for want of a Protestant heir, is to be divided, share and share alike, among all his sons; for want of sons, among his daughters; and for want of daughters, among the collateral kindred of the father.

By the fifteenth clause, no person shall be exempt from the penalties of this act that shall not take and subscribe the oath and declaration required by this act to be taken.

By the sixteenth clause, any persons whatsoever who shall receive any office, civil or military, shall take and subscribe the oath and declaration required to be taken by the English act of 3d William and Mary, and also the oath and declaration required to be taken by another English act of Ist Anne; also, shall receive the sacrament.*

Upon this clause of the bill, the Protestant Bishop Burnett makes the following observations: "A clause was added (in England) which they (the Roman Catholics) hoped would hinder its being accepted in Ireland. The matter was carried on so secretly that it was known to none but those who were at the council, till the news of it came from Ireland, upon its being sent

The twenty-third clause provides that no Papist, except under certain conditions, shall dwell in Limerick or Galway.

The twenty-fourth clause, that no persons shall vote at elections without taking the oaths of allegiance and abjuration.

And the twenty-fifth clause, that all advowsons possessed by Papists shall be vested in her majesty.

The Catholics, who had submitted in silence to all the unjust transgressions of the last reign, felt it necessary, when this act was first brought before parliament, to use their utmost exertions to prevent it from passing into a law. They, however, appealed in vain to the English cabinet to respect the solemn engagements of the Treaty of Limerick, and were obliged to have recourse to a petition to the Irish parliament.

Sir Theobald Butler was heard as counsel for the petitioners, at the bar of the House of Commons, on the 22d February, 1703. He stated that the bill would render null and void the articles of Limerick; that those articles had been granted for the valuable consideration of the surrender of the garrison at a time when the Catholics had the sword in their hand, and were in a condition to hold out much longer, and when they had it in their power to demand and make such terms as might be for their own future liberty, safety, and security; that the allowing of the terms contained in these articles was highly advantageous to the government to which they submitted, as well for uniting the people who were then divided, quieting and settling the distractions and disorders of this miserable kingdom, as for the other thither. It was hoped, by those who got this clause added to the bill, that those in Ireland who promoted it would be less fond of it when it had such a weight hung to it."-Hist. v, ii p. 24.

This clause has since been called the Sacramental Test, the first imposed on Dissenters in Ireland. It was repealed without any opposition in the Sessions of 1782.