HAVING heard yesterday by mere accident that | to other things may be perfectly right; or at least there is an intention of laying before the county meeting new matter which is not contained in our petition, and the consideration of which had been deferred to a fitter time by a majority of our committee in London; permit me to take this method of submitting to you my reasons for thinking, with our committee, that nothing ought to be hastily determined upon the subject. county will, in some way or other, be called upon to declare it your opinion, that the house of commons is not sufficiently numerous, and that the elections are not sufficiently frequent: that an hundred new knights of the shire ought to be added; and that we are to have a new election onos in the years for certain, and as much oftener pleases. Such will be the state of roposition made shall take effect. be proper. But, as an honest sibly give my vote for it, until I more fully. I will not deny, n may have faults; and that and, ought to be corrected; constitution has been our ject of admiration to all every thing, which apfaulty in such a complidetermined to be so in Correct the constitution, be viewed together; ith the actual state of stances of the time. y and by itself may nsidered with relation the county of Buckingham, was called for the purpose to parliament, for shorten such as ought to be patiently endured, as the means of preventing something that is worse. So far with regard to what at first view may appear a distemper in the constitution. As to the remedy of that distemper an equal caution ought to be used; because this latter consideration is not single and separate, no more than the former. There are many things in reformation, which would be proper to be done, if other things can be done along with them; but which, if they cannot be so accompanied, ought not to be done at all. I therefore wish, when any new matter of this deep nature is proposed to me, to have the whole scheme distinctly in my view, and full time to consider of it. Please God, I will walk with caution, whenever I am not able clearly to see my way before me. I am now growing old. I have from my very early youth been conversant in reading and thinking upon the subject of our laws and constitution, as well as upon those of other times, and other countries. I have been for fifteen years a very laborious member of parliament; and in that time have had great opportunities of seeing with my own eyes the working of the machine of our government; and remarking where it went smoothly and did its business, and where it checked in its movements, or where it damaged its work. I have also had and used the opportunities of conversing with men of the greatest wisdom and fullest experience in those matters; and I do declare to you most solemnly and most truly, that on the result of all this reading, thinking, experience, and communication, I am not able to come to an immediate resolution in favour of a change of the groundwork of our constitution; and, in particular, that in the present state of the country, in the present state of our representation, in the present state of our rights. and modes of electing, in the present state of the several prevalent interests, in the present state of the affairs and manners of this country, the addition of an hundred knights of the shire, and hurrying election on election, will be things advantageous to liberty or good government. This is the present condition of my mind; and ing the duration of parliaments, and for a more equal representation of the people in the house of commons. might be too slow. The present possessors might happen to be long lived. The legislature knew the natural impatience of expectants, and upon this principle they gave encouragement to children to anticipate the inheritance. For it is provided, that the eldest son of any papist shall immediately on his conformity, change entirely the nature and properties of his father's legal estate; if he before held in fee simple, or, in other words, had the entire and absolute dominion over the land, he is reduced to an estate for his life only, with all the consequences of the natural debility of that estate; by which he becomes disqualified to sell, mortgage, charge, (except for his life,) or in any wise to do any act, by which he may raise money for relief in his most urgent necessities. The eldest son, so conforming, immediately acquires, and in the life-time of his father, the permanent part, what our law calls the reversion and inheritance of the estate, and he discharges it by retrospect; and annuls every sort of voluntary settlement made by the father ever so long before his conversion. This he may sell or dispose of immediately, and alienate it from the family for ever. Having thus reduced his father's estate, he may also bring his father into the court of chancery, where he may compel him to swear to the value of his estate; and to allow him out of that possession, (which had been before reduced to an estate for life,) such an immediate annual allow ance as the lord chancellor or lord keeper shall judge suitable to his age and quality. To obviate these inconveniences another law was made, by which the dominion of children over their parents was extended universally throughout the whole popish part of the nation, and every child of every popish parent was encouraged to come into what is called a court of equity, to prefer a bill against his father, and compel him t confess, upon oath, the quantity and value of his substance, personal as well as real, of what nature soever, or howsoever it might be employed; upon which discovery the court is empowered to sell upon and allocate, for the immediate maintenance of such child or children, any sum not exceeding a third of the whole fortune; and as to ther future establishment on the death of the father, no limits are assigned; the chancery may, if it thinks fit, take the whole property, personal as well as real, money, stock in trade, &c. out of the power of the possessor, and secure it in any manner they judge expedient for that purpose; for the act has not assigned any sort of limit with regard to the quantity, which is to be charged, or gives any direction concerning the means of charge and securing it a law, which supersedes all servation. But the law is still more extensive in its provision. Because there was a possibility, that the parent, though sworn, might by false representations evade the discovery of the ultimate value his estate, a new bill may be at any time broug by one, any, or all, of the children for a furt: discovery; his effects are to undergo a fresh tiny, and a new distribution is to be made consequence of it. So that the parent has security against perpetual inquietude, and the reiteration of chancery suits, but by (what is sowhat difficult for human nature to comply w fully, and without reserve, abandoning his wh property to the discretion of the court, to be de This indulgence is not confined to the eldest son. The other children likewise, by conformity, may acquire the same privileges, and in the same manner force from their father an immediate and independent maintenance. It is very well worth remarking, that the statutes have avoided to fix any determinate age for these emancipating conversions; so that the children, at any age, how-posed of in favour of such children. ever incapable of choice in other respects, however But is this enough, and has the parent purchas immature, or even infantile, are yet considered his repose by such a surrender? Very far from sufficiently capable to disinherit their parents, and The law expressly and very carefully provis totally to subtract themselves from their direction that he shall not; before he can be secure from the and controul, either at their own option, or by the persecution of his children, it requires anot instigation of others. By this law the tenure and and a much more extraordinary condition; t value of a Roman catholick in his real property is children are authorized, if they can find that the not only rendered extremely limited, and alto- parent has by his industry, or otherwise, encrese gether precarious; but the paternal power is in the value of his property since their first bill, all such families so enervated, that it may well be bring another, compelling a new account of t considered as entirely taken away; even the prin- value of his estate, in order to a new distribut ciple, upon which it is founded, seems to be di- proportioned to the value of the estate at the L rectly reversed. However, the legislature feared, of the new bill preferred. They may bring s that enough was not yet done upon this head; the bills, toties quoties, upon every improvement Roman catholick parent, by selling his real estate, his fortune, without any sort of limitation of t might in some sort preserve the dominion over his or regard to the frequency of such bills, or to th substance and his family, and thereby evade the quantity of the encrease of the estate, which sa operation of these laws, which intended to take justify the bringing them. This act expres away both. Besides, frequent revolutions and provides, that he shall have no respite from t many conversions had so broken the landed pro- persecution of his children, but by totally al perty of papists in that kingdom, that it was ap-doning all thoughts of improvement and aeque prehended, that this law could have in a short time but a few objects, upon which it would be capable of operating. sition. This is going a great way surely but the 1 in question have gone much further. Not sat with calling upon children to revolt against their parents, and to possess themselves of their substance, there are cases where the withdrawing of the child from his father's obedience is not left to the option of the child himself; for if the wife of a Roman catholick should choose to change her religion, from that moment she deprives her husband of all management and direction of his children, and even of all the tender satisfaction, which a parent can feel in their society, and which is the only indemnification he can have for all his cares and sorrows; and they are to be torn for ever, at the earliest age, from his house and family; for the lord chancellor is not only authorized, but he is strongly required, to take away all his children from such popish parent, to appoint where, in what manner, and by whom, they are to be educated; and the father is compelled to pay, not for the ransom, but for the deprivation of his children; and to furnish such a sum as the chancellor thinks proper to appoint for their education, to the age of eighteen years. The case is the same, if the husband should be the conformist; though how the law is to operate in this case I do not see: for the act expressly says, that the child shall be taken from such popish parent. And whilst such husband and wife cohabit, it will be impossible to put it into execution without taking the child from one as well as from the other; and then the effect of the law will be, that if either husband or wife becomes protestant, both are to be deprived of their children. The paternal power thus being wholly abrogated, it is evident, that by the last regulation the power of an husband over his wife is also considerably impaired; because if it be in her power, whenever she pleases, to subtract the children from his protection and obedience, she herself by that hold inevitably acquires a power and superiority over her husband. But she is not left dependent upon this oblique influence; for if in any marriage settlement the husband has reserved to him a power of making a jointure, and he dies without settling any, her conformity executes his powers; and executes them in as large extent as the chancellor thinks fit. The husband is deprived of that coercive power over his wife, which he had in his hands by the use he might make of the discretionary power reserved in the settlement. But if no such power had been reserved, and no such settlement existed, yet if the husband dies leaving his conforming wife without a fixed provision by some settlement on his real estate, his wife may apply to chancery, where she shall be allotted a portion from his leases, and other personal estate, not exceeding one third of his whole clear substance. The laws in this instance, as well as in the former, have presumed, that the husband has omitted to make all the provision, which he might have done, for no other reason than that of her religion. If therefore she chooses to balance any domestick misdemeanours to her husband by the publick merit of conformity to the VOL. II. 2 F | protestant religion, the law will suffer no plea of such misdemeanours to be urged on the husband's part, nor proof of that kind to be entered into. She acquires a provision totally independent of his favour, and deprives him of that source of domestick authority, which the common law had left to him, that of rewarding, or punishing, by a voluntary distribution of his effects, what in his opinion was the good or ill behaviour of his wife. Thus the laws stand with regard to the property already acquired, to its mode of descent, and to family powers. Now as to the new acquisition of real property, and both to the acquisition and security of personal, the law stands thus : All persons of that persuasion are disabled from taking or purchasing directly, or by a trust, any lands, any mortgage upon land, any rents or profits from land, any lease, interest, or term of any land; any annuity for life or lives, or years, or any estate whatsoever, chargeable upon, or which may in any manner affect, any lands. One exception, and one only, is admitted by the statutes to the universality of this exclusion, viz. a lease for a term not exceeding thirty-one years. But even this privilege is charged with a prior qualification. This remnant of a right is doubly curtailed; 1st, that on such a short lease, a rent not less than two-thirds of the full improved yearly value, at the time of the making it, shall be reserved during the whole continuance of the term; and 2dly, it does not extend to the whole kingdom. This lease must also be in possession, and not in reversion. If any lease is made, exceeding either in duration or value, and in the smallest degree, the above limits, the whole interest is forfeited, and vested ipso facto in the first protestant discoverer or informer. This discoverer, thus invested with the property, is enabled to sue for it as his own right. The courts of law are not alone open to him; he may (and this is the usual method) enter into either of the courts of equity, and call upon the parties, and those whom he suspects to be their trustees, upon oath, and under the penalties of perjury, to discover against themselves the exact nature and value of their estates in every particular, in order to induce their forfeiture on the discovery. In such suits the informer is not liable to those delays, which the ordinary procedure of those courts throws into the way of the justest claimant; nor has the papist the indulgence, which he allows to the most fraudulent defendant, that of plea and demurrer. But the defendant is obliged to answer the whole directly upon oath. The rule of favores ampliandi, &c. is reversed by this act, lest any favour should be shewn, or the force and operation of the law in any part of its progress be enervated. All issues to be tried on this act are to be tried by none but known protestants. It is here unnecessary to state as a part of this law, what has been for some time generally understood as a certain consequence of it. The act had expressly provided, that a papist could possess no sort of estate, which might affect land (except as such a practice. Popish schoolmasters of every species are proscribed by those acts, and it is made felony to teach even in a private family: so that papists are entirely excluded from an education in any of our authorized establishments for learning at home. In order to shut up every avenue to instruction, the act of King William in Ireland has added to this restraint by precluding them from all foreign education. This act is worthy of attention on account of the singularity of some of its provisions. Being sent for education to any popish school or college abroad, upon conviction, incurs (if the party sent has any estate of inherit before excepted). On this a difficulty did, not unnaturally, arise. It is generally known, a judgment being obtained, or acknowledged, for any debt since the statute of Westm. 2, 13 Ed. I. c. 18, one half of the debtor's land is to be delivered unto the creditor until the obligation is satisfied, under a writ called Elegit, and this writ has been ever since the ordinary assurance of the land, and the great foundation of general credit in the nation. Although the species of holding under this writ is not specified in the statute, the received opinion, though not juridically delivered, has been, that if they attempt to avail themselves of that security, because it may create an estate, however precari-ance) a kind of unalterable and perpetual outlawry. ous, in land, their whole debt or charge is forfeited, and becomes the property of the protestant in former. Thus you observe, first, that by the express words of the law all possibility of acquiring any species of valuable property, in any sort connected with land, is taken away: and, secondly, by the construction, all security for money is also cut off. No security is left, except what is merely personal, and which, therefore, most people, who lend money, would, I believe, consider as none at all. Under this head of the acquisition of property, the law meets them in every road of industry, and in its direct and consequential provisions throws almost all sorts of obstacles in their way. For they are not only excluded from all offices in church and state, which, though a just and necessary provision, is yet no small restraint in the acquisition; but they are interdicted from the army and the law, in all its branches. This point is carried to so scrupulous a severity, that chamber practice, and even private conveyancing, the most voluntary agency, are prohibited to them under the severest penalties, and the most rigid modes of inquisition. They have gone beyond even this; for every barrister, six clerk, attorney, or solicitor, is obliged to take a solemn oath not to employ persons of that persuasion; no, not as hackney clerks, at the miserable salary of 7s. a week. No tradesman of that persuasion is capable, by any service or settlement, to obtain his freedom in any town corporate; so that they trade and work in their own native towns as aliens, paying, as such, quarterage, and other charges and impositions. They are expressly forbidden, in whatever employment, to take more than two apprentices, except in the linen manufacture only. In every state, next to the care of the life and properties of the subject, the education of their youth has been a subject of attention. In the Irish laws this point has not been neglected. Those, who are acquainted with the constitution of our universities, need not be informed, that none but those, who conform to the established church, can be at all admitted to study there; and that none can obtain degrees in them, who do not previously take all the tests, oaths, and declarations. Lest they should be enabled to supply this defect by private academies and schools of their own, the law has armed itself with all its terrours against The tender and incapable age of such a person, his natural subjection to the will of others, his necessary unavoidable ignorance of the las, stands for nothing in his favour. He is disabled to sue in law or equity; to be guardian, executor. or administrator: he is rendered incapable of any legacy or deed of gift; he forfeits all his goods and chattels for ever, and he forfeits for his life all his lands, hereditaments, offices, and estate of freehold, and all trusts, powers, or interests therein. All persons concerned in sending them or maintaining them abroad, by the least assistance of money or otherwise, are involved in the same dis abilities, and subjected to the same penalties. The mode of conviction is as extraordinary as the penal sanctions of this act. A justice of peace, upon information, that any child is sent away. may require to be brought before him all persuas charged, or even suspected, of sending or assisting and examine them and other persons on oath cocerning the fact. If on this examination he finds it probable, that the party was sent contrary to the act, he is then to bind over the parties and witnesses in any sum he thinks fit, but not less than £20, to appear and take their trial at the next quarte sessions. Here the justices are to re-examin evidence, until they arrive, as before, to what shal appear to them a probability. For the rest, they resort to the accused;-if they can prove, that ar person, or any money, or any bill of exchange, his been sent abroad by the party accused, they throw the proof upon him to shew for what innocta purposes it was sent; and on failure of such proc he is subjected to all the above-mentioned pena ties. Half the forfeiture is given to the Crown; the other half goes to the informer. It ought here to be remarked, that this mode t conviction not only concludes the party has faid in his expurgatory proof, but it is sufficient als to subject to the penalties and incapacities of the law the infant, upon whose account the pers has been so convicted. It must be confessed, t the law has not left him without some species of remedy in this case apparently of much hardsh where one man is convicted upon evidence gives against another, if he has the good fortune to live: for, within a twelvemonth after his return, or la age of 21, he has a right to call for a new trial, in which he also is to undertake the negative pro and to shew by sufficient evidence, that he has not been sent abroad against the intention of the act. If he succeeds in this difficult exculpation, and demonstrates his innocence to the satisfaction of the court, he forfeits all his goods and chattels, and all the profits of his lands incurred and received before such acquittal; but he is freed from all other forfeitures, and from all subsequent incapacities. There is also another method allowed by the law in favour of persons under such unfortunate circumstances, as in the former case for their innocence, in this upon account of their expiation;-if within six months after their return, with the punctilious observation of many ceremonies, they conform to the established church, and take all the oaths and subscriptions, the legislature, in consideration of the incapable age, in which they were sent abroad, of the merit of their early conformity, and to encourage conversions, only confiscates, as in the former case, the whole personal estate, and the profits of the real; in all other respects, restoring and rehabilitating the party. So far as to property and education. There remain some other heads, upon which the acts have changed the course of the common law; and first, with regard to the right of self-defence, which consists in the use of arms. This, though one of the rights by the law of nature, yet is so capable of abuses, that it may not be unwise to make some regulations concerning them and many wise nations have thought proper to set several restrictions on this right, especially temporary ones, with regard to suspected persons, and on occasion of some imminent danger to the publick from foreign invasion or domestick commotions. : But provisions in time of trouble proper, and perhaps necessary, may become in time of profound peace a scheme of tyranny. The method, which the statute law of Ireland has taken upon this delicate article, is, to get rid of all difficulties at once by an universal prohibition to all persons, at all times, and under all circumstances, who are not protestants, of using or keeping any kind of weapons whatsoever. In order to enforce this regulation, the whole spirit of the common law is changed; very severe penalties are enjoined; the largest powers are vested in the lowest magistrates. Any two justices of peace, or magistrates of a town, with or without information, at their pleasure, by themselves, or their warrant, are empowered to enter and search the house of any papist, or even of any other person, whom they suspect to keep such arms in trust for them. The only limitation to the extent of this power is, that the search is to be made between the rising and setting of the sun but even this qualification extends no further than to the execution of the act in the open country; for in all cities and their suburbs, in towns corporate and market towns, they may, at their discretion, and without information, break open houses, and institute such search at any hour of the day or night. This I say they may do at their discretion, and it seems a pretty ample power in the hands of such magistrates. However, the matter does by no means totally rest on their discretion. Besides the discretionary and occasional search, the statute has prescribed one, that is general and periodical. It is to be made annually, by the warrant of the justices at their Midsummer quarter sessions, by the high and petty constables, or any others whom they may authorize, and by all corporate magistrates, in all houses of papists, and every other, where they suspect arms for the use of such persons to be concealed, with the same powers, in all respects, which attend the occasional search. The whole of this regulation, concerning both the general and particular search, seems to have been made by a legislature, which was not at all extravagantly jealous of personal liberty. Not trusting, however, to the activity of the magistrate acting officially, the law has invited all voluntary informers by considerable rewards, and even pressed involuntary informers into this service by the dread of heavy penalties. With regard to the latter method, two justices of peace, or the magistrate of any corporation, are empowered to summon before them any persons whatsoever, to tender them an oath, by which they oblige them to discover all persons, who have any arms concealed contrary to law. Their refusal, or declining to appear, or appearing, their refusal to inform, subjects them to the severest penalties. If peers or peeresses are summoned (for they may be summoned by the bailiff of a corporation of six cottages) to perform this honourable service, and refuse to inform, the first offence is £.300 penalty; the second is premunire, that is to say, imprisonment for life, and forfeiture of all their goods. Persons of an inferiour order are, for the first offence, fined £.30; for the second, they too are subjected to premunire. So far as to involuntary; now, as to voluntary informers, the law entitles them to half the penalty incurred by carrying or keeping arms; for, on conviction of this offence, the penalty upon persons of whatever substance is the sum of £.50 and a year's imprisonment, which cannot be remitted even by the Crown. The only exception to this law is a license from the lord lieutenant and council to carry arms, which by its nature is extremely limited, and I do not suppose, that there are six persons now in the kingdom, who have been fortunate enough to obtain it. There remains, after this system concerning property and defence, to say something concerning the exercise of religion, which is carried on in all persuasions, but especially in the Romish, by persons appointed for that purpose. The law of King William and Queen Anne ordered all popish parsons exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction, all orders of monks and friars, and all priests, not then actually in parishes, and to be registered, to be banished the kingdom; and if they should return from exile, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Twenty pounds reward is given for apprehending them. Penalty on harbouring and concealing. As all the priests then in being and registered |