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, that 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 this is my apology for not going as fast as others may choose to go in this business. I do not by any means reject the propositions much less do I condemn the gentlemen who, with equal good intentions, with much better abilities, and with infinitely greater personal weight and consideration than mine, are of opinion that this matter ought to be decided upon instantly.

I most heartily wish, that the deliberate sense of the kingdom on this great subject should be known. When it is known, it must be prevalent. It would be dreadful indeed, if there was any power in the nation capable of resisting its unanimous desire, or even the desire of any very great and decided majority of the people. The people may be deceived in their choice of an object. But I can scarcely conceive any choice they can make to be so very mischievous as the existence of any human force capable of resisting it. It will certainly be the daty of every man in the situation to which God has called him, to give his best opinion and advice upon the matter; it will not be his duty, let him think what he will, to use any violent or any fraudulent means of counteracting the general wish, or even of employing the legal and constructive organ of expressing the people's sense against the sense which they do actually entertain.

In order that the real sense of the people should be known upon so great an affair as this, it is of absolute necessity that timely notice should be given. That the matter should be prepared in open committees; from a choice into which no class or description of men is to be excluded-and the subsequent county meetings should be as full and as well attended as possible. Without these precautions the true sense of the people will ever be uncertain. Sure I am, that no precipitate resolution on a great change in the fundamental constitution of any country can ever be called the real sense of the people.

I trust it will not be taken amiss, if, as an inhabitant and freeholder of this county, (one

indeed among the most inconsiderable,) I assert my right of dissenting (as I do dissent fully and directly) from any resolution whatsoever on the subject of an alteration in the represen tation and election of the kingdom at this time By preserving this right, and exercising it with temper and moderation, I trust I cannot offend the noble proposer, for whom no man professes, or feels, more respect and regard than I do. A want of concurrence in every thing which can be proposed, will in no sort weaken the energy or distract the efforts of men of upright intentions, upon those points in which they are agreed. Assemblies that are met, and with a resolution to be all of a mind, are assemblies that can have no opinion at all of their own. The first proposer of any measure must be their master. I do not know that an amicable variety of sentiment, conducted with mutual good will, has any sort of resemblance to discord; or that it can give any advantage whatsoever to the enemies of our common cause. On the contrary, a forced and fictitious agreement (which every universal agreement must be) is not becoming the cause of freedom. If, however, any evil should arise from it, (which I confess I do not foresee,) I am happy that those who have brought forward new and arduous matter, when very great doubts, and some diversity of opinion must be foreknown, are of authority and weight enough to stand against the consequences.

I humbly lay these my sentiments before the county. They are not taken up to serve any interests of my own, or to be subservient to the interests of any man or set of men under heaven. I could wish to be able to attend our meeting, or that I had time to reason this matter more fully by letter; but I am detained here upon our business. What you have already put upon us is as much as we can do. If we are prevented from going through it with any effect, I-fear it will be in part owing, not more to the resistance of the enemies of our cause, than to our imposing on ourselves such tasks as no human faculties, employed as we were, can be equal to. Our worthy members have shown distinguished ability and zeal in support of our petition. I am just going down to a bil! brought in to frustrate a capital part of your desires. The minister is preparing to transfer the cognizance of the public accounts from those whom you and the constitution have chosen to controul them, to unknown persons, creatures of his own. For so much he annihilates parliament.

Charles-street, 12th April, 1780

I have the honour, &c. EDMUND BURKE.

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 given any direction concerning the means of charging and securing it: a law which supersedes all observation.

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 of his estate, a new bill may be at any time brought, by one, any, or all of the children, for a further discovery; his effects are to undergo a fresh scrutiny, and a new distribution is to be made in consequence of it. So that the parent has no security against perpetual inquietude, and the reiteration of chancery suits, but by (what is somewhat difficult for human nature to comply with) fully, and with out reserve, abandoning his whole property to the discretion of the court, to be disposed of in favour of such children.

But is this enough, and has the parent purchased his repose by such a surrender? Very far from it. The law expressly, and very carefully, provides that he shall not; before he can be secure from the persecution of his children, it requires another and a much more extraordinary condition; the children are authorized, if they can find that their parent has by his industry or otherwise increased the value of his property since their first bill, to bring another, compelling a new account of the value of his estate, in order to a new distribution proportioned to the value of the estate at the time of the new bill preferred. They may bring such bills, toties quoties, upon every improvement of his fortune, without any sort of limitation of time, or regard to the frequence of such bills, or to the quantity of the increase of the estate, which shall justify the bringing them. This act expressly provides, that he shall have no respite from the persecution of his children, but by totally abandoning all thoughts of improvement and acquisition.

This is going a great way, surely: but the laws in question have gone much further; not satisfied 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 obe. dience is not left to the option of the child himself; frf the wife of a Roman catholic 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 paren! 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 shoul 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 ex ceeding 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 be might have done, for no other reason than that of her religion. If therefore she chooses to balance any domestic misdemeanors to he

hasband, by the public merit of conformity to the protestant religion, the law will suffer no plea of such misdemeanors 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 domestic 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 effect, 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 erm; 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 in either 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 ander 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 de

fendant, that of pea and demurrer. But the defendant is obliged to answer the whole di rectly upon oath. The rule of favores am plaindi, &c. is reversed by this act, lest any favour should be shown, 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 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 precarious, in land, their whole debt or charge is forfeited, and becomes the property of the protestant informer. 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