are well known to all readers of English history. Our concern is with
their effects on the land question.

One of the measures passed by this parliament was an act repealing the
act of settlement. But, soon after the Revolution, measures were taken
to render that settlement firmer than ever. A commission was appointed
to enquire into the forfeited estates; and the consequence was that
1,060,792 acres were declared escheated to the crown. In 1695 King
William, in his speech, read to the Irish parliament, assured
them that he was intent upon the firm settlement of Ireland upon a
Protestant basis. He kept his word, for when he died there did not
remain in the hands of Catholics one-sixth of the land which their
grandfathers held, even after the passing of the act of settlement.
The acts passed for securing the Protestant interest formed the series
known as the penal code, which was in force for the whole of the
eighteenth century. It answered its purpose effectually; it reduced
the nation to a state of poverty, degradation, and slavishness of
spirit unparalleled in the history of Christendom, while it made the
small dominant class a prodigy of political and religious tyranny.
Never was an aristocracy, as a body, more hardened in selfishness,
more insolent in spirit; never was a church more negligent of duty,
more intensely and ostentatiously secular. Both church and state
reeked with corruption.

The plan adopted for degrading the Catholics, and reducing all to one
plebeian level, was most ingenious. The ingenuity indeed may be said
to be Satanic, for it debased its victims morally as well as socially
and physically. It worked by means of treachery, covetousness,
perfidy, and the perversion of all natural affections. The trail of
the serpent was over the whole system. For example, when the last Duke