of Ormond arrived as lord lieutenant in 1703, the Commons waited on
him with a bill 'for discouraging the further growth of Popery,' which
became law, having met his decided approval. This act provided that
if the son of a Catholic became a Protestant, the father should be
incapable of selling or mortgaging his estate, or disposing of any
portion of it by will. If a child ever so young professed to be a
Protestant, it was to be taken from its parents, and placed under the
guardianship of the nearest Protestant relation.

The sixth clause renders Papists incapable of purchasing any manors,
tenements, hereditaments, or any rents or profits arising out of the
same, or of holding any lease of lives, or other lease whatever, for
any term exceeding thirty-one years. And with respect even to such
limited leases, it further enacts, that if a Papist should hold a farm
producing a profit greater than _one-third of the amount of the rent_,
his right to such should immediately cease, and pass over entirely
to the first Protestant who should discover the rate of profit. The
seventh clause prohibits Papists from succeeding to the properties or
estates of their Protestant relations. By the tenth clause, the estate
of a Papist, not having a Protestant heir, is ordered to be gavelled,
or divided in equal shares between _all_ his children. The sixteenth
and twenty-fourth clauses impose the oath of abjuration, and the
sacramental test, as a qualification for office, and for voting at
elections. The twenty-third clause deprives the Catholics of Limerick
and Galway of the protection secured to them by the articles of the
treaty of Limerick. The twenty-fifth clause vests in the crown all
advowsons possessed by Papists.

A further act was passed, in 1709, imposing additional penalties. The
first clause declares that no Papist shall be capable of holding an