ting and terrible injury even than these, it sowed bitter strife
between father and son, and brother and brother. Any member of a family,
by simply turning Protestant, could dispossess the rest of that family
of the bulk of the estate to his own advantage. Socially, too, a Papist,
no matter what his rank, stood below, and at the mercy of, his
Protestant neighbours. He was treated by the executive as a being
devoid, not merely of all political, but of all social rights, and only
the numerical superiority of the members of the persecuted creed can
have enabled them to carry on existence under such circumstances at all.

For it must be remembered (and this is one of its worst features) that
those placed under this monstrous ban constituted the vast majority of
the whole country. In Burke's memorable words, "This system of penalty
and incapacity has for its object no small sect or obscure party, but a
very numerous body of men, a body which comprehends at least two-thirds
of the whole nation; it amounts to two million eight hundred thousand
souls--a number sufficient for the constituents of a great people[13]."
"The happiness or misery of multitudes," he adds in another place, "can
never be a thing indifferent. A law against the majority of the people
is in substance a law against the people itself; its extent determines
its invalidity; it even changes its character as it enlarges its
operation; it is not particular injustice, but general oppression, and
can no longer be considered as a private hardship which might be borne,
but spreads and grows up into the unfortunate importance of a national
calamity."

[13] "Tracts on the Popery Laws."

As was natural under the circumstances, many feigned conversions took
place, that being the only way to avoid been utterly cut adrift from
public life. For by a succession of enactments, not only were the higher
offices and the professions debarred to Roman Catholics, but they were
even prohibited--to so absurd a length can panic go--from being
sheriffs, jurymen, constables, or even gamekeepers. "Every barrister,
clerk, attorney, or solicitor," to quote again Burke, "is obliged to
take a solemn oath not to employ persons of that persuasion; no, not as
hackney clerks, at the miserable salary of seven shillings a week." It
was loudly complained of many years later, that men used to qualify for
taking the oaths required upon being admitted as barristers or attorneys
by attending church an