could not
inherit, or {226} even receive property as a gift from Protestants.
The oldest son of a Catholic, by embracing the Protestant faith, became
the heir-at-law to the whole estate of his father, who was reduced to
the position of life-tenant; and any child by the same Act might be
taken away from its father and a portion of his property assigned to
it; while it was the privilege of the wife who apostatized, to be freed
from her husband, and to have assigned to her a proportion of his
property.

The not unnatural result of these last-named enactments was that many
were driven to feigned conversions in order to keep their families from
starvation. It is said that when old Lady Thomond was reproached for
having bartered her soul by professing the Protestant faith, her quick
retort was, "Is it not better that one old woman should burn, than that
all of the Thomonds should be beggars?"

More details are unnecessary after saying that by a decision of Lord
Chancellor Bowes and Chief-Justice Robinson it was declared that "the
law does not suppose any such person to exist as an Irish Roman {227}
Catholic," while the English Bishop at Meath declared from his pulpit,
"We are not bound to keep faith with papists." And it must be
remembered that the people placed under this monstrous system of wrong
and degradation were not a handful, whom the welfare of a community
required should be dealt with severely, they were a large majority of
the population, a nation dwelling in their own country, where, by a
Parliament supposed to be their own, they were governed by a minority
of aliens.

In this time of "Protestant ascendancy," as it is called, there were,
of course, only Protestants in the Parliament. They had all the
authority, they alone were competent to vote; they were the privileged
and upper class; an Irish papist, whatever his rank, being the social
inferior of his Protestant neighbor. But let it not be supposed that
the Irish Protestants were on that account happy! They had been
planted in that land as a breakwater against the native Irish flood,
but for all that, England had no idea of permitting them to build up a
dangerous prosperity in Ireland. The theory governing English
statesmanship was that that {228} country must be kept helpless; and to
that end it must be kept poor. During the reign of Charles II. the
importing of Irish cattle into England had been forbidden. The effects
of this prohibition, so ruin