“The last great Protestant ruler of England was William III., who is identified in Ireland with the humiliation of the Boyne, with the destruction of Irish trade, and with the broken Treaty of Limerick.  The ceaseless exertions of the extreme Protestant party have made him more odious in the eyes of the people than he deserves to be; for he was personally far more tolerant than the great majority of his contemporaries, and the penal code was chiefly enacted under his successors.  It required, indeed, four or five reigns to elaborate a system so ingeniously contrived to demoralize, to degrade, and to impoverish the people of Ireland.  By this code the Roman Catholics were absolutely excluded from the Parliament, from the magistracy, from the corporations, from the bench, and from the bar.  They could not vote at Parliamentary elections or at vestries; they could not act as constables, or sheriffs, or jurymen, or serve in the army or navy, or become solicitors, or even hold the positions of gamekeeper or watchman.  Schools were established to bring up their children as Protestants; and if they refused to avail themselves of these, they were deliberately assigned to hopeless ignorance, being excluded from the university, and debarred, under crushing penalties, from acting as schoolmasters, as ushers, or as private tutors, or from sending their children abroad to obtain the instruction they were refused at home.  They could not marry Protestants, and if such a marriage were celebrated it was annulled by law, and the priest who officiated might be hung.  They could not buy land, or inherit or receive it as a gift from Protestants, or hold life-annuities, or leases for more than thirty-one years, or any lease on such terms that the profits of the land exceeded one-third of the rent.  If any Catholic leaseholder by his industry so increased his profits that they exceeded this proportion, and did not immediately make a corresponding increase in his payments, any Protestant who gave the information could enter into possession of his farm.  If any Catholic had secretly purchased either his old forfeited estate, or any other land, any Protestant who informed against him might become the proprietor.  The few Catholic landowners who remained were deprived of the right which all other classes possessed of bequeathing their lands as they pleased.  If their sons continued Catholics, it was divided equally between them.  If, however, the eldest son consented to apostatize, the estate was settled upon him, the father from that hour became only a life-tenant, and lost all power of selling, mortgaging, or otherwise disposing of it.  If the wife of a Catholic abandoned the religion of her husband, she was immediately free from his control, and the Chancellor was empowered to assign to her a certain proportion of her husband’s property.  If any child, however young, professed itself a Protestant, it was at once taken from the father’s care, and the Chancellor could oblige the father to declare