upon oath the value of his property, both real and personal, and could assign for the present maintenance and future portion of the converted child such proportion of that property as the court might decree.  No Catholic could be guardian either to his own children or to those of another person; and therefore a Catholic who died while his children were minors had the bitterness of reflecting upon his death-bed that they must pass into the care of Protestants.  An annuity of from twenty to forty pounds was provided as a bribe for every priest who would become a Protestant.  To convert a Protestant to Catholicism was a capital offence.  In every walk of life the Catholic was pursued by persecution or restriction.  Except in the linen trade, he could not have more than two apprentices.  He could not possess a horse of the value of more than five pounds, and any Protestant, on giving him five pounds, could take his horse.  He was compelled to pay double to the militia.  He was forbidden, except under particular conditions, to live in Galway or Limerick.  In case of war with a Catholic power, the Catholics were obliged to reimburse the damage done by the enemy’s privateers.  The Legislature, it is true, did not venture absolutely to suppress their worship, but it existed only by a doubtful connivance—­stigmatized as if it were a species of licensed prostitution, and subject to conditions which, if they had been enforced, would have rendered its continuance impossible.  An old law which prohibited it, and another which enjoined attendance at the Anglican worship, remained unrepealed, and might at any time be revived; and the former was, in fact, enforced during the Scotch rebellion of 1715.  The parish priests, who alone were allowed to officiate, were compelled to be registered, and were forbidden to keep curates or to officiate anywhere except in their own parishes.  The chapels might not have bells or steeples.  No crosses might be publicly erected.  Pilgrimages to the holy wells were forbidden.  Not only all monks and friars, but also all Catholic archbishops, bishops, deacons, and other dignitaries, were ordered by a certain day to leave the country; and if after that date they were found in Ireland they were liable to be first imprisoned and then banished; and if after that banishment they returned to discharge their duty in their dioceses, they were liable to the punishment of death.  To facilitate the discovery of offences against the code, two justices of the peace might at any time compel any Catholic of eighteen years of age to declare when and where he last heard Mass, what persons were present, and who officiated; and if he refused to give evidence they might imprison him for twelve months, or until he paid a fine of twenty pounds.  Any one who harboured ecclesiastics from beyond the seas was subject to fines which for the third offence amounted to confiscation of all his goods.  A graduated scale of rewards was offered for the discovery of Catholic bishops, priests, and schoolmasters; and a resolution of the House of Commons pronounced ‘the prosecuting and informing against Papists’ ’an honourable service to the Government.’