With regard to the latter method, two justices of peace, or the magistrate of any corporation, are empowered to summon before them any persons whatsoever, to tender them an oath by which they oblige them to discover all persons who have any arms concealed contrary to law.  Their refusal or declining to appear, or, appearing, their refusal to inform, subjects them to the severest penalties.  If peers or peeresses are summoned (for they may be summoned by the bailiff of a corporation of six cottages) to perform this honorable service, and refuse to inform, the first offence is three hundred pounds penalty; the second is praemunire,—­that is to say, imprisonment for life, and forfeiture of all their goods.  Persons of an inferior order are, for the first offence, fined thirty pounds; for the second, they, too, are subjected to praemunire.  So far as to involuntary;—­now as to voluntary informers:  the law entitles them to half the penalty incurred by carrying or keeping arms; for, on conviction of this offence, the penalty upon persons, of whatever substance, is the sum of fifty pounds and a year’s imprisonment, which cannot be remitted even by the crown.

The only exception to this law is a license from the Lord Lieutenant and Council to carry arms, which, by its nature, is extremely limited, and I do not suppose that there are six persons now in the kingdom who have been fortunate enough to obtain it.

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There remains, after this system concerning property and defence, to say something concerning the exercise of religion, winch is carried on in all persuasions, but especially in the Romish, by persons appointed for that purpose.  The law of King William and Queen Anne ordered all Popish parsons exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction, all orders of monks and friars, and all priests, not then actually in parishes, and to be registered, to be banished the kingdom; and if they should return from exile, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.  Twenty pounds reward is given for apprehending them.  Penalty on harboring and concealing.

As all the priests then in being and registered are long since dead, and as these laws are made perpetual, every Popish priest is liable to the law.

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The reader has now before him a tolerably complete view of the Popery laws relative to property by descent or acquisition, to education, to defence, and to the free exercise of religion, which may be necessary to enable him to form some judgment of the spirit of the whole system, and of the subsequent reflections that are to be made upon it.

CHAPTER III.

PART I.