Here are a few of the provisions of the famous, or infamous, code: No Papist could acquire or dispose of property; nor could he own a horse of the value of more than L5; and any Protestant offering that sum for a horse he must accept it. He might not practise any learned profession, nor teach a school, nor send his children to school at home or abroad. Every barrister, clerk, and attorney must take a solemn oath not for any purpose to employ persons belonging to that religious faith. The discovery of any weapon rendered its Catholic owner liable to fines, whipping, the pillory, and imprisonment. He 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.