I shall begin with those which relate to the possession and inheritance of landed property in Popish hands. The first operation of those acts upon this object was wholly to change the course of descent by the Common Law, to take away the right of primogeniture, and, in lieu thereof, to substitute and establish a new species of Statute Gavelkind. By this law, on the death of a Papist possessed of an estate in fee simple or in fee tail, the land is to be divided by equal portions between all the male children; and those portions are likewise to be parcelled out, share and share alike, amongst the descendants of each son, and so to proceed in a similar distribution _ad infinitum_. From this regulation it was proposed that some important consequences should follow. First, by taking away the right of primogeniture, perhaps in the very first generation, certainly in the second, the families of Papists, however respectable, and their fortunes, however considerable, would be wholly dissipated, and reduced to obscurity and indigence, without any possibility that they should repair them by their industry or abilities,--being, as we shall see anon, disabled from every species of permanent acquisition. Secondly, by this law the right of testamentation is taken away, which the inferior tenures had always enjoyed, and all tenures from the 27th Hen. VIII; Thirdly, the right of settlement was taken away, that no such persons should, from the moment the act passed, be enabled to advance themselves in fortune or connection by marriage, being disabled from making any disposition, in consideration of such marriage, but what the law had previously regulated: the reputable establishment of the eldest son, as representative of the family, or to settle a jointure, being commonly the great object in such settlements, which was the very power which the law had absolutely taken away.