CH. V. Reasons by which the laws are supported, and answers to them.
CHAPTER II.
In order to lay this matter with full satisfaction before the reader, I
shall collect into one point of view, and state as shortly and as
clearly as I am able, the purport of these laws, according to the
objects which they affect, without making at present any further
observation upon them, but just what shall be necessary to render the
drift; and intention of the legislature and the tendency and operation
of the laws the more distinct and evident.
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_.
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