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.
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