They may bring such bills, _toties quoties_, upon every
improvement of his fortune, without any sort of limitation of time, or
regard to the frequency of such bills, or to the quantity of the
increase of the estate, which shall justify the bringing them. This act
expressly provides that he shall have no respite from the persecution of
his children, but by totally abandoning all thoughts of improvement and
acquisition.
This is going a great way, surely: but the laws in question have gone
much further. Not satisfied with calling upon children to revolt against
their parents, and to possess themselves of their substance, there are
cases where the withdrawing of the child from his father's obedience is
not left to the option of the child himself: for, if the wife of a Roman
Catholic should choose to change her religion, from that moment she
deprives her husband of all management and direction of his children,
and even of all the tender satisfaction which a parent can feel in their
society, and which is the only indemnification he can have for all his
cares and sorrows; and they are to be torn forever, at the earliest age,
from his house and family: for the Lord Chancellor is not only
authorized, but he is strongly required, to take away all his children
from such Popish parent, to appoint where, in what manner, and by whom
they are to be educated; and the father is compelled to pay, not for the
ransom, but for the deprivation of his children, and to furnish such a
sum as the Chancellor thinks proper to appoint for their education to
the age of eighteen years.
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