“Be it enacted by the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, the lords spiritual and temporal, and the commoners in this present parliament assembled: That every Popish recusant, convicted, or hereafter to be convicted, which heretofore hath conformed him or herself, and who shall not repair to church and receive the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, he or she shall, for such not receiving, lose and forfeit for the first year, twenty pounds a month; for the second year for such not receiving, forty pounds a month, until he or she shall have received the said sacrament as is aforesaid.
“And if after he or she shall have received the said sacrament as is aforesaid, and after that, shall eftsoons at any time offend in not receiving the said sacrament as is aforesaid by the space of one whole year; that in every such case the person so offending shall for every such offence lose and forfeit three-score pounds of lawful English money.”
Then, to meet the cases of estated and wealthy Catholics who would rather pay the fines and forfeits of twenty, forty and sixty pounds, than attend the Protestant churches, an act was passed to deprive them of two-thirds of their lands, tenements, leases and farms. Here are the words of that act:
“Now, forasmuch as the said penalty of twenty pounds monthly is a greater burden unto men of small living, than unto such as are of better ability, and do refuse to come unto Divine Service as aforesaid, who, rather than they will have two parts of their lands to be seized, will be ready always to pay the said twenty pounds, and yet retain in their own hands the residue of their livings and inheritance—being of great yearly value, which they do for the most part employ to the maintenance and superstition of the Popish religion. Therefore, to the intent that hereafter the penalty for not repairing to Divine service might be inflicted in better proportion upon men of great ability: Be it enacted that the King’s Majesty, his heirs and successors, shall have full power and liberty to refuse the penalty of twenty pounds a month, and thereupon to seize and take to his own use two parts in three of all the lands, tenements, hereditaments, leases and farms, and the same to remain to his own and other uses, interest and purposes hereafter in this act provided, in lieu and in full recompense of the twenty pounds monthly.”
I heard at my father’s fireside, before I was able to read a book, about those laws which I am now copying from an old law book of the seventeenth century. All my readers are victims of these laws. Father Campbell and Father Brown, the priests of my parish to-day, are victims of them. They, and the many other good priests who are tenants on the estate of the United Irishmen newspaper, ought not to blame me much, if I was ever during my life, ready and willing to join any society of Irishmen that were aiming at destroying English rule, and English government in Ireland.
I am not done with John O’Donovan’s letters. I regard them as historical—historical, after we are all dead; so I let you see some more of them.
Dublin, October 24, 1858.
My dear Friend—My second son, Edmond, desires me to send to you his first attempt at painting the armorial bearings of the O’Donovans. He drew them very well in pencil, but he spoiled his drawing in laying on the colors, at which he is not yet sufficiently expert. He has been about a year at drawing under the tuition of Mr. Bradford of the Jesuits’ Seminary, No. 6 Great Denmark street, but I have determined upon withdrawing him from this amusement, as he was spending all his time at drawing cats and dogs, and neglecting his more important duties. He has been put into Homer and Euclid this quarter, which will occupy all his time.