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.

The operation of this law, however certain, might be too slow.  The present possessors might happen to be long-lived.  The legislature knew the natural impatience of expectants, and upon this principle they gave encouragement to children to anticipate the inheritance.  For it is provided, that the eldest son of any Papist shall, immediately on his conformity, change entirely the nature and properties of his father’s legal estate:  if he before held in fee simple, or, in other words, had the entire and absolute dominion over the land, he is reduced to an estate for his life only, with all the consequences of the natural debility of that estate, by which he becomes disqualified to sell, mortgage, charge, (except for his life,) or in any wise to do any act by which he may raise money for relief in his most urgent necessities.  The eldest son, so conforming, immediately acquires, and in the lifetime of his father, the permanent part, what our law calls the reversion and inheritance of the estate; and he discharges it by retrospect, and annuls every sort of voluntary settlement made by the father ever so long before his conversion.  This he may sell or dispose of immediately, and alienate it from the family forever.

Having thus reduced his father’s estate, he may also bring his father into the Court of Chancery, where he may compel him to swear to the value of his estate, and to allow him out of that possession (which had been before reduced to an estate for life) such an immediate annual allowance as the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper shall judge suitable to his ago and quality.

This indulgence is not confined to the eldest son.  The other children likewise, by conformity, may acquire the same privileges, and in the same manner force from their father an immediate and independent maintenance.  It is very well worth remarking, that the statutes have avoided to fix any determinate age for these emancipating conversions; so that the children, at any age, however incapable of choice in other respects, however immature or even infantile, are yet considered sufficiently capable to disinherit their parents, and