the common law in any of the courts at Westminster, or in the chancery and the person so suing shall be intitled in the court of chancery to demand all such discoveries as he might do if he were a purchaser for valuable consideration, and to demand a true discovery from all persons of all such incumbrances and titles which any way affect the same, and of all trusts relating thereto; to which bill no plea of demurrer shall be allowed, but the defendant shall sufficiently answer the same at large: and also the person suing for the same may bring an ejectment on his own demise, and give this act and the special matter in evidence; and if it shall appear upon trial of such ejectment, that the estate sued for is the estate of the person so neglecting to register or fraudulently registering, and the defendant shall not make it appear that he took the said oaths, and repeated and subscribed the said declaration in manner aforesaid, or otherwise that he registered his name and the estate so sued for, a verdict shall be given for the lessor of the plaintiff in such ejectment, and judgment shall be thereupon had as is usual upon verdicts in ejectments, and the lessor of the plaintiff shall have costs of suit as is usual when judgment in ejectment is recovered by or given for the lessor of the plaintiff; and by such judgment two third parts of the lands so recovered shall be vested in the king, and the other third part in the person who shall be lessor of the plaintiff in the said ejectment. § 1.

But in case such person so making default or committing any fraud in registering as aforesaid, after such default or fraud committed, and before he be convicted or any ejectment or suit brought for such forfeited lands, shall bona fide for a just and valuable consideration, convey over, grant, lease, or incumber any such lands omitted or fraudulently registered as aforesaid; the person so purchasing or having such grant, lease, or incumbrance, not knowing at the time of such purchase or incumbrance made, the said offender to be a person within the description of this act, shall not be prejudiced hereby, but in such case the offender shall forfeit the value of the inheritance to be distributed and recovered in manner aforesaid. § 3.

Also this shall not extend to compel any person to register or procure to be registered any lands, until he or some other person as trustee for him hath been actually seised, and have notice [182] thereof, or possessed, or in the receipt of the rents or profits of the same for six months. § 4.

And this shall not extend to compel any person to register any lands, whereof he shall be only farmer or tenant at rack rent, or only shall hold by lease, whereupon two-thirds of the full yearly value or more shall be reserved. § 5.

Also this shall not extend to defeat or prejudice any protestant, or other creditor, who bona fide shall have any charge or in

cumbrance upon any real estate hereby directed to be registered; but then in case of such charge or incumbrance, the person so making default or committing any fraud in registering as aforesaid, shall forfeit the value of such charge and incumbrance, one-third to him who shall by virtue of this act sue for and recover the lands so forfeited, subject to such charge and incumbrance, or any part thereof, in proportion to the part so by him recovered, and two-thirds to the king. $6.

2. And by the 3 G. c. 18. No action for any penalty or forfeiture on this or the former act, for wilfully neglecting or refusing to register, or for committing fraud in such registry, shall be commenced after two years after the offence committed. § 2.

And where any manors, demesne or other lands, or entire farms, do lie in more countries than one, the registering thereof, in the county only where the manor house or the house to the said farm or lands do lie, and not in several counties, taking notice thereof in the said registry, that the same do extend to such other county, shall be a sufficient registering of such entire manors, farms, or lands. § 3.

And no sale for a full and valuable consideration of any manors, messuages or lands, or of any interest therein, by any person being reputed owner, or in the possession or receipt of the rents and profits thereof, made to and for any protestant purchaser, and merely and only for the benefit of protestants, shall be avoided or impeached by reason of any of the disabilities or incapacities in the 11 & 12 W. c. 4. or 1 J. c. 4. or other acts contained, and incurred by any person joining in such sale, or [183] by any other person from or through whom the title or any interest therein shall be derived; unless before such sale, the person entitled to take advantage of such disability or incapacity shall have recovered the said manors, messuages, or lands, or give notice of his claim and title to such purchaser: or, before the contract for such sale, shall have claimed the said manors, messuages, or lands, by reason of such disability or incapacity, and have entered such claim in open court at the general sessions of the peace where the same do lie, and bona fide and with due diligence pursued his remedy in a proper course of justice for the recovery thereof § 4.

[But the 31 G. 3. c. 32. § 21. reciting the 1 G. 1. st. 2. c. 55. and 3 G. 1. c. 18. And that by other subsequent acts no manors, lands, or any interest therein, or rent or profit thereout shall pass, alter, or change from any papist or person professing the popish religion by any deed or will, except such deed within six months after the date, and such will within six months after the death of the testator be inrolled in one of the king's courts of record at Westminster, or within the county wherein the manors or lands do lie: enacts, That the said two last recited acts passed in the first and third years of the reign of his said majesty king

George the first, and also such parts of all other acts as require the registry of the names and estates of persons being papists or professing the popish religion, or being reputed to be such, shall be and the same are hereby utterly repealed, abrogated, and made void; and from and after the 24th day of June 1791, no person whatsoever shall be prosecuted, sued, molested, or otherwise affected by reason of not having complied with or conformed to the said hereby repealed acts and parts of acts, or any of them; and all deeds and wills shall from and after the said 24th day of June 1791, be as good and effectual both at law and in equity, and to and for all intents and purposes whatsoever, as if the said hereby repealed acts and parts of acts had never been made. And by the 35 G. 3. c. 99. deeds and wills of papists made since the 29th of September 1717 are good in law if inrolled before the first of September 1795, provided they shall not have been questioned before the first of January 1795; and purchases made are not to be avoided on account of the title deeds not having been inrolled. But the act is not to make good any grant of the right of presentation to any benefice, in trust for a papist.]

XXXIX. Papists to pay double taxes.

By the yearly land-tax acts, papists and reputed papists, being of eighteen years of age, who shall not have taken the oaths of [184] allegiance and supremacy, shall pay double land-tax. [But on the motion of Sir John Mitford, Sol. Gen. who originally brought in the 31 G. 3. c. 32. this clause was omitted in the land-tax act of 1794. Feb. 4. 1794.]

XL. Lands given to superstitious uses.

By the 1 G. st. 2. c. 50. All manors, lands, tenements, rents, tithes, pensions, portions, annuities, and all other hereditaments whatsoever, and all mortgages, securities, sums of money, goods, chattels, and estates, which have been given, granted, devised, bequeathed, or settled upon trust, or to the intent that the same, or the profits or proceed thereof shall be applied to any abbey, priory, convent, nunnery, college of jesuits, seminary, or school for the education of youth in the Romish religion in Great Britain or elsewhere, or to any other popish or superstitious uses, shall be forfeited to the king for the use of the public. § 24. Exp. This act was passed on account of the rebellion in the year 1715, and commissioners were appointed to inquire of the estates, &c. [Nothing in this act shall make it lawful to found, endow, or establish any religious order or society of persons bound by monastic or religious vows, or any school, academy, or college by persons professing the Roman catholic religion within these realms, or the dominions thereunto belonging: and all

uses, trusts, and dispositions of real or personal property which before 24. June 1791, were deemed superstitious or unlawful, shall continue to be so deemed. 31 G. 3. c. 32. § 17.].

XLI. Presentment of papists to the courts spiritual and temporal.

1. Can. 110. If the churchwardens or questmen or assistants shall know any man within their parish or elsewhere, that is a fautor of any usurped or foreign power by the laws of this realm, justly rejected and taken away, or a defender of popish and erroneous doctrines; they shall detect and present the same to the bishop of the diocese or ordinary of the place to be censured and punished according to such ecclesiastical laws as are prescribed in that behalf.

2. Can. 114. Every parson, vicar, or curate shall carefully inform themselves every year, how many popish recusants, men, women, and children, above the age of thirteen years, and how many being popishly given (who though they come to the church, yet do refuse to receive the communion) are inhabitants, or make their abode either as sojourners or common guests in any of their several parishes, and shall set down their true names in writing (if they can learn them) or otherwise such names as for the time they carry, distinguishing the absolute recusants from half recusants; and the same so far as they know or believe, so distinguished and set down under their hands, shall truly present to their ordinaries, under pain of suspension, before the feast of [185] St. John Baptist. And all such ordinaries, chancellors, commissaries, archdeacons, officials, and all other ecclesiastical officers to whom the said presentments shall be exhibited, shall likewise within one month after the receipt of the same, under pain of suspension by the bishop from the execution of their offices for the space of half a year (as often as they shall offend therein), deliver them or cause to be delivered to the bishop respectively; who shall also exhibit them to the archbishop within six weeks; and the archbishop to his majesty within other six weeks after he hath received the said presentments.

3. And by the statute of the 3 J. c. 4. The churchwardens and constables of every town, parish, or chapel, or one of them, or if there be none such, then the chief constable of the hundred where such town, parish, or chapel shall be, as well in places exempt as not exempt, shall once a year present the monthly absence from church of all popish recusants; and shall present the names of their children being of the age of nine years and upwards, abiding with their parents, and as near as they can the age of every of the said children; as all the names of the servants of such recusants; — at the general quarter sessions. § 4.

Which presentments shall be recorded by the clerk of the peace, or town clerk without fee. And in default of such presentment to be made, the churchwardens, constables, or high constables shall forfeit 20s.; and in default of such recording, the clerk of the peace or town clerk shall forfeit 40s.: To be recovered in the king's bench, assizes, or sessions. § 5. 36.

And upon every presentment of such monthly absence, whereupon the party shall after be indicted and convicted (not being for the same absence before presented) the churchwardens, constables, or high constables making such presentment, shall have a reward of 40s. to be levied out of the recusant's goods and estate in such manner and form as the justices shall by their warrant then and there order and appoint. § 6. [But by the 31 G. 3. c. 32. § 18. No person who shall take the oaths and subscribe the declaration therein prescribed shall be prosecuted for being a papist, or not coming to church. Vid. supra X. and XV.]

[186] XLII. Information against papists not restrained to the proper county.

The act of the 21 J. c. 4. for laying informations in the proper county, shall not extend to any information, suit or action grounded upon any law or statute made against popish recusants, or against those that shall not frequent the church and hear divine service; but such offence may be laid or alleged to be in any county at the pleasure of the informer, any thing in the said act to the contrary notwithstanding. § 5.

XLIII. Peers how to be tried in cases of recusancy.

It is generally provided in the several acts, that peers, in cases of recusancy, shall be tried by their peers.

XLIV. Papists conforming.

1. By the 1 J. c. 4. If any recusant shall submit or reform himself, and become obedient to the laws of the church, and repair to church, and continue there during the time of divine service and sermons; he shall be discharged. § 2.

2. By the 3 J. c. 4. Every popish recusant convict, who shall conform himself and repair to church, shall within the first year after he shall so conform himself, and after the said first year shall once in every year following at the least, receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper, in the church of the parish where he shall most usually abide. § 2.

And if there be no such parish church, then in the church