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 totally to
subtract themselves from their direction and control, either at their
own option, or by the instigation of others. By this law the tenure and
value of a Roman Catholic in his real property is not only rendered
extremely limited and altogether precarious, but the paternal power is
in all such families so enervated that it may well be considered as
entirely taken away; even the principle upon which it is founded seems
to be directly reversed. However, the legislature feared that enough was
not yet done upon this head. The Roman Catholic parent, by selling his
real estate, might in some sort preserve the dominion over his substance
and his family, and thereby evade the operation of these laws, which
intended to take away both. Besides, frequent revolutions and many
conversions had so broken the landed property of Papists in that
kingdom, that it was apprehended that this law could have in a short
time but a few objects upon which it would be capable of operating.

To obviate these inconveniences another law was made, by which the
dominion of children over their parents was extended universally
throughout the whole Popish part of the nation, and every child of every
Popish parent was encouraged to come into what is called a court of
equity, to prefer a bill against his father, and compel him to confess,
upon oath, the quantity and value of his substance, personal as well as
real, of what nature soever, or howsoever it might be employed; upon
which discovery, the court is empowered to seize upon and allocate, for
the immediate maintenance of such child or children, any sum not
exceeding a third of the whole fortune: and as to their future
establishment on the death of the father, no lim