James II
consideration of blood, affinity or marriage," should, in lieu of the lands restorable to their former owners, receive "other lands, tenements, hereditaments of equal value, worth, or purchase." If this clause was not to be a dead letter an extensive confiscation was imperative; and, for such a confiscation the "horrid and unnatural rebellion" which "was lately raised and still is continued in this kingdom and in other your Majesty's dominions" afforded a not unreasonable excuse. In conformity with a long series of English precedents the estates of all persons engaged in the rebellion were pronounced forfeited, and from the lands thus placed at the disposal of the crown commissioners appointed under the Great Seal were instructed to assign reprisals to purchasers. Among the persons who had lately left Ireland, however, there were many of whose guilt no reasonable doubt could be entertained, but whom, according to the ordinary rules of evidence, it would be impossible to convict of any overt act of treason. The government was fully determined that these persons should not go unpunished. When confronted, at the time of the previous settlement, with a similar difficulty, the Protestant party had had recourse to an expedient as effective as it was iniquitous. It had been then enacted that to
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